I was at an art gallery this week doing some research for a program we are running. I absolutely love spending time in galleries. I find them so inspiring not only as an artist but also for the sheer amount of self-expression that you see. We were all created with the ability and need to express ourselves (but that is another post)

I came across this explanation of the inspiration of a Jeffrey Smart painting Central Station II and I thought it really summed up the creative process well. His words about the background to the painting were: “In the morning, a friend took me for a tour around those strange parts – strange architecturally – in Sydney. We went to Glebe, Annandale….. then Balmain and the houses on the water there, and Leichardt finally. By this time my imagination was stirred to such an extent that when Michael Ramsden, who drove, stopped near Central Station to run off and buy a paper, I saw him and those hoardings in such a way that I thought I should like to have it forever…it was a moment of hallucinatory beauty”.

The notes for the painting went on to say ‘Returning to the spot early the next morning, Smart made a number of sketches and drawings from which he developed the final painting when he returned to Italy’

 Smart stirred his creativity that day. He stirred it mightily and then most importantly, he went and acted on it. How did he stir it?

• He really opened his eyes to all that was around him.
• He thought about the world around him in a different way. We could even say his thinking/actions was out of the box (or out of the studio).
• He provided his mind with a whole load of stimulus and freshness. He didn’t just look at one building. He looked at loads.
• He moved. He didn’t restrict his stimulus to a conversation, a text book or a meeting room. He moved and engaged with his environment.
• All of these things stirred his imagination. Importantly, he was open to it being stirred. He was open to being inspired. He was a sponge ready to soak it all up.
• He then did something about it. He could have so easily not gone back in the morning. He would have had to change his plans, miss appointments etc. but he went and did it and harnessed his creative drive at the moment.

For me, it sums up the creative process really well. You have to allow your imagination to be stirred. You do that by engaging with the environment around you, really looking, being open to seeing possibilities and most importantly, you have to act on it immediately or life takes over and it is forgotten.

The creative process is fluid, changing and different for everyone. There is no “my way or the highway approach” but ask yourself – ‘When was your imagination stirred to such an extent that you had to run off and do something about it then and there?’

Art, corporate creativty, creativity, Innovation, Visual Funk | By: simon

The word team building has such a wide variety of connotations from 10 years ago. If you type the word into Google, you get over 79,000,000 results. So it’s obviously important and fair enough. At it’s most simple, a team that gets on together, is cohesive, energised and collaborates effectively is much more effective than one that really dislikes each other, has no cohesion, energy and doesn’t share any information at all.

There are many, many ways to achieve a happy, motivated and dedicated team. As long as it isn’t cheesy (think The Office TV Show) the possibilities are endless. I came across this article today by Susan Heathfield that gave some easy ways to build your team and all focus on things you can do yourself. Whilst a tailgate party might not be such a huge hit in Australia, there is always something that you can do. Like anything, it will be something that you and your team will have to work on regularly. The more effort you put into team building, the better team you will have. Pretty simple and it has a huge effect on the bottom line as well.

I have put the first few points below. You can read the rest of the article here

Lunch discussion and team building groups: Provide lunch for the whole company, a department or a work team. Assign employees to various work groups of up to ten people to thoughtfully discuss and respond to work related questions. One fun way to divide employees, when you don’t care who is in which group, is to put numbers on the bottom of plates. All employees who have a number 1 on their plate take their lunch and meet in the library or conference room B, for example.–Additional ways to divide employees into discussion groups.–Thoughtful questions for ice breakers that you can use as samples, although you will want the discussion topics to reflect the interests and happenings in your workplace.

Take an employee to work day: Schedule employees to visit another department for take an employee to work day. Employees are always curious about what other employees do. Satisfy their interest and introduce the employees to a whole new work group in the process. The opportunity to observe in another department allows employees to participate in team building that enhances cross department cooperation and understanding. It also offers employees the chance to explore another career path. Here’s how one company put together their take an employee to work day.

Provide comfortable collaboration spaces with couches, snacks and beverages. Ask employees to schedule the space as they might reserve a conference room. Require that all food and beverages must be consumed in the collaboration area in a group experience.

Hold work book clubs: Employees across the company or in a single department volunteer to read and discuss a particular book in a work book club. The company purchases the books for the employees who meet weekly to discuss a chapter or two. In the best book clubs, employees take turns leading the discussion about the chapter. A second employee leads the discussion about the implications of what they are reading for the company. This is how to set up a work book club.

Sponsor job shadowing opportunities for employees in a different department. Just as take an employee to work day fosters team building between departments, so does job shadowing. It provides the opportunity for an employee to explore alternate career paths, too. Job shadowing is easy to put together and costs only the employees’ time. The benefits of job shadowing far outweigh its cost.

Creative Team Building | By: simon

One of the joys of working at VisualFunk is the great people that I get to work with. People who don’t just talk about creativity but live it, breathe it, practice it and embrace it. One of these people is Liam Benson who is one of our creative team building facilitators. Liam does wonderful work with our clients to help them take off the creative handbreak and work with their team mates to not only learn more about their own wonderful creativity but what can be achieved when everyone is pooling their creative talents. His own creative practice enables a great understanding of how to help others fulfill their creative potential.
Liam recently won the 2011 Hazelhurst Art Award for works on paper with his work “A Christian Country”. His work focuses on national as well as gender identity.

I am a firm believer that to develop your creativity you have to behave creatively. Creating (verb) develops your creativity. The more you create (behave creatively) the more creative you become. It is a great upward cycle. The more you behave creatively, the more you stimulate your creativity. The great results, energy and balance that you get drives you to behave more creatively and keep on creating. You are living creatively and breathing creativity.

Liam’s continuing work is a testament to living creatively and the benefits of regularly doing creativity. So, go on and do anything, something that drives and develops your creativity. Start living creatively. And congratulations to Liam for his great work. I have judged many art competitions and also been in many art competitions and winning them is hard work. When you do, it’s testament to something great.

Art, Creative Team Building, creativity | By: simon

I read this great nice article by Julie Plenty today and I loved the first line “Creativity is your birthright.”

Exactly, its what we were born to do and what separates humans from all of the other animals wandering the earth. We are all creative yet we stop practicing creativity and behaving creatively. I have spoken about this many times before. Kids are great, they let their creativity pulsate through their veins on a daily basis.

Tapping back into the wonderful creativity is actually really easy. It’s like fitness, there are a few really easy steps you can take to improve your fitness. It was another reason that I loved this article – the actual simplicity of what Julie suggests to give your creativity a boost. It’s not about devouring an academic text book on creativity, it’s about taking some simple, fun and easy steps. These are below.

1. Look after yourself.

Sleep well/Eat well/meditate/do what you enjoy and do it more often (if it is life enhancing!). Creativity is reduced when your senses are dulled.

2. Do something different.

We do so much on auto – the route we take to work, newspaper we read, TV programmes we routinely watch. Vary one element of your regular routine for a while. If feasible, take a different route to work, read a different newspaper (especially one you would never read!).

3. Be curious about your world around you.

It always amazes me when people don’t see what’s around them. See the area you live/work in as a tourist would. How would you explore it if you were a tourist?

4. Read a book on something you previously had no interest in.

…and see if you can create interest whilst reading it. It is my belief that no topic is boring or uninteresting if it is enthusiastically and creatively presented. You know what you like – or you like what you know?

5. Do something childlike once in a while.

…and you don’t have to have the children there as an ‘excuse’ to do it. Sit and play on swings/draw/paint ‘silly’ pictures – have fun. Children are incredibly creative and as adults we could learn a lot about how they view the world.

6. Create/prepare quiet time for yourself every day.

Not to do anything (unless it relaxes you), but just to clear and refresh your mind. We are human beings, not doings. There are times when our crowded schedule and minds don’t allow space and time for the creative to be welcomed in. Einstein liked to go sailing in the afternoons after working in the morning. Okay, most of us don’t have this opportunity, but you get the point.

7. Ask ‘what if’ questions.

Just for fun and see where the answers take you. What if that building could talk, what would it say, what stories would it tell?

8. We often make assumptions.

…about the people we work with (especially if we don’t like them!) Try treating someone you don’t particularly like at work as if you liked them (yeah I know…………….:.) What would you say, how would you act towards them?

9. Write and storyboard your life.

…as if it were a script you had to sell to a film company.

10. Talk to people you routinely ignore or dismiss.

Imagine their lives from their point of view, they often have viewpoints which you may never have considered before and ………………………… carry a small notebook with you to jot down new ideas / sensations / feelings as they come to mind.

Do one, some or all of these and you’ll soon notice a rise in your creativity, personal development and self growth.

About The Author

Julie Plenty is a Personal and Business Coach, who helps writers, artists and photographers prosper in their business by helping them build a strong personal foundation, because they ARE their business. For more self growth and personal development articles, and to sign up for her Life Design newsletter, visit: http://www.self-help-personal-development.com.

corporate creativty, creativity, Innovation | By: simon

Over the years that I have been consulting around team behavior, I think that there are some common issues that clients share and always come up, both within teams and within companies on a greater scale.

• We operate in Silo’s even though we are part of the same team
• We don’t communicate enough/We don’t share information

One of the natural questions that follows  is “So would you like to increase collaboration?” and the answer is always yes.

For me, part of any solution for the client to this has to involve some sort of experiential activity as we all learn by doing. This is mostly classified of as a team building program on the day/s agenda. This made me think – What is more important in a team building program – Collaboration or Competition?

If you want to improve team harmony and foster greater communication and collaboration, is pitting everyone in a virtual fight where there is only one winner going to improve collaboration and break down a silo mentality? Will this help build towards a goal of everyone working together more harmoniously?Will it develop relationships that will lead to lead to greater communication? Will you just be grumpy because you didn’t win and take this back to work?

On the other hand, competition is fun. The commercial world is about competition. A healthy level of competition may drive better results and most sales teams I have been in are built around this ethos. Maybe your team is getting to comfortable and needs a virtual kick?

There is a wealth of information on the collaboration vs. competition debate. My view is that collaboration, overall is a much more important behaviour. Wether you are in a creativity and innovation team, a sales team,  a Human Resources team or company wide, collaborating with all of the great knowedge in your team or company will surely bring better results than working in isolation.

What ever your view, next time you are thinking of a team building activity for your team, ask the question, “Given our current circumstances, do we need to improve our level of collaboration or do we need to be more competetive?” That will give you some greater idea of what direction you want to go.

Creative Team Building, Team Building, Visual Funk | By: simon

I came across a great article today that spoke about the benefits of creativity for ones health. The article states:

We all know sport and physical activity are important for good health but what about art and music?

According to experts, being involved in creative activity can have a positive effect on health. This is increasingly being recognised with many new projects now using art to deliver health messages and to promote wellbeing.

Research has shown that being involved in communal art activities could even increase life expectancy, according to WA public health physician Marisa Gilles.

“The arts don’t just improve mental health but also physical health – to the extent that you live longer,” Dr Gilles said.

“The arts improve mental health and that in turn affects physical health directly – as we know, the two are interconnected.”

Dr Gilles said work in UK hospitals on “healing from within” had shown that art classes, ballet performances and music could speed up recovery times in patients.

Read the rest of the article here

I agree wholeheartedly. When you do something creative, it feels good. It’s as if your soul has been replenished and you have restored some of your natural internal balance. We are being the way we should be. The big thing that stops you doing something creative is the internal heckler who gives you a hard time about what you may look like. The bloody heckler, he/she makes life hard! Once you get past that and wallow in the joy of being creative without the heckler giving you a hard time, it feels great.

That is why Visual Funk delivers creative team building programs where we get our clients doing creative activities together. We know that people are designed to be creative but making that step to silence the heckler can be tough. We help people to silence the heckler and great things happen. Whenever we finish, say a creative art program, I always get everyone to reflect on what a nice vibe there is in the room. You can really feel it, as can all of the participants who take part. It’s as if some great energy has been unlocked and everyone is on a high. It’s a great way to leave everyone at the end of a program.

Participating in a creative activity opens up great new lines of communication between those taking part and also allows for some great self expression. We were designed to express ourselves creatively. I always point out that man was drawing, singing and dancing along time before they were creating spreadsheets. Self expression is a natural part of the great creativity we all have.

So next time you are thinking about your health makes sure you ask the following questions:

• Am I eating well?
• Am I exercising and keeping fit?
• Am I drinking enough water?
• Am I doing anything creative in my life?

For me, for real, true health and a happy soul, exercising your creativity needs to be high on your keeping healthy list – for an individual or a corporate team.

If you want to know more about what Visual Funk does, click here

Art, Creative Team Building, Team Building, Visual Funk | By: simon

I read an interesting article this week by Deborah Sweeney on team building and in particular, three team building exercises she thinks that you should avoid. There will be plenty of people that will disagree with her and many, many more that will agree whole heartedly.

Reading her article, there a couple of key things to remember though whenever thinking team building:

• Just because it has team building attached to it doesn’t mean it will go anywhere near developing your team
• Even the best activity can be botched by a poor facilitator or poor organisation
• Everyone has a terrible memory about a team experience for any number of reasons
• People need to feel in a good space throughout the program. Make sure you are clear how this is managed when you are thinking of something for your team. If everyone is in a good space and feeling comfortable, there will be a great energy in the group. We all love a great vibe!

Deborah says;

“There may be no I in team but that doesn’t mean that “I” will still want to participate.

A rather apathetic opener from yours truly, but it does sum up a poorly done team-building experience. Whether you’ve just joined a new team at a corporation, are celebrating your first anniversary within a small start-up, or just polished off your 20th year as a self-made entrepreneur, you’ve undoubtedly had to participate in (or coordinate) team-building exercises for your group.

We’ve all been to a few in our lives. Maybe you were on a week-long retreat in the woods with your the big guns from your department. You might have all sat in a circle and added adjectives to your name and went around the circle repeating the names of others while adding more adjectives to make the game more complicated. You might have all gone rock-climbing together on an indoor course. Or written notes of appreciation to one another after talking about your best and worst jobs ever.

There are good ways to bond with people of all ages within your workplace and then there aren’t. Despite the best intentions of those planning the events, mistakes can still be made. Team building exercises according to LinkedIn are designed with two factors in mind: building up company morale and strengthening a team of professionals. Even the best laid plans with ideas that you’re sure will get everyone revved up and ready to go can fizzle fast.

Why did these activities lose their luster  before they even began? Contributing factors could be anything from the time in the day that the activity was scheduled, over scheduling every single moment of the day (especially on a retreat), holding the event outside of work hours, or just picking activities for the team that may not be what the group really wants to do. Never hesitate to get the opinion of your staff before you decide to recycle old tried but 50/50 at best true group work together.

When it comes to these three activities, I can already feel people teaming up to avoid engaging in them.

The Trust Game

A timeless classic that involves two people. One stands still and puts their hands out in front of them. The other stands in front of this person and closes their eyes, leans backwards, and falls into their waiting arms. At least you hope they do and that nobody pulls their arms back at the last moment. Before you fall, usually the person with their arms out asks, “Do you trust me?” to which one replies, “I trust you.” and lands into the cocoon of safety.

The goal of being caught is to relieve the momentary feelings of doubt and fear in exchange for ones of safety and security. But today, the trust game is a harder one to play. Odd employee pairings make it harder to catch someone- a 6’1? staff member with one that is 4’11? is awkward to say least.”

To read the rest of the article click here

Creative Team Building, Team Building, Visual Funk | By: simon

We have some interesting conversations every week with people who are ringing up looking for a team building program.

The abbreviated conversation generally goes something like this:

• Hi, we are looking for some team building? Can you send us a quote?
• Great. I am keen to know a lot more before we do that. Are there any specific outcomes you are looking for?
• No, just team building and that type of thing.
• Team building means different things to most people, what’s your sense around what the team wants?
• You know, just team building stuff.  Can you send a quote?

At that stage, I know that we will most likely never work with that person. If they don’t know what they are looking for, chances are very low that we will be able to give it to them.

Whatever you are considering, there are some real simple things to consider:

Spending a day together out of the office does not mean you are necessarily building teamwork. In fact, a team building experience that is unenjoyable and poorly delivered can be a real destructive influence on teamwork. I have been in a number of these and everyone I think we have ever worked with has a really bad memory of an office team building day.

I prefer to reverse team building and refer to it as ‘building a team‘. How is the day going to build a more successful team? A highly motivated team? A happy, productive or more creative team?

When planning a team development/team building day there are some important things to consider.

• What is the current teamwork situation in the workplace with your team?
• What would you like the teamwork situation to be?
• Do you want the team development day to be all fun, a full-blown development program or a great mix of fun and learning?
• How will you measure the success of the team building day?
• How will you keep the magic of the team development day alive and relevant in the office?
• Is there anything that you defenitely don’t want to see?
• What would a terrible team building program look like?
• Are you going to make the decision purely based on price?

Once you have some clarity around these questions, you can start to get a better idea of what success would look like.

Looking to let the team blow off steam – great!
Needing to develop your team’s creativity – fantastic!
Develop team unity and focus at the start of a project? – Superb!
Wanting to get to know everyone better for some team bonding? Awesome!

Your team building goals can always be achieved as long as you know what they are. And it makes for some better phone calls….

Team Building | By: simon

I read a great short post from Seth Godin today. It said:

Wasting time is not a waste

Art, creativity, Innovation, Visualfunk | By: simon

I am always getting asked by clients who are companies that are leading the way in innovation, how they do it etc. So when I saw this list, I thought it worth sharing. The list is based upon the innovation premium which is:

 ”a measure of how much investors have bid up the stock price of a company above the value of its existing business based on expectations of future innovative results (new products, services and markets) . Members of the list must have $10 billion in market capitalization, spend at least 1% of their asset base on R&D and have seven years of public data”

Sounds pretty heavy and I am sure it cuts out many smaller companies but innovation and creativity in the corporate world must be measured on results.

The top five on the list are:

1. Salesforce.com
2. Amazon.com
3. Intuitive Surgical
4. Tencent Holdings
5. Apple

It makes me really glad we use Salesforce! Check out the rest of the list here

Innovation | By: simon