The Bias Against Creativity: Why People Desire But Reject Creative Ideas

But hey, it's not that decision makers are biased against creativity - honestly, they try to help creativity; shooting down innovative ideas helps weed out the weak ones, right?  After all, any good idea worth it's salt will be intuitive and have a demonstrable track record, right?

Lord, help us, we know not what we do; we're just feeling our way blindly towards the light...


The Bias Against Creativity: Why People Desire But Reject Creative Ideas

Abstract

People often reject creative ideas even when espousing creativity as a desired goal. To explain this paradox, we propose that people can hold a bias against creativity that is not necessarily overt, and which is activated when people experience a motivation to reduce uncertainty. In two studies, we measure and manipulate uncertainty using different methods including: discrete uncertainty feelings, and an uncertainty reduction prime. The results of both studies demonstrated a negative bias toward creativity (relative to practicality) when participants experienced uncertainty. Furthermore, the bias against creativity interfered with participants’ ability to recognize a creative idea. These results reveal a concealed barrier that creative actors may face as they attempt to gain acceptance for their novel ideas.

Do people desire creative ideas? Most scholars would propose that the answer to this question is an obvious ‘yes,’ asserting that creativity is the engine of scientific discovery (Hennessey & Amabile, 2010), the fundamental driving force of positive change (George, 2007), and associated with intelligence, wisdom, and moral goodness (Niu & Sternberg, 2006; Sternberg, 1985). However, while people strongly endorse this positive view of creativity, scholars have long been puzzled by the finding that organizations, scientific institutions, and decisions-makers routinely reject creative ideas even when espousing creativity as an important goal (Ford & Gioia, 2000; Staw, 1995; West, 2002). Similarly, research documents that teachers dislike students who exhibit curiosity and creative thinking even though teachers acknowledge creativity as an important educational goal (Dawson, D'Andrea, Affinito, & Westby, 1999; Runco, 1989; Westby & Dawson, 1995). We offer a new perspective to explain this puzzle. Just as people have deeply-rooted biases against people of a certain age, race or gender that are not necessarily overt (Greenwald & Banaji, 1995), so too can people hold deeply-rooted negative views of creativity that are not openly acknowledged. Revealing the existence and nature of a bias against creativity can help explain why people might reject creative ideas and stifle
scientific advancement, even in the face of strong intentions to the contrary.

Creative ideas are both novel and useful (Hennessey & Amabile, 2010), and novelty is the key distinguishing feature of creativity beyond ideas that are merely well done (Amabile, Barsade, Mueller, & Staw, 2005). Yet the requirement that creative ideas contain novelty can also promote a tension in evaluators’ minds when they judge whether to pursue an idea. Indeed, evaluators have a hard time viewing novelty and practicality as attributes that go hand in hand, often viewing them as inversely related (Rietzschel, Nijstad, & Stroebe, 2009). There are several reasons why. Practical ideas are generally valued (Sanchez-Burks, 2005). However, the more novel an idea, the more uncertainty can exist about whether an idea is practical, useful, error free, and reliably reproduced (Amabile, 1996). When endorsing a novel idea, people can experience failure (Simonton, 1984), perceptions of risk (Rubenson & Runco, 1995), social rejection when expressing the idea to others (Moscovici, 1976; Nemeth, 1986), and uncertainty about when their idea will reach completion (Metcalfe, 1986).

Uncertainty is an aversive state (Fiske & Taylor, 1991; Heider, 1958) which people feel a strong motivation to diminish and avoid (Whitson & Galinsky, 2008). Hence, people can also have negative associations with novelty; an attribute at the heart of what makes ideas creative in the first place.

Although the positive associations with creativity are typically the focus of attention both among scholars and practitioners, the negative associations may also be activated when people evaluate a creative idea. For example, research on associative thinking suggests that strong uncertainty feelings may make the negative attributes of creativity, particularly those related to uncertainty, more salient (Bower, 1981).

This evaluative process is not necessarily overt, making the bias against creativity potentially insidious. In fact, there is often strong normative pressure to endorse creative ideas (Flynn & Chatman, 2001) and a strong social desirability bias against expressing any view of creativity as negative (Runco, 2010). This resulting state is similar to that identified in research on racial bias; a conflict between an explicit preference towards creativity and unacknowledged negative associations with creativity (Gaertner & Dovidio, 1986). In other words, uncovering a bias against creative ideas requires a method more subtle than simply asking directly. Therefore, we decided to employ a measure that assesses explicit attitudes in addition to implicit attitudes which are less susceptible to self-presentation biases and normative pressures (Greenwald, Poehlman, Uhlmann, & Banaji, 2009). In two studies, we test whether uncertainty measured and manipulated in two different ways, promotes a greater bias against creativity relative to practicality. In the second study we investigate whether this bias deters peoples’ ability to recognize creative ideas.

EXPERIMENT 1

Method
Participants and Design

Participants (N = 73) were randomly assigned to one of two conditions: uncertainty (n = 28) or baseline (n = 45). 51% were men (mean age= 22.74 years). Each participant took an implicit attitude test (IAT) as well as an explicit attitude test to assess their bias against creativity relative to practicality.

Procedure and Materials

Participants in the uncertainty condition were told that they might receive additional payment based on a random lottery (not performance). Participants in the baseline condition were not given the opportunity to receive extra money. A pilot study (N = 82) verified that the uncertainty manipulation evoked significantly higher uncertainty feelings than a baseline condition. All participants took an openness to experience inventory (Costa & McCrae, 1992), a trait which is highly related to creativity (Feist, 1998).

Participants’ automatic mental associations with creativity versus practicality were assessed using the Implicit Association Test (IAT) (Greenwald, McGhee, & Schwartz, 1998). This measure relies on test-takers' speed of response to represent the strength of their mental associations. The IAT measures participants’ reaction times when rating pairings between an attitude object (e.g., creativity or practicality) and an evaluative dimension (e.g., good or bad). In the computerized version of the IAT, this pairing is achieved by using the keyboard (say, a left key) to be pressed in response to items from the two paired categories, creativity+bad, while  another key (say, the right key) is pressed for the other pair, practicality+good. The speed at which this pairing is completed compared to opposite pairing is interpreted as a measure of the strength of the implicit evaluation. Our IAT used words that reflected creativity (e.g. novel, creative, inventive, original) versus practicality (e.g. practical, functional, constructive, and useful). In addition our IAT used words that reflected good (rainbow, cake, sunshine, laughter, peace, heaven) versus bad (vomit, hell, agony, rotten, poison, ugly). The block order was counterbalanced such that half of the participants performed the creative + good component first, whereas the other half performed the creative + bad component first. The IAT effect was formed by subtracting response latencies for the creative + good task from the creative + bad tasks. We scored the IAT using the D statistic (Greenwald, Nosek, & Banaji, 2003), a method less influenced by procedural variables, such as order or counterbalancing, as well as cognitive ability (Cai, Sriram, Greenwald, & McFarland, 2004). The implicit bias score was calculated by subtracting creativity from practicality attitudes; higher values indicate more bias against
creativity relative to practicality.

Participants also rated their explicit positive and negative associations with creativity and practicality. Specifically, participants rated their attitudes towards creativity and practicality on a 7-point scale ranging from 1=strongly negative, 4 = neutral, and 7= strongly positive.

Participants assessed attitudes towards creativity (e.g., creative, inventive, original, and novel;
alpha = .77), and practicality (e.g., practical, functional, constructive, useful; alpha = .88). Participants indicated positive associations (i.e., above the scale mid-point) with both creativity (M=5.37, SD=.75) and practicality (M=5.43, SD=.91). Explicit bias was calculated by subtracting creativity from practicality associations (M=.06, SD=.91).

Results and Discussion

Table 1 shows descriptives for all major variables. An ANCOVA controlling for openness to experience revealed no significant differences in explicit bias when comparing the high (M=.02, SD=.83) and low uncertainty conditions (M=-.11, SD=.96), F(1, 70)= .07, P=.78. However a second ANCOVA also controlling for openness to experience revealed that participants in the uncertainty condition showed an implicit bias against creativity relative to practicality (M=.15, SD=.54) which significantly differed from participants in the baselinecondition who showed an implicit bias in favor  of creativity relative to practicality (M=-.23, SD= 47), F(1, 70)= 13.13, P=.001; condition accounted for 11% of the variance in implicit bias.

Discussion

Experiment 1 shows that people hold ambivalent attitudes towards creativity. While participants in the baseline condition evidenced positive implicit associations with creativity relative to practicality, participants in the uncertainty condition exhibited an implicit bias against creativity relative to practicality. In Experiment 2 we wished to extend these findings to show that the motivation to reduce uncertainty when problem solving can activate the creativity bias. Specifically, scholars propose that effective creative problem solving includes both generating many novel options and subsequently reducing uncertainty by identifying the single best option from the set (Cropley, 2006). We propose that this latter orientation towards identifying the optimal solution may prime an uncertainty reduction motive or intolerance for uncertainty and thereby evoke the creativity bias. Additionally, we explore whether the creativity bias might also deter the recognition of a creative idea.

EXPERIMENT 2

Method

Participants and Design

140 undergraduate students (55% female; mean age= 20.66) were randomly assigned to
one of two conditions: high tolerance for uncertainty (n = 70) and low tolerance for uncertainty
(n = 70).

Procedure and Materials

Participants in the high tolerance for uncertainty condition were told to write an essay supporting the statement, “For every problem, there is more than one correct solution” while those in the low tolerance for uncertainty condition were asked to write an essay supporting the statement, “For every problem, there is only one correct solution.” A three item manipulation check assessed uncertainty when evaluating an idea (e.g., “I feel uncertain about this idea),” anchors from 1 = not at all, 7 = very much so (alpha = .78). Participants in the low tolerance condition were significantly more uncertain (M=4.36, SD=1.23) than those in the high tolerance condition (M= 3.87, SD=1.33; F(1, 133)=5.14, P=.025). After being exposed to the experimental manipulation, each participant took the same implicit and explicit creativity-practicality bias tests used in Experiment 1. Subsequently, participants were asked to rate a creative idea which we pre-tested using a different sample of undergraduates (N = 36) who rated this idea (a running shoe with nanotechnology that adjusted fabric thickness to cool the foot and reduce blisters) as being highly creative (M=5.82, SD=.80), novel (M=5.62, SD=1.02), and practical (M=5.85, SD=.92) on a 7-point scale ranging from 1=not at all to 7=extremely so. Before exposure to the manipulation, participants also took the openness to experience inventory.

Participants rated the idea using the creativity scale, employing the same six synonyms for creativity used in both the implicit and explicit bias tests (M=5.41, SD=1.05, alpha=.78).

Results and Discussion Bias Against Creativity

Table 2 shows descriptives for all major variables. An ANCOVA controlling for openness to experience revealed that participants in the low tolerance for uncertainty condition were not significantly different in their level of explicit bias against creativity (M= .20, SD=.81) as compared to participants in the high tolerance condition (M= .22, SD=.94), F(1, 133)= .14, P=.71. However, a second ANCOVA controlling for openness to experience revealed that participants in the low uncertainty tolerance condition were more implicitly biased against creativity relative to practicality (M= .07, SD=.43) than participants in the high uncertainty tolerance condition (M= -.16, SD=.46), F(1, 133)= 7.87, P=.007, who exhibited positive associations with creativity relative to practicality. A third ANCOVA controlling for openness to experience identified that participants in the low tolerance condition rated the idea as less creative (M= 5.06, SD=1.06) than participants in the high tolerance condition (M= 5.76, SD=.93), F(1, 137)= 15.48, P=.000.

A hierarchical regression showed that the relationship between experimental condition and creativity ratings (B = -.64, t (134) = -3.81, p < .001) became less significant when including implicit bias in the model (B = -.56, t (134) = -3.30, p < .01). A 95% bootstrapped confidence interval of the indirect effect of condition on creativity ratings through implicit bias did not include zero [-.24, -.02], demonstrating partial mediation (Preacher & Hayes, 2004). Mediation analyses controlled for both explicit bias and openness to experience at each step indicating that relatively low levels of uncertainty tolerance led to higher levels of the implicit bias that in turn contributed to lower ratings of creativity controlling for participants’ explicit bias and general openness to experience.

Discussion Bias Against Creativity

Experiment 2 both replicated the finding that uncertainty promotes negative associations with creativity relative to practicality, and extended this finding by showing that the bias against creativity interfered with participants’ ability to recognize a creative idea.

GENERAL DISCUSSION

Robert Goddard, the father of modern rocket propulsion, endured ridicule and derision from his contemporary scientific peers who stated his ideas were ludicrous and impossible. This example is not unique, and would puzzle creativity theorists as research shows that expert raters who are themselves creative are even more likely to accurately recognize and assess creativity (Hennessey, Amabile, & Mueller, 2010; Runco & Smith, 1992). Our results show that regardless of how open minded people are, when they feel motivated to reduce uncertainty either because they have an immediate goal of reducing uncertainty, or feel uncertain generally, this may bring negative associations with creativity to mind which result in lower evaluations of a creative idea. Our findings imply a deep irony. Prior research shows that uncertainty spurs the search for and generation of creative ideas (Audia & Goncalo, 2007; Tiedens & Linton, 2001), yet our findings reveal that uncertainty also makes us less able to recognize creativity, perhaps when we need it most.

Beyond merely having a preference for the status quo or familiar ideas (Eidelman, Crandall, & Pattershall, 2009; Zajonc, 2001), our results suggest that people have ambivalent feelings towards creativity. On one hand, participants in the baseline and uncertainty tolerance conditions demonstrated positive implicit associations with creativity relative to practicality. Additionally, 95% of participants in the high uncertainty and uncertainty intolerance conditions rated their explicit attitudes towards creativity as positive- higher than ‘4’ the mid-point of a 7-point scale- and statistically equivalent to practicality. On the other hand, the implicit measure Bias Against Creativity identified that participants in each high uncertainty condition associated words like “vomit,” “poison,” and “agony,” more so with creativity than practicality. Because there is such a strong social norm to endorse creativity and people also feel authentic positive attitudes towards creativity, people may be reluctant to admit that they do not want creativity; hence, the bias against creativity may be particularly slippery to diagnose. The implicit measures may have picked up negative associations with creativity under conditions of uncertainty because the methodology is more resistant to social desirability bias (Greenwald et al., 2009).

If people hold an implicit bias against creativity, then we cannot assume that organizations, institutions or even scientific endeavors will desire and recognize creative idea even when they explicitly state they want them. This is because when journals extol creative research, universities train scientists to promote creative solutions, R&D companies commend the development of new products, pharmaceutical companies praise creative medical breakthroughs, they may do so in ways that promote uncertainty by requiring gate-keepers to identify the single “best” and most “accurate” idea thereby creating an unacknowledged aversion to creativity. In addition, our results suggest that if people have difficulty gaining acceptance for creative ideas especially when more practical and unoriginal options are readily available, the field of creativity may need to shift its current focus from identifying how to generate more creative ideas to identifying how to help innovative institutions recognize and accept creativity.

Future research should identify factors which mitigate or reverse the bias against creativity.

REFERNCES
Amabile, T. M. (1996). Creativity in context: Update to "The Social Psychology of Creativity."
(Vol. 317). Boulder, CO, US: Westview Press.

Environmental Assessment: Andrew Coyne Commits Sociology

But any time you see large numbers of individuals making the same moral errors - we shall find out precisely how many once the auditor general has finished his investiageion - it's plausible to think something other than mere personal frailty is at work.  As we bleeding hearts like to say, you have to look at the root causes.

There's this thing partisans do where they take the excesses their opponents and define them by it.  The Tories decry the Liberals as arrogant elitists, entitled to their entitlements and point to Sponsorship Scandal as proof of their corruption.  Liberals, meanwhile, can point to Karlheniz Schreiber, Fake Lakes, political truths, robocalls, the Chuck Cadman Affair or, of course, the Senate Scandals as evidence the Tories are callous, contemptuous and irresponsible.

Yet it would appear that governments of every partisan stripe are eventually consumed by the same behaviours and resulting falls in cyclical fashion.  There's a reason for this - when you demonize your opponents, you start to feel morally superior to them.  Whenever you feel a sense of superiority (or entitlement), your standing as a bulwark against the bad guys begins to matter more than how you maintain it. 

We see it again and again and again - when it becomes about winning, not achieving, you've lost.  But our system is designed to produce winners and losers.  First-past-the-post politics begs for win-at-all-costs human behaviour, which is what we get.  It's the same behaviour that leads to the corruption we all abhor in others but justify when our turn comes.

Meanwhile, the pendulum swing between Parties crafting policy that makes them look different than competitors rather than being the best aggregate option for constituents results in this fractured push-and-pull of progress.  Services will be built up without cautious planning for sustainability, torn down, then reinstated in new iterations.  Voters focusing on increasingly niche areas of policy that impact them directly are voting, if they vote at all, on those narrow pieces - after all, it's not like they can vote on individual policies, only the people representing them.

Across the board, people - even elected ones - are saying the system of Parliamentary democracy in place right now is flawed, with the fractures that have been present from the beginning growing into fissures over time.  Voter apathy, voter engagement, voter awareness is far from ideal.  It's not in the best interests of Political Parties to have a balanced conversation, either - they want the attention on issues that favour their brand exclusively.

When put on the spot, though, the vast majority of these pols will point the finger at the other guy exclusively, suggesting the problem is unilateral.  After all, they are still partisans and their commitment is still to helping their Party win.  The political people are as trapped by the partisan-edged focus of our system as the rest of us are.

There are myriad solutions to this systematic problem that could be explored.  Mandatory voting and online voting have been discussed; scrapping our first-past-the-post system has been considered.  We can get all kinds of creative, reducing the clout and reach of Political Parties, insisting on more training for elected officials and periodic issues-testing - we could even separate policy from politicians or institute mixed-Party governments as a rule.  These are all ideas that can be debated and tested and iterated, if everyone fixes on the ball of reform.

Problem is, they won't, because of all the reasons stated above.  If one Party wants a change, the others have to want something different if they're to stand out.  Focused on the win, there will always be a reluctance to accept that one's own methodology is at fault.

Of course, it's not all up to them, is it?  It's our system they are trapped in - ultimately, it's up to us to break the cycle.  That process starts by recognizing that with us or against us isn't going to work - what we demonize in others exists to some degree in ourselves, as well.  Focusing on commonality, not differences, is what builds ground to grow on.  From there, it takes a diverse mix of ideas, approaches and perspectives to inform a truly sustainable system.

It's probably the wrong season to be digging into root causes, however - after all, winter is coming.  It might just be the right one, however, to start planting seeds.

  

IR4: Here There Be Dragons

From his vantage point, in the future more and more people can get involved in making things they really enjoy and can connect with others who share their passions and their products. These connections, he claims, are creating a new Industrial Revolution.

 

 

The Internet is a bit like Sid Meier's Civilization - a digital world mapped on top of the physical one with new realms to explore and other cultures to encounter.  There will be conflicts, competition and the e-equivalents of Guns, Germs and Steel.

But that won't be the whole story. 
 

This age of digital exploration will be both led and funded by a broader swath of individuals and groups than led the great Age of Exploration.  People's passions aren't just for conquest or products - there's a desire for meaningful contribution, as well. 

These explorers aren't just men seeking glory and fortune - they are people of varied gender and a multiplicity of backgrounds that are only possible in our increasingly blended world.  We just don't call them explorers anymore - today, they're called Social Entrepreneurs.

 

Their patrons aren't only governments bent on territories to conquest, financiers looking for new resources to exploit or churches looking for converts.  There are NGOs, Angel Investors and Conscious Capitalists who care more about leaving behind a positive legacy than what they can take for themselves.

 

In the Knowledge Economy, it's ideas we look to harness - not just the intellectual property that's out there right now and ripe for the picking, but the ideas that lie in the heads of innovators that can be extracted through incentive rather than force.  As we revisit the shrunken cultures of minorities devastated by Western expansion, we can look to the resources we missed when we focused on tree, wood, gold and labour - culture, myth, world views. 

 

There still be dragons in the blank spaces on our digital map - this time, they're not dangers to be feared, but opportunities to be harnessed.

 

Letting Youth Lead in Ontario

In her first jobs roundtable discussion with members of Ontario's Jobs and Prosperity Council, business leaders and young entrepreneurs, Premier Wynne reiterated her commitment to create jobs and build a stronger economy and a fair society by ensuring our young people have the tools and confidence they need to succeed.

 

 

Good lord, but Premier Kathleen Wynne is off to an exciting start! 

There are established, successful business leaders out there in search of new ideas.  Social entrepreneurs, many of them young and without track records or well-positioned contacts, are cranking out innovative, value-add solutions to our modern problems.  The thing that's been missing is some way to connect these folk and give them the comfort they need to take a risk and trust each other enough to collaborate.

 

What we need is a stone in the soup, a leader who can serve as a conduit of opportunity for all these groups.

 

With a background in both education and mediation, Wynne's got what it takes to be the rock for an innovative Ontario.  She's proving as much right now, walking the walk and leading by example.

 

Something else, too - by empowering the private sector with opportunity to access new marketplaces for ideas, Wynne is building business sector confidence in her leadership.  By proactively creating opportunity for youth to develop the tools and contacts they need to succeed, she's demonstrating a deep understanding of what teachers do - helping to give them faith that she can be an ally, not an opponent.  This doesn't mean higher salaries or increased benefits, but ensuring that our education sector, too, has the tools needed to succeed.

 

Poor leaders divide and conquer to protect their own position.  Exceptional leaders invert the pyramid and see themselves as servants of the people - making leadership a form of public service, as it were.  When the goal is collaborative accomplishment rather than personal wins, everybody moves forward.

 

Call me biased, I'm incredibly hopeful about where Wynne will take us - we now have not just the leadership we want, but the leadership we deserve.

 

 

 

Harinder Takhar - In It To Win

The standard theory of Takhar’s candidacy is that he’s running to consolidate his power within the party, and guarantee himself a cabinet post under the new premier.

 

Takhar, meanwhile, says he’s running to win.

 

             - Michael Bryant

 

Seven individuals are running to become the next Leader of the Ontario Liberal Party and Premier.

 

It's a fascinating race with a remarkable slate of candidates, each bringing with them tons of experience amassed inside and outside of government.  It also happens to a be remarkably diverse slate, as far as traditional politics goes; there are two women candidates, two openly-gay candidates, a candidate with a physical impairment (that makes zero difference in their ability to do the job they're running for) and of course, the first Sikh candidate of South Asian descent, Harinder Takhar.

 

From the get-go, there have been clear front-runners, some wild cards and one self-described "dark horse."  A couple of candidates that were not given much consideration at the outset have run campaigns that demand attention.  Nobody following the race questions any of the candidates' commitment to win - unless that candidate is Takhar.

 

Why is this?  Like all the other candidates, Takhar had to raise funds and collect names to earn a seat at the table.  He's also gone to the trouble of fleshing out policy ideas and is out there now, pressing the flesh, sharing his ideas and listening to those of others - just like all the other candidates.  That's a lot of effort if you're really just vying to be the next Minister of Finance. 

 

Having spent some time around politics and worked on a few campaigns over the years, I can't believe that anyone would do any of this unless they were seriously trying to win - especially if they've been through the process before.  Politics isn't an occupation, it's a lifestyle; you do it because you're driven to.

 

So - if Takhar truly is running to win, why are people doubting him?  Nobody has suggested that any of the other lesser-known candidates are just looking to play king/queen-maker.  The answer, I think, is as predictable as it is uncomfortable.  Just as most of us will automatically think "he" when someone is talking about a doctor or "she" if they're discussing a teacher, we all have something of a preconceived notion of what a leader should "look" like.  It's s bit like labeling a peach-coloured crayon "skin-tone"; we don't often stop to think outside our personal boxes until we are challenged to do so. 

 

Not that long ago, few of the candidates in the running would have been taken seriously by the majority of voters.  Times have changed and will continue to change, but it still takes trailblazers to increase our opportunities by demonstrating what is possible.

 

By seriously running a serious campaign, Takhar is just such a trailblazer.  However well he does in his bid to be leader, Takhar is opening the door for future generations of potential Premiers from across the ethno-cultural spectrum, helping them maximize their personal potential by expanding the opportunities available to them and providing a role model.  As our current Premier once said, it shouldn't matter "where you come from, but what you find along the way."

 

The more trailblazers like Takhar can broaden our perception of what a leader can look like, the closer we get to a point where we really aren't subconsciously judging candidates on the colour of their skin, their gender, religion or sexual preference, but by the content of their character, the power of their vision and their ability to inspire others to follow where they lead.

 

There are seven individuals running to become the next Leader of the Ontario Liberal Party and Premier. 

 

May the best person win. 

 

Cloud Calls for a Concious Revolution

“for decades, we’ve treated computers as precious and humans as cheap. And most IT organizations still think that way. But cloud is what computing looks like in an age of abundance—a world where tech is cheap and humans are expensive. To capitalize on this requires a shift in culture and mindset, a willingness to take risks and to experiment, and a much faster-paced, more iterative, kind of business posture. That’s an uncomfortable shift for much of Canada.”

 

The demands of work are changing - as is what employees demand of their employers.  Imagine a labour market that treated human resources the way it did computers - ensuring regular upgrades, supportive environments and interconnectivity.  How do we motivate innovative success?  How do we best support our cognitive labour resources?

 

What is required for success in the knowledge economy is a completely different model than that which fueled the industrial economy.  It will take a revolution not of technology, but of consciousness for us to get from here to there.

 

Welcome to the 21st Century; welcome to the Conscious Society.

 

The Conscious Revolution is Catching

Mental capacity, and the lack of it, was much discussed in and around Ottawa last week.

 

The word "crazy" gets bandied about with alarming regularity, considering how poorly defined it is.  You can use crazy in the sense of nonsensical, bold, aggressive, reluctant, petulant, ignorant, dumb or even as a descriptor for an actual condition of cognitive impairment.  Given its vagueness of meaning, crazy is really a poor term to use as anything other than an insult.  If you want to actually give a situation, a condition or a person meaning, you need to refine your terminology a bit.

 

 

Hence, Rob Ford's functional fixedness is being considered through the lens of a recognized cognitive behaviour suite, obsessive compulsive disorder.  There are plenty of other politicians who could be diagnosed as having a "mental illness" and indeed, many have come forward, admitting to battles with neurologically-originated conditions like depression or alcoholism.  In fact, the study of the political brain has become trendy in science and journalism  Now, we're still in that phase of the game where we look to use labelling of cognitive ability as a stick to beat opponents with; there has been a lot written of late tying social conservative beliefs to our "reptilian" brain, with the implication being that one end of the political spectrum is dumber or less open to new ideas than the other. 

 

 

But there are a couple other things happening at the same time that, whether we see it clearly are not, are wholly connected to this phenomena.  One, the mental health crisis that, while not prominent on the radar these days due to the focus on our economic doldrums, still lingers.  It is the economy, though, that reigns supreme - along with questions like "how do you motivate innovation to grow new economic activity?"  Innovation, artistic creation and that nebulous concept of crazy are rightly intertwined; innovation is equally a function of our grey matter.  Then, there's health care, specifically the unsustainable nature of our existing model.  There's a huge mental health component to that Gordian knot as well.

 

 

Who makes decisions about our health care, our economy, our services?  Those people who get it into their heads that the world needs their leadership to function properly - a delusional belief if ever there was one.  Just because it takes a bit of delusion or narcissism to think you're that important doesn't mean that it isn't true; exceptional individuals, for better or worse, do change the world.  It's these outliers who, given the right opportunities in life, will build the better light bulb, cure cancer or develop a health care model that is adjusted to the realities of modern society and demand.

 

 

There is a lot of crazy in politics, but we need that crazy to move the ball forward.  Even if you're a status-quo libertarian who thinks of progress as inconsequential, you can't deny the historical reality of manic, motivated people developing followings and nurturing change.  It's just the way things are, the way they've always been.

 

 

In service use, in labour but especially in politics, we are beginning to peel back the layers; instead of simply accepting "that's just the way it is" we're asking "what makes them that way?"  In the days of colonialism, anthropology was a tool used to help Western powers understand (and better manage) those that they colonized.  The corollary of that process was the absorption of bits and pieces of indigenous culture into Western society.  Today, there's almost a reversal of that process emerging; through the studies of organizations like Samara or the information exposure efforts of Wikileaks or 404SystemError, it's now the average citizen who's peeling back the layers of political motivation, reverse-engineering the behaviour of our pols to understand it better.

 

 

As the public becomes increasingly inquisitive about the cognitive capacities or our pols - and as we have ever-expanding access to every breath they take, every move they make - there is more and more thought being given to how we can read, choose and motivate our political class better.  This trend ties in to the notion of managing cognitive labour to greater results, reducing external service dependence, de-medicalizing mental health and of course, getting more out of life.

 

 

This notion of maximizing human potential and of creative destruction in our society at all levels through systematic change is not a new one, nor is the idea of sudden bursts of civic activity, demanding more of society's leaders.  In fact, you could say it happens with startling regularity, with each iteration allowing people at all levels to climb the pyramid a bit further.

 

 

We're in the bust part of one of these cycles now; there will be hard times for those at the lower echelons of society that will trickle up, in degrees, to those above them.  As the wheel turns, though, both sides will realize that to reach their end goals, middle ground needs to be found.  It's that balance between executive function and systematic reaction that at some level, we are constantly striving to achieve. 

 

 

What all this focus on mental capacity at all levels does is allows to pursue that goal more consciously.

 

 

Innovating the Solution: Canadian Workers and Cognitive Labour

I call this cognitive labour.  The motivating employees for innovative success, the fostering of collaborative teams, the supporting of can-do attitudes and critical thinking - even the online supports and processes are completely doable.

To quote Don Tapscott - let's make this happen.


Canadian workers lacking resources and engagement needed to get the job done

By Ofelia Isabel, National Post

Canada’s productivity gap continues to present questions for organizations trying to become more competitive.

Towers Watson’s latest study of employee attitudes and concerns around the world, which included more than a thousand Canadians, reveals what could be a hidden contributing factor: a lack of sustainable engagement in the Canadian workforce.

Traditionally, engagement has been recognized as employees’ willingness to give discretionary effort to their jobs. While most employers intuitively understand the value of an engaged workforce (and many have programs in place to measure and support engagement), the research shows the steps organizations are taking to improve engagement are falling short.

What organizations fail to take into account is that engagement today concerns more than giving extra effort. To be highly engaged in today’s challenging workplace, employees must also be given the capability to excel (which we call enablement) and the capacity to maintain their efforts over time, (which we call energy). Employers are failing to create this combination of discretionary effort, enablement, and energy — the combination that forms sustainable engagement and yields a significant performance advantage over time.

Sustainable engagement matters because it is the proverbial canary in the productivity mine

Sustainable engagement is at risk globally due to prolonged economic turmoil and work environments in which people have been doing more with less, and for less, for more than half a decade — and Canada is no exception. Prospects for improvement anytime in the near future seem limited. The result is a workforce that is anxious, stressed and risk averse. These are not good traits for a company or a country trying to grow.

Sustainable engagement matters because it is the proverbial canary in the productivity mine. A growing body of evidence — both empirical and anecdotal — shows the clear value of sustaining engagement over time.

When we look at productivity and retention metrics relative to sustainable engagement, we see that organizations with high levels of sustainable engagement have less absenteeism and lower “presenteeism” (lost productivity at work) than those with high levels of disengagement. Organizations with high sustainable engagement also have less trouble retaining employees than those with disengaged workforces.

In Canada, the advantages are startling for companies whose workforce exhibits high sustainable engagement. Companies lose an average of 8.8 days annually to presenteeism for employees with high sustainable engagement versus 17.7 days for the disengaged. For absenteeism, companies lose an average of three days per year for employees with high sustainable engagement versus nearly six days for the disengaged.

And when it comes to the important productivity measure of employee retention (losing experienced employees is a significant drain on productivity), only 14% of sustainably engaged employees in Canada are high-retention risks compared with 58% of disengaged employees.

How do sustainable engagement data fall to the bottom line? Towers Watson studied the performance of a group of 50 global corporations and compared their engagement data with their specific financial results. Those with the highest level of sustainable engagement had average operating margins three times greater than those organizations with low levels of engagement.

The disturbing issue for Canada, considering how sustainable engagement affects absenteeism, presenteeism and retention, is that only 33% of Canadian workers are sustainably engaged.

But there is good news for Canadian employers: An additional 24% of workers are considered “the unsupported” — engaged in the traditional sense (willing to put in the effort) but stymied by organizational barriers to enablement and energy. Canadian workers either don’t have the tools and resources to do the job, or don’t have the capacity to do it. That presents a huge opportunity for employers to take measures to address the productivity needs of their employees, and to think about managing to sustainable engagement — a far more robust 21st century form of engagement.

Among sustainable engagement’s three components (traditional engagement, enablement and energy), the most actionable focus area for addressing the unsupported is enablement. Driving enablement entails removing the barriers that make it easier for the unsupported to become sustainably engaged. It requires giving employees the tools, resources and support to get work done efficiently.

Examples of enabling unsupported employees might include prioritizing and organizing work for employees whether they are in the office or working from a remote office thousands of miles away. It might include making sure employees have access to efficient technology that works. It could be encouraging and rewarding a collegial work team that is ready to jump in to help; or, providing online tools and processes — with ready guidance and support — that give workers access to information to make rapid job-related decisions that promote customer satisfaction.

Energy, the third leg of sustainable engagement, entails actively supporting employees’ physical, emotional and interpersonal well-being. In this kind of environment, people come to work early and stay late, not simply because they have to, but because they’re involved in what they’re doing.

To move a larger group of employees into the sustainable engagement camp, employers need to understand and respond to what drives sustainable engagement in their organizations. The particulars will be unique for every company, but we know the top drivers of sustainable engagement among Canadian workers are related to leadership effectiveness, stress management and work-life balance, and career development. Employers need to involve their employees at every level — leader, supervisors, human resource officials and departments and employees themselves — in addressing these areas.

Ofelia Isabel is Towers Watson’s Canadian leader for talent and rewards.

© The Financial Post

Rob Ford is A Starfish - But Aren't We All?

All I’m saying is that I think people have had enough. When I walked through, I called it a war zone, on Monday morning, I was mad. I was upset at the beginning, but I was mad because I said this is not the city we live in. I said I’ll do everything in my power to deal with this issue.

Rob Ford is angry.  He seems to be angry a lot, actually.  That's a big part of why he got elected, because Toronto voters were angry, too.  They wanted decisive action of some kind and Rob Ford was the only one providing a black-and-white solution.  Problem is, as we've learned, there wasn't much substance behind that solution.  Rob Ford is a one-off kind of guy; hit one problem, doesn't matter the consequence, then hit the next.  It's all very reactionary.

In this, Rob Ford is like the little boy throwing the starfish back into the ocean; he might not be able to save every starfish on the beach, but he can pat himself on the back for saving that one.  Problem is, that very same starfish will get washed back onto the shore and die along with all the others that were ignored.  You can only solve the problem if you look at it from a structural perspective; what causes all these starfish to wash up on the shore in the first place?

We can get mad at Rob Ford, or Dalton McGuinty, or Stephen Harper, but they're really just starfish, too.  Voting them in on narrow mandates and then voting them out for working on those mandates might be emotionally satisfying, but it doesn't solve anything; in fact, it allows the problems to worsen.  These aren't one-off challenges; there are no quick fixes.  You can't fix a broken system with little tweaks.

What's needed is systematic, structural change.  Every single facet of our governance structure needs revisited.  You can't solve gun crime, for instance, without addressing education, poverty, healthcare, employment access, taxation, etc.  They're all interconnected.  People get really stuck in their own, narrow views, though; some will say gun crime is an immigrant problem, or a poor parenting problem, or a poverty problem.  They demand limited resources get spent on their niche area of focus and not in fields they see as frivolous.  How can you manage sweeping changes in a representative democracy where people put their own ideologies first?

The answer is, you can't.  There are only two ways out; one is through dictatorship, where one person calls all the shots regardless of the views of the people.  That's where we're headed right now, as politics at all levels has increasingly sought to consolidate power in one person and their inner circle.  To facilitate this process, information is becoming more tightly controlled; a lack of information for comprehension results in more emotional reaction.  We've seen why this is a problematic trend; people get very angry very fast when they feel they have zero say in their fate, don't trust the people at the top and don't much know what's going on big-picture.  They will eventually decide to take back control of their fate by force, enforcing their own interests through any means necessary - which is what's happening with the pisolitzation of Toronto.

Answer number two is the most challenging but ultimately, only sustainable one; we stop being intransigent, start looking out for collective (not selfish) interests and embrace this little concept of moving forward together.  That means not focusing on validation for your own views, but constantly challenging them to see where there's room for improvement.  It means not looking to invalidate the views of others, either, but deconstructing down to points of commonality.    Believe me, they're always there.  From that shared ground, compromise can be achieved.  How do we put the views of others before ourselves, though?  How do we trust the other?  We do it by taking a long, uncomfortable look inwards and re-evaluating the confabulated notions of identity which we wrap ourselves up in, like a banner or a blanket.

We've come so far in our social journey - chiefdoms, empires, republics, parliamentary democracies, etc.  It's always about empowering the people to collaborate strategically on building a better world of us all.  We can only do that when we do it strategically, consciously.

History points us in that direction.  It'll happen; the only question is how long it will take us to learn the basic lesson of "live together, die alone" before we get there.

Leadership: Do the Right Thing

The paradox, I remarked to my campaign team at the time, is this: If you don't go to the site of a disaster, you'll get hammered for staying away and being insensitive. And if you travel to the site of a disaster, you'll get hammered for coming for a photo op and therefore being insensitive. You can't win, in other words.

Whether we like it or not, disasters are social affairs.  The people directly impacted feel the full brunt of an earthquake, a tornado, or a man-made disaster.  Lives are lost, livlihoods are destroyed, people are shaken to their very core.  In the face of disaster, one is justified in wondering how any individual can hope to carry the burden of loss moving forward. 

The people directly impacted face the worst, but the rest of us are reminded that we are just as vulnerable.  When someone gets shot in a public setting, we realize it could easily have been us.  When a mall roof collapses, we think, "my kids shop there."  The illness of another reminds us that we are all mortal.

In times of tragedy, whether ours or someone else's, we all feel a more vulnerable.  We tend to feel more giving, too - it's a genetic thing.  But how?  To who?  For those who have fallen, who amongst us will be there to extend a hand of support?

That's where leaders come in.  True leaders bring people together, reminds us we are not alone and helps us rise up, together.  No man is an island - true leaders bridge the gap. 

In our wired world, it can be hard to do the right thing without thinking of potential self-promotional opportunities.  Every negative or questionable thing leaders do gets dissected and broadcast on the big stage; it's hard to resist the temptation to cast light on the good stuff one does.  In fact, you might say it takes a certain degree of selflessness to do the right thing solely because it is the right thing.

Which brings me to the Highway of Heroes.  Does anyone remember the big, splashy event and after-shock releases that came with the announcement that Premier McGuinty was declaring a section of the 401 in honour of deceased Canadian veterans?  I'd be surprised if you did - there weren't any.

Despite the media-gains that could potentially have come from such an act, Premier McGuinty simply did it because it was the right thing to do.  While he doesn't always get this right, I'd have to say that Dalton McGuinty is the most consistent leader we have in terms of doing the right thing for no reason either than it's the right thing to do.

For all the stuff he does publicly that people either admire or despise, McGuinty is constantly doing the little things that inspire.  If you look on any social media outlet, you'll see the odd mention or picture of him pop up in places that aren't splashy, don't gain him any credit publicly, but are indicative of a man who truly cares.

Which brings me back to Elliot Lake.  In the face of such a horrific tragedy, the Premier had two responsibilities - to the people who suffered, to remind them they are not alone, but also to the people of Ontario, to make it clear that in times of crises, we are all in this together and that we will move forward, together.

In my opinion, McGuinty had to reach out to the families.  He had to speak to the community leaders and offer his support.  Those things didn't have to be publicized; we didn't necessarily need to know he had spoken to the families, only they needed to know their Premier cared.  When it comes to provincial solidarity and seeking responses to avoid future such tragedies, that does have to be public.  The whole province needs to know that someone is looking out for our long-term interests.

Sure, it's possible that best intentions will be misconstrued.  It's quite likely that opposing interests will hammer you in the worst manner possible, no matter what you do - though it doesn't have to be that way.

True leadership isn't about personal wins.  For a true leader, how they are viewed comes second; how their people fare always come first.  Which is why real leadership is a lonely business.

The Master doesn't talk, he acts.
When his work is done,
the people say, "Amazing:
we did it, all by ourselves!”

Real Leaders Stand with their Troops

Ask yourself - how many leaders, be they business, community or political would fall on their sword, vs asking their troops to do the same?

When we ask those whom we lead to deal with the realities of risk, rational persuasion and legitimizing tactics just won't cut it. Leaders need to role model the character they want to see in others. Stakeholders at all levels want to know that their risk is your risk, too.

The greatest risk we face as leaders is the violation of our own team's values and beliefs. Are you fit to lead others through risk? Do you have skin in the game? Does your character increase or reduce risk? Look those you lead in the eye and you'll find your answers. Remember, whether in the military or in business, someone bears the consequence for every risk we take.

Atlas Never Wavered

First, not everyone is prepared to lead in risky environments.

Second, as leaders who are assessing risks, we need to have skin in the game; otherwise we are only pretending to lead.

Third, character matters just as much as any knowledge or skills acquired from training and education.

Whenever I hear someone decry the idea of "The Public Good" as some sort of totalitarian subterfuge, I ask them why giving back and self-moderation somehow implies a loss of freedom.  The answer, invariably, is that they don't want anyone telling them what they can and can't do - which, of course, kinda misses the "self" part, but I digress.

Let's play along for a minute.  What happens when everyone has complete independence to do whatever they want to?  They come into conflict.  Our costly and inadequate justice system is all about people trying to protect their own interests, with a third party arbitrating (not a very independent solution, but maybe that's just me).    Or, by looking after their own immediate interests, the group - because that's what society is - creates tragedy-of-the-commons scenarios ranging from pushing-matches to get on and off subway trains to the denuding of natural resources without consideration for tomorrow's needs.

How do you avoid zero-sum conflict or unsustainable practices?  It's simple - by thinking ahead.  When you plan - when you're strategic - you invariably include other people's interests into your calculus.  Everyone knows Sun-tzu's maxim about knowing yourself and knowing your enemy. 

Another one of Sun-tzu's key lessons is about discipline, or self-control.  There's also the one about creating resource-efficient, win-win scenarios where possible to avoid the loss that invariably occurs through conflict.

In other words, be mindful of the consequences of your actions.  Taken from a slightly different angle - do unto others what you would have them to unto you.

True independence comes not from hiding from the reality that we're all in this together, but internalizing that concept and acting from a place of consciousness.

In other words, altruism is nothing more than selfishness that plans ahead.

And true leadership isn't about control, but empowerment.

Find Success Through Empowering Your Employees

Most make minimum wage – for students, that’s $9.60 an hour; liquor servers make $8.90 an hour.

So, if you get good service, most people happily dig a little deeper for a tip.

The only snag is that recently some restaurants have been “tipping out” – a practices that forces staff to share their tips with managers and owners of the restaurant.

It’s petty, it’s cynical, it’s essentially feudal – I give you the privilege of working for me, you even get a salary; you owe me for that privilege.  I’ve written previously about this dominance-model mentality where the boss sees themselves as a feudal lord, entitled to do whatever with their employees, who are essentially beasts of burden.  In today’s economy, this generally takes the form of employers telling employees that their carrots and sticks will be determined not just on the quality of their work, but their ability to find new directions for a business/company to pursue.

Here’s the thing; though we tell ourselves that whoever has the gold makes the rules, the reality is there are social and motivational laws, almost like gravity, that trump any of our impositions.  We don’t motivate employees the right way, because we can’t be bothered to think of them as equals.  When one’s eye is so firmly fixed on the bottom line, you miss the opportunities you have to raise the bar.

If you want more money out of a business, don’t give your employees less and pressure them to do more.  That leads to poor service, higher turnover and lost customers.  Empower them.  Train them.  Give them skin in the game – make them feel like it’s as much their business as it is yours.

This is even truer in the creative sectors like consulting or policy.  Employers, fixed in their ways and uncertain where tomorrow’s opportunities lie are turning to employees and pressuring them through carrots and sticks to come up with new ideas and new markets.  They’re making it a competitive game between their teams to see who can be the most creative and get the perks.  This is so counterintuitive as to be comedic.

It’s also a trend that’s dying out.  Whether employers like it or not, the rules are changing further still – social media is empowering the individual in ways we’re just starting to grasp.  Knowing their personal brands are at stake through association, young folk are demanding more from their employers in terms of accountability.  Smart employers are realizing this trend now and twinning an increasing demand on employees with workspace accommodations, flex time and skin in the game.

People are spending more and more time working – as such, they want to enjoy what they do and feel that it means something.  In this world, success won’t be found by nickel and diming your employees, but by empowering them to share their two cents.