Cat-herder

By Anne Miller of The Creativity Partnership

It seems heresy to mention it, as schools at last get their delayed SATs results, but learning should be fun.

It sometimes feels as if there’s a small group of us pushing this, in the face of waves of orthodoxy promoting ever more testing, metrics and targets.

Our kids are the most tested in Europe, yet ranked only 14th for science in a league table of 57 nations: behind Estonia and Lichtenstein.

Our school curricula seem to get ever more controlling and prescriptive: a young and creative friend of mine gave up GCSE Art recently, saying it was boring.  This was because, rather than being allowed to get on with being creative, they were set a theme, had to research other artists’ work on that theme, do sketches based on their work, produce a painting incorporating what they'd learnt, and then write it up. This prescriptive process was understandably frustrating and produced results that were inevitably derivative.

Things can be no better in business.  I’m often designing workshops and courses to help senior and experienced staff work creatively on the challenges facing them. However, quite frequently the biggest barrier is the very targets and metrics that are meant to incentivise their performance.

In one case, the performance bonuses were so extreme that senior staff would effectively lose 40% of their take-home pay if they thought more than one year ahead. 

In another major corporation, performance metrics were focussed so tightly on the short term tangible return, that the top performing scientists tended to get “rewarded” by being asked to work on short- term line extensions.  If they insisted on working on longer term innovations, even potential block-busters, their take-home pay and promotion prospects would suffer.  Quite understandably, they were getting frustrated at the daft situation and the waste of their talents.

So where does fun come in?

We are most creative when we can combine playfulness with serious intent. This is because, as we can all recognise when thinking about our own behaviour, that’s when we’re most receptive and most open to new ideas. 

It has always seemed obvious to me that that this also makes for a good learning environment too.  In my courses, we’ll focus on real and important challenges, but there’ll be laughter too.  I adopted the same tactic in my book, not least, because I had such fun researching entertaining examples to illustrate my points about how to get ideas adopted.

“Fun” isn’t a concept that’s much associated with “Business School” (just try Googling on it!) so I was pleased by the enthusiastic reaction I got when I gave a group of executives at a course I was running for Chalmers University, chapter 3 of my book to read. This included the story of the combined toy dog and vacuum cleaner (US patent No 3,771,192) and one of my favourite quotations from Vroomfondel, the representative of the Amalgamated Union of Sages, Luminaries and Other Thinking Persons in Douglas Adam’s classic comedy Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy demanding “rigidly defined areas of doubt and uncertainty”.

It’s nice to feel in good company, so I was thrilled to come across Stephen Browns book, The Marketing Code. Stephen is Professor of Marketing at the University of Ulster and seems to have invented a new genre of literature, “the marketing thriller”.

This crosses the boundary between fiction and an educational text, so it’s a gripping and entertaining romp through a Da Vinci code inspired world of codes and conspiracies, freemasons and murders, interspersed with nuggets of wisdom about important marketing ideas, new and old. 

I was pleased to see one of his characters emphasising the importance of “subjectivity, involvement and passion”, rather than the traditional “Anglo-Saxon mindset …of order, rigour, rectitude and control”.    I know the book sounds bizarre, but it’s fun…… and it works.

Enjoy the summer.  For a fun and interesting read, try

• The Myth of the Mousetrap: how to get your ideas adopted (and change the world).  Anne Miller  www.themythofthemousetrap.org 
• The Marketing Code.  Stephen Brown www.sfxbrown.com
• Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.  Douglas Adams

Anne Miller is Director of The Creativity Partnership.  www.tcp-uk.co.uk  01223 513821

© Copyright Anne Miller 2008

About Anne Miller and The Creativity Partnership

Anne Miller is director and founder of The Creativity Partnership, helping a wide range of organisations build creativity and partnership.

Anne has an infectious enthusiasm for creativity. She began her career with an MA in Engineering from Cambridge University, then spent 20 years leading teams developing innovative products in collaboration with the world's leading companies. She is a successful inventor and holds 39 patents for a diverse range of products, ranging from power tools to the manufacturing system for the female condom.

Anne was one of the founders of TTP Group in 1988, and played an active part in fostering the Group's innovative culture. As TTP developed she became increasingly interested in how the ability to innovate can be developed in both organisations and individuals. She founded The Creativity Partnership in 2000, spinning out from TTP in 2004.

The Creativity Partnership runs senior level training courses, workshops and events and helps organisations develop greater creativity and partnership.