> ...This past January, I started a company, IdeaLab,
> partially in response to the dearth of creative and innovative thinking in
> many of my clients' companies: they weren't learning, they weren't getting
> better, they weren't innovating, they weren't contributing...
My clients often mention creativity in their initial inquiries. "We
interested in learning and improving creativity around here."
One client wanted us to create a module for their new managers course with
learning organizaiton and systems thinking elements. However, these were
felt to be too hard to sell within the org, so they wanted to sneak our
material in a wrapper of "creativity." I'm telling this story not to put
down the client but to illustrate that learning organization can be a hard
"sell," and the creativity connection has come up several times.
And, I *do* believe that when an org becomes more of a learning
organization, there will be *lots* more creativity unleashed. When people
are clearer about what they want, when things are more open and there is
less fear, when there is greater systemic understanding about why things
are happening, when there is less blame and less fear of being blamed --
All these will release natural creativity.