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by Jeannine McGlade and Andrew Pek

Imagine yourself drawing inspiration and fresh insights from the world around you everyday, surrounded by a workspace that encourages your creativity and inspires you. Imag-ine your team and colleagues valuing play as a way to spur serious business results and

make the leap into the unknown with fresh, new ideas that change the way business isdone. Picture an organization that learns from both successes and so-called failures, advo-cates celebration as the rule, not the exception, and reaps the benefits of a stimulated, pas-sionate workforce!

Successful leaders around the world know that this scene is not only possible but is the ob-vious outcome from thinking, living, and breathing five key practices of innovative lead-ers: scouting, cultivating, playing, venturing, and harvesting.

These practices make up what we call the creative genius. This creative genius is thatpart of each and every one of us who is stimulated—full of excitement, energy, andideas. It is the part of each of us that has a possibilities-oriented, can-do attitude and wayof being that communicates to the world around us that anything is possible. When weadopt this attitude, we consistently explore ourselves and our environment, bring creativeenergy into our work, meetings, and interactions with others, work more with imagina-tion than with knowledge, and pursue big, bold ideas. As leaders, not only do we needto exemplify these practices on a daily basis, we need to encourage those around us todo the same. The result is a stimulated team that knows how to get and keep inspired,come up with fresh ideas, and maintain the creative energy that sustains personal and or-ganizational growth.

H E S S E L B E I N & C O M P A N Y

SPARK YOURCREATIVEGENIUS

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Scouting

To attract what we call spark moments—those momentswhere you get the seedling of an idea, feel excitementand passion for the possibilities, and propel your cre-ative energy—we need to get out and about and shakethings up. As leaders, we know how easy it is for us, andthose around us, to run on autopilot. Without the guid-ance of our creative genius, this is really the only op-tion we have. How often have you heard of unfortunatestories—tragedies or difficult times—that have sparkedgreat creative endeavors? Well, we don’t have to wait foran unfortunate circumstance to give us the spark that weneed to take hold of the wheel and steer ourselves inthe direction of our dreams. Implementing scoutingpractices will get you there while enlivening your cre-ative spirit.

Scouting forms the backbone of our creative anatomy.What is important about this practice is keeping youreyes wide open and immersing yourself in the experienceat hand. Scouting is the time for total “ob-sorp-vation.”That is, observing, being absorbed in, and recording whatit is that you see, hear, and read—not analyzing whatthose observations may mean. It’s all about taking in dif-ferent stimuli and seeing what sparks happen for you.Here are some quick ideas to start scouting today:

• Get out and about—instead of working at yourdesk this morning, go to a local coffee shop andpeople-watch for a bit. See what sparks occur andhow they might help you come up with new ideasfor something you are doing at work.

• Begin journaling—record what you see, hear, read.Do this for a month and pick a time to reviewyour observations—any insights?

• Pick up a new magazine—one you normally don’tread. See what you can learn.

Cultivating

Pause for a moment and think about the places orspaces that you like to frequent—how do you feel whenyou are there? What does it do for your energy and cre-ativity? How’s the vibe? What is it about that space orplace that makes you feel the way you do? Creative ge-nius needs fertile conditions in which to thrive. Culti-vating the right spaces and places will put you in theposition of attracting spark moments.

It can be simple, really. You don’t need a huge budget torearrange your office furniture or buy a new inspira-tional picture. This practice of cultivating is about cre-ating, developing, and experiencing spaces and placesthat will help you be in a creative state of mind. Even alittle music can provide the right “state of mind” foryou as you go about certain tasks. So, why wait? Hereare some things you can do right now to get yourselfinto the right space:

• Clear your desk—just keep the current item youare working on, nothing more. The aesthetics ofclean, streamlined surfaces will help give you the“space” you need to think creatively.

• Grab some paper and colored markers and writedown three of your favorite quotes. Post themwhere you can easily see them.

Scouting forms the

backbone of our creative

anatomy.

Picture an organization

that reaps the benefits of a

stimulated, passionate

workforce.

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• Visit a new environment—a museum, café,library—and see how it makes you feel. Howmight you recreate this feeling in your workplace?

Playing

The results of applying your creativity to generate freshideas can be very serious. However, the process you usedoesn’t need to be. You can still get results (and we’dargue, better results) if you inject play into the processto spark creative ideas and action. In organizations, fewwould consider that play is a legitimate way to spurbusiness results—but we see play as serious business.Creative genius needs a steady diet of fun, expression,and an imaginative spirit in order to flourish. Carl Jung,a Swiss psychiatrist, said, “The creation of somethingnew is not accomplished by the intellect but by the playinstinct acting from inner necessity.” This play instinctis something we can all tap into. Of course our creativ-ity naturally flourished in childhood, but who says evenwith our grown-up world, grown-up responsibilities,and grown-up rules, we can’t have a little fun? To add alittle more fun, try these ideas:

• Watch a funny movie tonight when you gethome—or better yet, bring one in to watch withyour team. Instead of reviewing your monthly re-ports, view the movie. See what happens.

• Call the friend who always makes you laugh. Orthink about the fun times you have (or had) withthat person!

• Think of at least 100 uses for the chair you are sit-ting on right now. Go ahead, try it—the sillier thebetter!

Venturing

Leaders who embody the venturing practice are risk tak-ers, courageous and adventuresome. These leaders ap-preciate that during our creative journey there may bereal or perceived risks and that making the leap with acreative idea takes courage and faith in ourselves and apassion for our pursuits.

In the business world, we expect things to be clear,exact, and predictable. In fact, we are valued and re-warded for making things happen, for being consistentand effective. Now, we’re not suggesting that these aren’tgood things, but what we are saying is that these thingsalone will not make a leader innovative! When wechoose a path of creativity, a journey that expresses ourcreative genius, we choose a path that is unknown, ab-stract, and possibilities-oriented. Venturing is excitingand scary at the same time, for it is with this practicethat you commit to moving forward with your creativeideas and work wholeheartedly to make those ideas real.So put on your venturing cap, take a deep breath, andmake the leap right now:

• Do something today to advance an idea or sparkthat you have. Call a friend and talk about theidea, sketch out a plan, visualize how you’ll feeland what will be different after having imple-mented the idea.

• Become an advocate for others’ ideas—be support-ive and encouraging. Seek out others’ ideas andhelp them make the leap.

• Trust your instincts—don’t worry about exactnessor the “right” answer. Next time you find yourselfsearching for certainty, take a leap of faith andtrust your gut!

Play is serious business.

Creative genius needs a

steady diet of fun,

expression, and an

imaginative spirit.

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Harvesting

Imagine an organization that thrives by harvesting thefruits of its efforts—an organization with passionateleaders, teams who can freely express their creativity,and organizations that celebrate. What would it be liketo work there? What would it feel like to lead a teamthere? In our parlance, harvesting is the consequence ofall our creative activities (scouting, cultivating, playing,and venturing) that advances spark moments into realresults. The harvest is the sum total of all of our effortsand the celebration of those results. It is transformingyour sparks and ideas into real and tangible outcomesthat in turn continue to stimulate additional sparks andideas—a continuous loop of creativity!

Harvesting ensures that this continuous loop of creativ-ity will persist. To increase the likelihood of boostingyour creative output, three rituals—customs or condi-tions, if you will—need to be present. The first is pas-sion—making your ideas real through harvesting shouldbe enjoyable and pursuing those ideas for which youhave passion is essential to the production of stimulat-ing outcomes. Passion got you this far in your creativejourney, and it will continue to be an important ele-ment of harvesting. True passion expressed through theideas you bring to life is your creative genius actualized.

The second condition is creative harmony. Our abilityto stimulate creative outcomes is largely dependent onour working collectively as a way to affirm the cooper-ation and success of our mutually aligned ventures. Inother words, while we each crave to express ourselvesindividually, often we need to rely on others to help ful-fill our (and their) creative impulses and aspirations.Creative harvesting is a contemporary form of foraging

in which the people of any given community or organi-zation work together to share in the bounty of our col-lective creative genius.

Last but certainly not least is celebration. Organizationsthat lack celebration rituals are easy to detect. They havelittle, if any, creative spunk. Often when celebrationsdo exist, they exist for the successes achieved, not nec-essarily for those things that are considered failures. Dis-appointments, setbacks, and losses are a part of life—atone time or another we’ve all felt the pang of somethingthat didn’t quite work out the way we had hoped. Yetwithout some form of celebration we may not be able tomove on and learn from the experience as well as soothethe pain of that failure.

• Think about the last idea that you truly had pas-sion about. What was the idea? What was it aboutthe idea that sparked your passion? How mightyou apply what you learned or know about thatfeeling of passion and bring it to the current ideasyou are harvesting?

• Recruit members of your creative genius boardtoday. You need people on whom you can de-pend to offer advice or know-how, give you feed-back, and help support you as you bring yourideas to life.

• Initiate a celebration committee at work to comeup with intentional ways to institutionalize cele-

What can you do right

now to bring your ideas to

life?

Start small.

Organizations that lack

celebration rituals are easy

to detect.

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brations. And remember you need to celebrateboth successes and failures.

As you think about how to incorporate these practices,we encourage you to start small. Select one—there’s no

right or wrong, there’s no start or end point—go whereyou feel energy. The most important thing is to getstarted. Once you do, you’ll be on your way to attract-ing spark moments, awakening your creative genius, andfinding the passion in what you do each and every day!

Jeannine McGlade is an author, entrepreneur,

and consultant in the field of creativity, innova-

tion, and organization change. She is a co-creator

and developer of növes inc.—a New York–based

consulting and education firm that helps compa-

nies and leaders stimulate breakthrough ideas in

order to grow more rapidly and effectively. She has

more than 17 years of experience in the areas of

leadership, communication, organization develop-

ment, and innovation. She has consulted to and

trained many leaders across a variety of organiza-

tions such as Alpharma, Biovail, Kraft Foods, In-

novatix, Pfizer, Sony Electronics, and Wyeth.

Andrew Pek is an author, entrepreneur, and con-

sultant in the field of creativity, innovation, and

organization change. He is a co-creator and de-

veloper of növes inc. He has held various executive

and line positions for such companies as Pfizer,

Accenture, Mercer Delta Consulting, Aetna

Healthcare, and British Petroleum. With

McGlade, Pek has coauthored two books on the

subject of innovation: “Recipes for Growth and

Innovation” and “Stimulated! Habits to Spark

Your Creative Genius at Work.”

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