Work better, reignite your creativity

Tweet (Published on page L6 of the Job Market-Working People section of the Philippine Daily Inquirer, April 28, 2013, Sunday)

http://www.jobmarketonline.com/blog/work-better-re-ignite-your-creativity-roel-andag

By Roel Andag

Remember when we were children? With our fertile imagination, an empty cardboard box became anything ranging from a battleship to a spaceship. Our brain’s right hemisphere, believed to be the house of creativity, dominated our waking hours.

The July 19, 2010 Newsweek article The Creativity Crisis explains that a lifetime of creative accomplishments (such as books, patents, inventions, lectures, music compositions, policies, ad campaigns, etc.) are largely based on childhood creativity than on childhood IQ.

Our first forays into formal education were filled with crayons, storytelling and play but as we climbed the ladder of education, especially as we reached high school and college, our right brain became stunted and muted, giving way to our left brain, which is the domain of logic. Reason overpowered our then uninhibited raw imagination. The artist Pablo Picasso is believed to have said “Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once we grow up.”

Said Newsweek article, which observed that each American generation becomes more and more intelligent but less and less creative, explains that education by memorization and limited time for creative undertaking are among the major culprits for the creativity crisis in the US. Surprise! Isn’t Philippine education system copy-pasted from the American model?

This unbalanced academic conditioning is carried into the world of work that, ironically, values creativity as a prized quality in a worker. In 2010, IBM’s Global CEO Study identified creativity as the topmost leadership competency. In February 2013, the Department of Labor and Employment publicized its list of top ten highest paying jobs in the Philippines. Art directors were on top of the list.

Creativity at work is important. Some people, however, readily call themselves completely uncreative at worst or lackluster at best. What is creativity, really? Is it about painting, singing, sewing dresses, designing buildings, conceptualizing ad campaigns, or whipping up heady recipes? If these are the only domains of creativity, then a lot of people will join me as outcast. My drawings are limited to my doodles during boring meetings.

Creativity is the ability to produce something that is at the same time original and socially valued for its usefulness and/or beauty. The ultimate goal is not to defeat the left brain but to tap into right brain-left brain synergy – to exponentially expand potential. Face transplants, smart phones, space exploration, seawater desalination, garbage recycling are just some results of right brain-left brain coupling. The list of tangible and intangible examples of creative products is endless. Life continues to get better because of humankind’s creativity. Creativity doesn’t need to be grand. Creativity in the littlest things can lead to breakthrough ideas and significant innovations. Whatever your job, wherever you are located in the organization, management positively views creativity at work.

“Kill me first before you kill my creativity” is one of my work credos. I flourish in training, a career that demands creativity – to produce engaging modules and presentations, to capture the attention of the audience, to impart the necessary lessons, and to stimulate action. Add to this the dynamism of being an independent consultant. I serve multiple clients at the same time, each with a different requirement and set up. I'm pumped to be creative on the fly. I also have to be creative with my marketing and sales techniques.

We are inherently creative, remember we once were children. But we have rusted but we can reawaken our creativity from prolonged brain freeze. How?

1.      Use Tony Buzan’s mindmapping and Edward de Bono’s Six Thinking Hats techniques for ideation, planning and decision making. These techniques stimulate the combined use of the left and right sides of the brain. Both techniques can be used by an individual or a team.

2.      Make full use of all your senses. For example, when writing an article, visualize how your intended audience will likely react to the words that you use. Make images pop in your mind.

3.      Find inspiration everywhere. Be curious. Take risks. Translate inspirations into creations, not necessarily masterpieces but things that make you happy and are, hopefully, useful. Take up a creative hobby that is convenient for you. Mobile phone photography, for example.

4.      Simplify creativity, do not romanticize it. Don’t wait for your Muse to descend. That often results in procrastination. Don’t over intellectualize either. Find your flow. Do something!

5.      Don’t subscribe to the self fulfilling stereotype that creative people are moody. It’s joyless working with a creative person who is perpetually cranky. Be EQ-adept.

6.      Don’t underestimate yourself. Don’t think that creativity is exclusively for certain types of people except you. Believe that you are creative, expect yourself to be creative. Think of ways how you can become productively creative in your job.

7.      Ideas occur to us unscheduled. Record in real time your ideas as notes in your mobile phone or tablet for later retrieval.

8.      Creativity requires divergent thinking (generating many unique ideas) and then convergent thinking (combining those ideas into the best result). Suspend the habits of self judgment, criticism and the obsession for correctness. At the initial stage of ideation, think up crazy ideas then bring them to street-level sensibility later. Don’t be afraid to offer your ideas. Your idea that you think is stupid may be considered brilliant by someone else.

9.      Defend your brainchildren but never fixate on them. Be open to scrutiny, suggestion and rejection. Take feedback and critiquing as polishing agents. Be ready to dismantle, repurpose and reassemble.

10.  Ask for help. Ask your creative friends for ideas, cultivate friendships with a diversity of people and create a brain trust among them. Ask online sources.

11.  Attend creative thinking trainings.

12.  Practice, practice, practice. Be persistent. Persevere. Take time but be conscious of deadlines.

Leadership and the EQ factor

Tweet Type of Training: Emotional Intelligence: EQ and the Workplace
Client: DMCI Homes
Date: April 26, 2013
Venue: DMCI Homes Training Room, Makati City

Working well: the health advantage

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(Published on page J6 of the Job Market-Working People section of the Philippine Daily Inquirer, April 7, 2013, Sunday, World Health Day)

http://www.jobmarketonline.com/blog/working-well-health-advantage-roel-andag

By Roel Andag

Contributor

From time to time, employees eagerly examine both government- and company-issued calendars to take note of holidays and long weekends. They look forward to these breaks, which they generally use to de-stress. Stress is oftentimes cited as a major cause for quitting a job. Stress is attributable to the state of our health. There are six interrelated and mutually reinforcing health dimensions that companies should strive to address.

Dimension 1: Physical health – level of physical fitness and absence of disease.

Ideas for the company: Provide health coverage package that includes annual comprehensive physical exam, vaccinations and services of a company physician and nurse. Note that Art. 134 of the Labor Code orders all companies employing more than 200 workers to put up a company clinic that will provide free health services, including reproductive health services. Establish a gym in the office or form a tie up with a nearby gym, with defined times of use. Aside from the lunchbreak, enforce two 15-minute renewal breaks, one at mid-morning and another at mid-afternoon. At Chevron, where I once was consultant, all their computers will automatically lock during designated breaks. Employees who want to do some stretching gather in spaces that are wide enough for them to use simple exercise equipment such as dumbbells and stretchable ropes. Their computers will only unfreeze once the break ends. Call centers have nap rooms while construction companies have barracks for their engineers in project sites. Implement health campaigns that promote healthy lifestyle (aside from sportsfests, some companies have Biggest Loser contests and no-smoking policy), work-life balance and safety consciousness, and shed light on occupational hazards and unhealthy and life-shortening vices.

Dimension 2: Mental health – the ability to learn and grow intellectually.

Ideas for the company: Create a learning organization. Set company and department goals that stimulate employees’ creative and analytical thinking. Make planning sessions collaborative, use strategies that tap into both the right and left hemispheres of the brain. Implement an equal opportunity training and development program that taps internal and external resource persons who can help enhance employees’ knowledge, attitudes, skills and habits. Sponsor or subsidize employees’ graduate studies or at the very least allow them to pursue self-financed Masters degrees or special interest courses. Acknowledge, celebrate and reward innovative ideas. One good example is Google’s practice of allowing its employees to use 20 percent of their official time to pursue their personal passions.

Dimension 3: Emotional health – ability to control emotions such that the person is comfortable expressing them in the appropriate manner.

Ideas for the company: Provide regular stress debriefings especially for those in high-stress jobs. When I was still working at the United Nations I came to know that the Department of Social Welfare and Development makes said service available to its caseworkers. Provide counselling to address personal problems because emotions emanating from such problems cannot be prevented from seeping into one’s work. Create support groups that will serve as safe environments for unloading and making sense of emotional baggage. Install a counselling and help hotline that guarantees anonymity and confidentiality. Conduct EQ training. Will it be too radical for a company to create a ‘Taksyapo’ area in its premises? With soundproof walling, of course.

Dimension 4: Social health – the ability to interact well with people and to have satisfying interpersonal relationships.

Ideas for the company: In addition to formal teamwork and collaborations, institute socialization activities that bring together employees in a fun context without job pressures. This can be in the form of parties, outings, family days and creation of special interest and skills clubs such as a choir, Toastmasters, mountain climbers, pet owners and the like. The quality time and interaction that takes place in these events will promote better communication, cross fertilization of ideas, interdependence, and healthy respect for diversity. Also, it has been proven that having a true friend in the workplace is one reason why people stay longer in a company.

Dimension 5: Spiritual health – belief in a unifying force, with faith as the core concept. It also means feeling connected with other human beings and believing that one’s life has purpose and meaning.

Ideas for the company: Some companies hold first-Friday masses and conduct regular retreats and yoga and meditation sessions. Set up an interfaith prayer room. Have nature treks. Create an authentic corporate social responsibility program. Encourage employees to render volunteer work in NGOs and to get involved in their communities. Provide life coaching services and appreciate employees’ contributions to the achievement of company goals.

Dimension 6: Environmental health – a healthy, supportive setting in which to function.

Ideas for the company: When implemented, many of the tips given in the five health dimensions above will already help greatly in ensuring environmental health, especially in the psychological sense. In addition, the company’s commitment to health and wellness needs to be institutionalized in its vision, mission and goals, human resource policies and featured in corporate communications. Make health consciousness part of company culture. Role modeling plays an important part. For example, bosses should live healthy lives and not begrudge employees who in good faith and good timing avail of their vacation leave, of the nap room and taksyapo room. For the physical aspect, the following ideas may be considered: invest in ergonomic equipment and tools, basically chairs and keyboards that are body-friendly; and rearrange office layout such that it conforms to the principles of 5S and promotes face-to-face communication. Serve healthy food during meetings and compel the cafeteria to offer healthy food choices. Provide a directory of nearby health and wellness establishments related to the first five dimensions of health, including places of worship and open, green spaces.

Wellness is the degree to which these six dimensions are in balance. Therefore, a company’s health and wellness program needs to promote equal-opportunity participation where there is no stereotyping that certain persons are good at intellectual pursuits and poor at physical activities. Notice also that the tips and ideas address all levels of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs.

Health is a human right and a shared employer-employee responsibility. The worker needs to keep himself healthy by optimizing the company’s health and wellness program and by living a healthy life inside and outside of the office. This way, workdays will be as enjoyable and as rejuvenating as holidays and long weekends.

True, it will be expensive to institute all of the above but long-term gains will offset the investment. Think reduced downtime and turnover, and increased morale, motivation, employee engagement, productivity, creativity and longevity. Think ‘employer of choice’ branding because of the leverage derived from a comprehensive health and wellness program. Robust employees handle stress better. Workers who are well work well.

(Roel Andag is an independent trainer and HR consultant. He handles the Management Development Program of DMCI Homes. Visit his blog: www.traineroncall.blogspot.com.)

New Year’s resolution for working people: Career happiness in 2008

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(Published in the Job Market-Working People section of the Philippine Daily Inquirer, December 30, 2007, Sunday)

By Roel Andag

Contributor

TRY HAPPINESS AT WORK as New Year’s resolution.

Unhappiness at work is damaging to both the worker and the business. At the individual level, such unhappiness can result in absenteeism and other forms of inefficiency. At the group level, it can lead to crises that can warrant drastic measures and attract government intervention.

There are various causes of unhappiness at work: job mismatch, obnoxious boss, irritating officemates, lousy work conditions, misunderstandings due to miscommunication, low salaries, delayed salaries, chronic fatigue and so on.

We spend a huge amount of time at work that, inevitably, it has spillover effects on other aspects of our life. Left unchecked, unhappiness at work can adversely affect our relationships with our family and friends. It can also damage our health. It can paralyze us to a point where we are no longer able to function properly, let alone optimally.

Martin Seligman, one of the founders of positive psychology (psychology that focuses on wellness rather than on illness), explains that happiness has three components: positive emotions, complete engagement, and purpose in life. Based on results of global happiness surveys, this school of thought believes that happiness is not dependent on material trappings. Let us apply Seligman’s framework to experience happiness at work starting in 2008.

Positive emotions
What are negative emotions? The major ones are complaining, criticizing, competing and comparing. One is inviting unhappiness if he is engaged in these destructive emotions. In fact, in the case of comparisons, what makes people feel miserable is the Grass is Greener syndrome – the unbearable thought that others are better off than them.

What are positive emotions then? Oppositely, they are commending, affirming, cooperating and supporting. A person of courage and maturity accentuates the positive, demonstrates appreciation, works with competitors and expresses gratitude.

The mind is infinitely powerful. Napoleon Hill’s book “Think and Grow Rich” is an authoritative reference on positive thinking. As Hill says ‘thoughts are things.’ Happiness is first a creation of the mind that the body consequently articulates. Stop a negative thought as soon as it occurs. Do not allow negativism to dominate your work life.

Creating and maintaining positive disposition is vital to productivity. A cheerful worker radiates an energy that uplifts others. Tasks become lighter as well.

Complete engagement

Have you tried focusing on your job such that you got completely absorbed in it? This state of being is otherwise called peak performance. It demands presence or ‘being there,’ meaning that your mind, body and heart are synchronically attuned to the activity.

Take for example the mundane act of eating. Our taste buds become more receptive when we focus on the food. We are able to authentically appreciate the meal and stay fuller longer. Those who read, talk, watch television or surf the internet while eating diminish the health benefits of the food.

It would be to our advantage if we are able to rally all our senses to the demands of the occasion. Barring distractions, work becomes easier and enjoyable.

What we focus on is equally important. Lest we expend our energies on insignificant concerns, let us revisit Stephen Covey’s “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People” where the author distinguishes ‘urgent’ from ‘important’. According to Covey, something that is urgent demands immediate attention and is oftentimes irrelevant to the achievement of real goals. On the other hand, something that is important requires discernment and contributes to the achievement of vision, mission and goals. In other words, urgent matters force as to be reactive while important things require us to be proactive.

To sustain peak performance, and therefore happiness at work, stay committed to the things that are important and veer away from those that are merely urgent.

Purpose in life

What is your mission in life? Do you have a personal mission statement? A mission statement is your compass as you march along your career path. Covey calls it a Personal Constitution. A mission statement is life-defining.

Having a personal mission statement illustrates self leadership. With it you are able to discern the relevance of your work to your life. It is not enough though to have a personal mission statement. It is likewise important is to spell out how the mission is to be fulfilled.

Is your mission aligned with that of the company? Many would dismiss this as human resource hokum. One’s skills set may be what the company is looking for but dissonance in missions will ultimately result in job dissatisfaction. A proactive professional examines his personal mission and the corporate mission to determine their complementation. Of course, while changing a corporate mission is a major effort, a personal mission should be easy to modify anytime to fit emerging developments. Flexibility is a mark of a happy person.

What does a personal mission have to do with happiness? A personal mission serves as the anchor that will keep you steady in a sea of uncertainties. It becomes a source of stability. It gives you meaning.

Starting in 2008

The advent of a new year provides us with opportunities of renewal and fills us with optimism. Resolving to be happy at work is part of career stewardship. A happy person is a productive person. Here are supplementary reminders:

1. Don’t be unfair to yourself by insisting that you’ll be happy only when you’re done toiling. Be happy right at the moment, right where you are. Be grateful for even the littlest graces, unleash your sense of humor and laugh heartily.

2. Recognize when you are happy. Avoid the tendency of magnifying and verbalizing only unhappiness. Identify the causes of your unhappiness and work on ways how to overcome them. Prioritize unhappiness factors that are within your control. Seek the support of family, friends and colleagues.

3. Acknowledge that you cannot be happy all the time. But with determination, you can be happy most of the time. To avoid disappointment, do not romanticize reality or set impossible standards.

4. Initiate lifestyle changes that will support happiness at work and in life in general. Strive for work-life balance.

5. Have a spring in your step as you wake up to start each workday. It said that as a race Filipinos are predisposed to be happy. Use that to your advantage.

HAPPY New Year!