Emerging Issues Debate

Making Creative Ideas Happen

by Mary Lynn Manns, author and Associate Professor at UNC Asheville

While reading Carol Strohecker’s article, The Creative Urge, in the IEI August newsletter, I was particularly struck by her comment about the need for educators to foster creativity by cultivating “new ways of engaging the minds of those who will shape the future.”  Carol recognizes that it is difficult to determine what today’s students need to learn in a world where the paces of technology, information and global matters are changing at such a rapid rate.

Change.  The word appears everywhere, from the most recent presidential campaign to the present day newsstand.  Are we nurturing the kind of creativity that our future leaders need to solve the problems and address the opportunities that are appearing at such a rapid rate?  And, just as importantly, are we teaching them how to make their creative ideas a reality?  Harvard Business School professor, Theodore Levitt pointed out that, “Creativity is thinking up new things. Innovation is doing new things.”

Creative individuals will cry out to be leaders of change.  Yet, they may find it difficult to take their ideas to the next step—to do something—to innovate.  Creative thinking is not necessarily followed by creative action unless the individual has some sense of how to take action.  We need to give students the tools they need to become leaders of change.

In the years since I co-authored the book, Fearless Change:  Patterns for Introducing New Ideas, the readers who share their stories continue to demonstrate that leading change requires much more than intellect.  Leaders can fall short with their often impressive ability to convey information.  Too frequently, they don’t take the next step towards persuading people.  The act of communicating information creates an intellectual connection, but this analytical activity does little to generate the feelings that can truly influence people, build relationships, spread passion and energize a community.  This requires an emotional connection to the people you are trying to convince.

John Kotter, widely-cited author on the topic of leading change, observes, “… changing organizations depends overwhelmingly on changing the emotions of the individual members… Thinking and feeling are essential …. but the heart of change is in the emotions.” 

Just look at the work of Gandhi who began his movement by expounding general facts but quickly learned that matching problems to what people truly care about is much more effective for inciting outrage.  Think about how much quicker you respond to an idea that is delivered with a personal touch rather than a flyer or email. Recall how much more you enjoy, and remember, a personal story than a collection of bullet points in a presentation.  Watch the creative sparks in a room filled with people dedicated to a common cause or the calming hope among people gathered to discuss solutions for their familiar struggles.  These are among the many examples of Maya Angelou’s wise words: “People will forget what you said, forget what you did, but not forget how you made them feel.” 

Perhaps the answer to “new ways of engaging the mind” can be found in teaching students to engage the emotions rather than merely the intellects of the people they are trying to lead.  To do this, our students need to be rewarded not only for their cognition skills, but also for their ability to build relationships and successful teams.  They need to understand and respect how humans act on what they feel as well as what they know. 

We need to encourage them to resolve conflicts in person, as well as to expand their online communication to face-to-face conversations. They need to see the advantages in moving beyond a rant in an online thread to a room filled with people who are following the complete fabric of a conversation and developing a plan of action.  Students need to be given opportunities to become involved with projects that make them attentive to the complexity in human feelings. 

Since this is likely to be more challenging than the comfort of facts in a textbook, we must provide environments in which students are unafraid to fail but rather are encouraged to thoroughly reflect on what they learned about other people and, just as importantly, about themselves.

We do a good job of teaching students how to find, analyze and communicate information.  But they also need to understand how to inspire others to take up a cause.  Even in a rapidly changing and technology-filled world, the power of emotional connections has never changed.  Let’s consider how our future leaders can learn about this power in order to gain the skills and confidence they need to get their feet on the street -- to work with and influence like-minded, and not so like-minded, individuals -- to truly make their creative ideas happen!

Mary Lynn Manns is the co-author of the book Fearless Change: Patterns for Introducing New Ideas, a collection of successful strategies adopted from leaders of change.  She teaches change leadership classes at UNC Asheville and believes in the power of students to change the world. Mary Lynn can be reached at manns@unca.edu

Do you have ideas on creativity, and how it can be developed or taught? Email us at institute@ncsu.edu and be a part of this Emerging Debate.