Invitation to Creativity

Myka Kennedy Stephens and Neil Mackinnon in conversation.

Listen to the Podcast Version Watch the YouTube Version

What is the relationship between creativity and how you spend the majority of your time? Given that those who work full-time in jobs or vocations spend the majority of their time on work-related tasks, I might also ask: How does creativity show up in your day-to-day work?

Without any reliable data to base this on other than my impressions from observations of colleagues, clients, and others in my professional network, I suspect that too many of us would say that our work doesn’t offer much space for creativity. That creativity is reserved for hobbies like knitting, painting, and singing in a community choir. Those who are engaged in professions related to the creative arts, such as marketers, graphic artists, and designers, might more easily articulate the connection between creativity and their work. Those who are engaged in work that is not directly related to creative arts may have more difficulty articulating such a link.

I would like to put forward that creativity is something that can be brought into any vocation or work context. In fact, I believe that creativity is essential to a healthy workplace.

I recently sat down with Neil Mackinnon to discuss creativity and its importance in our work lives. Neil was one of the facilitators from my executive coach training program. In fact, when I was looking at various training programs to decide where I would study, I had hoped I would have an opportunity to work with Neil because of his unique background and coaching philosophy. Neil came into coaching from a career as a professional musician and senior leadership roles within the performing arts industry. Fast forward to the present, and I am still learning from Neil and his perspectives on creativity and coaching.

The transcript of our conversation is embedded in the podcast, but here are a few quotes from Neil that particularly resonated with me. I hope they will also resonate and spark some creative thinking in you.

One of the first things I learned was if you have sufficient belief in something and are willing to invest of yourself and work to bring others along on that journey, then absolutely extraordinary things are possible. — Neil Mackinnon

Creativity and Structure

“The strength of ideas is absolutely fundamental to creativity, and then finding the ways … the structures that support those ideas is an important part. But if one is seeking to force the ideas into predefined structures, that might not be the best order of things.”

“I think one of the ways we can trip ourselves up is getting too stuck in the structures. So if I look at how the creative industries are defined, as a series of succinct practices—be that the performing arts, architecture, a whole host of different things—I think those structures are useful, and sometimes where new stuff happens is the places towards the edge where those structures are blurred and are in or service to a bigger vision. So, an example would be where one has an idea that mixes different elements of creative practice and creates a new thing.”

“That’s what I’m speaking to: is a willingness to follow the idea, to follow the creative kernel and find the appropriate frameworks and structures that support and facilitate that.”

What Is Creativity?

“Creativity is not the preserve of the things that we traditionally think of, or that the 20-some-old version of me thought of as creative. But rather it’s something that’s possible and alive in a whole host of different endeavors. And it’s more an approach to things than a particular demographic of activity.”

“So I believe one of the things that sits behind many people’s view that they’re not creative is that they’ve not yet had the opportunity to engage in a step by step process that allows them to unlock their creativity. … That’s a place where frameworks and structures can be enormously useful as a support to the creative process. So I’m of the view that creativity is not about complete freedom to do anything in any way at any time. Because often that can lead to either overwhelm or a complete absence of direction, but rather it can often benefit from having some structure around it. Not so much that it constricts and deadens but often some structure is what sparks new ideas and brings things alive is sufficient shape to support people taking often small steps or what might feel like them as small steps, towards creating something.”

Bringing creativity into work doesn’t mean you need to be playing an instrument or painting a picture or writing a poem. But rather it might be how do we do something differently? — Neil Mackinnon

Supporting Creativity in Your Community

“I think the places that are most effective as cultural hubs are in some form of dialogue with their community. And without question, they will bring shape to what the output of that dialogue is. And there is a danger, if it’s pure dialogue without curation, that it ends up being a watered down version of something that’s for everybody that ends up being for nobody. But I do think often organizations could do a better job of listening more and continuing a dialogue with their stakeholders.”

I believe creativity is the practice of using our imagination to create things, yes, and be inventive and adaptable in how we navigate the things that are already there. — Neil Mackinnon

Creative Strategy: Ask Questions

“One of the best ones I found is, ‘what’s happening here?’ And then check in with whatever answer comes up. And if it’s useful to then ask, ‘yeah, but what’s really happening here?’ And slow down on that answer. And it might be, it warrants a third asking to get to the truth of what’s happening.”

“And then the second question I find useful is, ‘how might I be useful?’ And I mean that purposefully in comparison to ‘how might I be helpful?’ Because I think we’re a catalyst, not an amalgam in as much as, again, it’s back to this entering into dialogue as opposed to jumping into save.”

“When faced, as we frequently seem to be, with seemingly intractable challenges, as opposed to following whatever approach you may have taken thus far that perhaps sometimes works, perhaps doesn’t, is to pause and ask, ‘how might I deal with this more creatively?’ What are the other angles I am not considering? If this weren’t intractable, difficult, frustrating, challenging, add the relevant word in, then what would I do next?”

“So I think we, moment to moment, have the opportunities to retreat into the story of our calcified neural patterns and do things the way that we’ve always done them. And that’s everything from the way we make a cup of coffee to how we walk home from work of an evening, or perhaps the reactions we have when our spouse does something. And I guess it’s an invitation into, not all at once, but considering where is it I’d like to experience some change in my life and considering how might I do things differently. What’s within my circle of influence or perhaps even control that I can exercise, that I can be creative about. That will perhaps, and again, with any change there is the potential for it not to go in the direction you want it to, but there will perhaps have a positive impact on the thing I’d like to be a bit different.”

Invitation to Further Conversation

If you would like to be in touch with Neil, you may connect with him through his website, https://neilmackinnon.net.

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