“Wherever there is a point of interaction, there is potential for innovation.” -Bruce Nussbaum via Creative Intelligence
We live in a time of information and interaction overload, leading to a plethora of engagement access and excess. Learning to traverse, as well as enhance these interaction and engagement opportunities will be the difference in our ability to communicate and collaborate at deeper and greater levels in the future.
But first, it begins with understanding the shifts that are occurring not only in society, but in our approach and mindset to these shifts. These understandings will serve us better in creating opportunities to innovate our organizational environments and cultures in a more creative and dynamic manner.
For example, we shifted from a mindset of…
- Hoarding to sharing information.
- Passive consumption to active creation.
- From silo environments to collaborative cultures.
- Instruction implementation to creative problem-solving.
As society has shifted, so have those expectations around how we view engagement as individuals and as organizations. As Bruce Nussbaum shares in Creative Intelligence, “These new interactions and connections provide people with a deep sense of meaning.” From our schools to businesses, people are looking to engage in deeper, more meaningful ways. People are moving from disconnected, detached collisions and contacts too much more connected, relational influences and networks. Inability of schools or businesses to embrace these changes and shifts effectively and proactively are often the first signs of the unraveling of their relevance.
In his work Creative Intelligence, Nussbaum adds that “More and more people are rejecting the passive consumption of the past…” For which he adds, “We want to be actively engaged, and we want to shape that engagement.”
Which is a shift that we have to be very aware of as we look to build the creative and innovative capacity of our organizational environments and cultures. Individuals are not just looking to be part of that environment and culture, they want to have a voice in shaping and molding it. Whether 5 or 55, people are no longer willing to remain passively on the sidelines, they want to be active participants in the process, whether that process is the learning they focus on or the products they are buying.
Seeing the importance of voice, will ultimately lead to organizations with individuals that have higher levels of engagement, of commitment, leading to greater organizational relevance and significance.
In the end, awareness of these mental mindshits allow us to create more engaged, more creative, more innovative, and more productive individuals and organizations.
“It’s time we recognized that today what we often value most are these special, active engagements.” -Bruce Nussbaum via Creative Intelligence
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