I recently finished reading Ken Robinsons book titled Out of Our Minds: Learning to be Creative and this is an interesting book about how undervalued creativity is in our society. His point of the book, I believe, is that in a rapidly changing and evolving world, creativity should be valued more than ever in order to move innovation forward.In this book he gives a great deal of insight on where we have come from, where we are, and his thoughts on where we are headed. There is so much in this book that it was hard to journal just bits and pieces without having to rewrite the majority of the book! But there was one very small section that really caught my attention. His section entitled In the flow, Robinson says
"The term 'flow' has been used to describe peak creative performances. These are times when we are immersed in something that completely engages our creative capabilities and draws equally from our knowledge, feelings, and intuitive passions. These peak performances typically occur when someone is working in their element at the peak of their performance. In this respect, creativity involves particular attitudes and being able to access deep personal resources. There is a further factor, which is difficult to describe. Perhaps the best word for this is passion. People who have achieved great things in a given field are often driven by a love for it, a passion for the nature of the process involved."
My question to you is this- Are you passionate about what you are doing? Do you wake up every morning excited to go to your job and excited to work with the people you are working with? If not, Why? What are you going to do about it? It will be impossible for you to reach the height of your performance abilities if you never feel a passion for what it is you are doing. If this is the case not only will you never reach your peak performance, you will hinder your groups attempt to reach their peak performance as well. Look around. If you are working with a group that is stuck in a rut, figure out if you are part of the problem or part of the solution and get to work on finding passion. Not just for you, but for your team.
2 comments:
Very few people can keep up that level of passion. Most industries/companies/jobs still operate based on systems in the Industrial Revolution (ie stand there, pull that lever and push that button). Managers are afraid to put their employees in charge and let them exercise passion. They don't trust them and more importantly they don't trust themselves.
Even worse the environment is dictated by Management X Theory mentalities which train people to keep their passion and creativity under wraps.
Its been proven over and over if you flatten your organization, empower all your employees, let them unleash their potential you'll have to worry about growing too fast.
If play is the work of childhood, as Fred Rogers said, then I'll say work is the play of adulthood. I love my work. Sure, some days are hard and tiring and I'm not always on; but those are just days.
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