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The bible tells us we are made in the image of the creator. He molded us in his own likeness, the one that created the heavens and the earth and everything we see: a busy and outside the box thinker with the grit of the hardest construction worker. Or, if religion is not your source of belief, just look at human history: while every other animal on this planet has relatively stayed the same, humans have created great works of beauty and horror on massive scales. The evidence points to an ability to create that is both awesome and terrifying; we are wonderfully and fearfully made. Well, some of us.
Why is it that some of us make great works of art and some of us don't? The talk I gave to new teachers on Friday stemmed from different articles and books I have been reading on the abilities and limitations of computing and the effects on the future of work. It can be scary to think about the work we do now that computers and robots are able to do, that much of our reason for employment can be outsourced to machines that do not get tired or need time off for holidays and family. The limitations come from forms of thinking that cannot be programmed. A robot can recreate Mona Lisa, but it has trouble creating an original piece. Even the art computers can create are combinations of other pieces. So it is important as educators to help kids get to the point that they work at the top of the chart of critical thinking skills: creation. Creation is original work done after the other levels of critical thinking have been mastered.
Through reading Linchpin by Seth Godin, I have realized that much of the challenge of creation is not cognitive, but emotional and social. Daniel Goleman also verifies this in his books.We are curious and creative/destructive at a young age. We go through childhood being evaluated and criticized; ready for factory work from a system highly influenced by industrial leaders. We are taught to follow formulas and authority and gauge our value from the opinions and evaluations of those higher up. But Bolman and Deal explain in Reframing Organizations that there is no higher up: that organizational charts are a mental construct, that once a person decides to leave an organization their values in hierarchy are greatly reduced. And, that is not how great artists and creators work. I remember a story of Michelangelo while touring the Sistine Chapel, where a cardinal that tried to censor his work became part of it: the devil in the lowest level of hell. In Team of Teams, General McCrystal talks about the frustration in dealing with Al Qaida in that they did not fit into a strict hierarchy, they are a conglomeration of independent entrepreneurs, so eliminating one leader does not have a long effect on the organization. And now, most leading organizations are focused on how to flatten their organizations and give more authority to the lowest levels: the levels closest to their customers.
So the work of leadership then to create creative environments, is not so much to command and control, but to inspire. There are many sources to look for in inspiring leadership, but the core elements come down to three I learned at a young age but did not wholly understand: Faith, Hope, Love. When one thinks of confident leadership, it is nothing more than faith: faith in your abilities, faith in your vision, sometimes just faith in the Almighty to reward you for your faith. Faith as belief has had thousands of incidents of proof: the sugar pill cure, the teacher who mistakenly thought all of her students were geniuses, people who have endured past human ability. Hope is the next focus, people have to have hope to commit: the hope for growth, the hope for a better future, hope to succeed. I find it entertaining that the two presidential candidates that used hope as the one word for their campaigns were jeered and ridiculed and had lopsided victories. As hope increases, so does enthusiasm, and it is connected to faith. The last is the most powerful, according to Jesus, and it is simple and complex at the same time. It is love. Love is a tossed around word. It is cheap to say and hard to do. The truth is you cannot fake love: our senses are highly tuned to acceptance and denial as social creatures. Either you commit to it or you are seen as the biggest fake, a user and manipulator of our deepest trust. It is a choice, past the initial euphoria of first meetings, it takes commitment to grow, it is the highest of highs and lowest of lows of emotional intelligence: the greatest adventure.
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