The Pursuit of Tinkering

I was just reading an article from Fast Company titled Innovating with Meaning: You Reap What You Sow. The article describes the author’s belief that business performance can be enhanced by improving core competencies in creative thinking, strategic thinking, and transformational thinking among employees in support of innovation. Interesting stuff and a worthwhile article.

While I was reading it, I was struck by the thought that we may not need this type of business advice if we just did a better job of sowing the seeds of creativity in our children to begin with. Is it possible that corporations are trying to make up for our shortcomings as parents?

The article describes nine seeds of creative thinking. I’ve taken the first two and replaced business/employee language with family/child references. It really resonates with me:

Seed #1: Believe in Creativity
It is not enough for a leader parent to simply encourage “creativity” and creative thinking. Everyone must believe in their own creative thinking abilities. They Parents must also be willing to unlearn some of their old habits in order to truly participate in the innovation agenda and become an integral part of the organization’s family’s innovation engine.

Seed #2: Be Curious
The foundation of creativity is the curious mind. Without a curious mind, many great opportunities will simply slip by unnoticed. Employees Children should be encouraged to broaden their perspectives and look for ideas beyond their particular department, organization, and industry home, school and neighborhood. Innovative organizations families encourage their employees children to ask questions and challenge “the way it’s done in our industry family.” It is important to note that employees children can be encouraged to ask questions while still respecting the essence and realities of organizational familial life.

If Gordon McKenzie is correct in his observation that kids lose their ability to be creative between kindergarten and sixth grade, it seems sad that corporations are trying to then re-develop those same skills later in life.

Honestly, I’m not sure what I’m getting at with this post. As the parent of child that just entered kindergarten, my gut tells me that we need to protect her creative instincts as adamantly as we protect her safety.

What do you think?

No holding back for Harvard psychologist Dr. Susan Linn who, in this Edmonton Sun article, states that:

…the convergence of “technology and unfettered commercialism is a disaster for children” turning them into “passive observers.”

The article is worth reading. I’m not sure I buy the bit about iPods. Could you image a teen trying to cope with a breakup without music? Still, there are lot’s of great insights and no shortage of strong opinions, such as this:

“Dolls can now jump, dance and do back flips — the toys are actually having more fun than the kids.”

And this:

“There’s no time, space or silence to develop their innate capacity for hands-on self-generated creative play, to engage naturally and spontaneously.”

And this:

…a good toy is 90% child and 10% toy.

Check it out: The Case for Make Believe, written by Joanne Richard

Wow. Check out this post on Rich Hoeg’s eContent blog: Innovation After Kindergarten. In it, he references some great info from IDEO General Manger and author Tom Kelley. Here’s a snippet:

“Tom Kelley reviewed the works of an artist named Gordon McKenzie. This artist visited a school and spent time with each class from grades K through six. When he asked the kindergartners how many of them were artists … almost every hand went up. By the time he got to the sixth grade and asked the same question, only two hands went up. Somewhere in the intervening six years the children had learned how not to be creative … but instead looked around the classroom and sought their peer’s approval.”

Rich adds to this with his own observation:

“As a coach of Lego Robotics for the pas six years, I learned the same lessons. While the designs from the Minnesota H.S. robotics teams are robust, when it comes to creativity every coach knows one must visit the elementary school competitions. The younger children have not yet been taught what does not yet work. They experiment.”

With a daughter currently in kindergarten, and another set to begin in fall 2010, this is powerful and scary stuff…

I’d classify that as a bold generalization, but my gut tells me there’s plenty of truth in it. That and more are covered in this worthwhile interview with Ginger Carlson, author of “Child of Wonder: Nurturing Creative and Naturally Curious Children.” Here is a quick sample:

“What it boils down to is that schools aren’t able to nurture real creative thinking skills,” Carlson says. “I hate to say that in such a public forum. There are a lot of things that schools do provide. It is difficult in a school setting for us to really allow kids, especially if we have up to 30 kids in a classroom, to allow them to explore things on a deep level. We are seeing art and theater and all these things slipping from our schools in a way we haven’t seen in a long time.”

One research finding that Carlson references states that children that play outside in natural surroundings are more creative than children that play outside on playgrounds. Interesting…

Is the lack of play time in early childhood education the next global warming? Perhaps, according to this article by AP writer David Crary.