Longitude Sound Bytes: Series Synopsis | Creativity – by Bilge Arslan

Creativity: What is creativity and what sparks creativity? 

Difficulties and constraints spark creativity because problems push us to come up with solutions, which in turn leads to opportunities to think outside of the box.

“Solving problems” is a concept that mostly comes to mind when talking about creativity (Ep01). This is true for some cases and sectors but hearing about a variety of experiences in different fields shows that being creative is more than solving problems. Especially in the arts, inspiration can cause creativity, as Anthony Brandt (Ep08) touches upon. What has been done by others in the past can encourage us to create for ourselves (Ep06). Then, we can share our creation and inspire others as well. Glory Nwaugbala (Ep10) indicates that creativity for her is to use old experiences to create new ones. In this sense, creativity is a continuous force that connects the past, the present, and the future. It is like a flowing river that is home to diverse species and allows for various plants to flourish in the places it passes by. Creativity is the way we get inspired by the past to shape the future by acting in the present.

Creativity is both a personal and collective experience. Some professions require people to collaborate while being creative. Leticia Roinesdal, senior manager at Deloitte Consulting, talks about how her job involves getting her clients to think creatively by organizing labs and ideation sessions (Ep03). Ozeal DeBastos talks about creative collaboration (Ep11), which consists of bringing people together in a safe space where they can share their ideas freely. On the other hand, there should be moments where we reflect on forming a path to our own unique creativity. What works for others in terms of generating creativity might not work for us. As Jasmeet Sidhu (Ep05) says, there is no single formula that leads to creativity.

Sticking to a routine or embarking on a brand new journey can give birth to creativity. Carrie Ott-Holland (Ep09) thinks that creativity requires someone to be boring for a long time. This is because one needs to invest time to become good or to develop a strong foundation in their area. Being knowledgeable about a field and developing skills related to a specific interest can be helpful to spark creativity. Laura Huang (Ep04) also mentions that creativity is about patterns. Nonetheless, going out of your comfort zone, challenging the status-quo, and seeing what you know about your field from a different perspective can be definitely helpful to be creative as well. For instance, the labs and brainstorm sessions Vinita Israni (Ep02) organizes encourages being creative by changing the usual environment and ways of thinking.

Being brave and open to try new things, discover new fields, learn, and take risks usually seem to contribute to creativity. Our creative process is intimately tied to everything that we have taken in already. Molly Turner (Ep07), an artist and a musician, says creativity is a result of observations in our lives, and being “mindful” observers.

Join us on Longitude Sound Bytes for new insights and experiences.

Ozeal Debastos, founder of Pod Houston and Ozeal Media, Houston:

Hello, my name is Ozeal Debastos and I am the founder of Pod Houston, which is a Houston based podcasting community where we host educational events for podcasters of all stages.

And one of the things I discovered as a community leader is the power of creative collaboration. I have had many moments of creativity simply by bringing people together and creating a space where they can share their own insights and perspectives.

Everything from having mastermind sessions on new creative ways to market your podcast to learning how I could provide stronger platforms for our members.

Creativity challenges me to think differently on how I can serve better and be a better leader.  When I am in tuned with my creativity I am able to see problems quicker, understand it and have the courage to try something new.

I am finding that community is where the creative spark happens, which is why I believe in the power of one.

Thank you for listening.

Grayson Best, Longitude fellow, University of Texas, Austin:

Ozeal brings up a good point on community sparking creativity. Creativity is best stimulated by a collection of thoughts, and what better way to accomplish that than a group of differing perspectives? We can often be our own worst enemies in problem solving or introspection due to our innate biases; and being able to appreciate and reflect on the thoughts of others allows for a cooperation that would benefit society and promote sympathetic understanding.

In a way, this process is a reflection of general education. In today’s society, most of the things we learn are from the works of other people. We become more intelligent as a society by interacting with others and sharing ideas for others to ponder and internalize, thus progressing personal and societal growth.

We hope you enjoyed todays segment. Please feel free to share your thoughts over social media and in the comments, or write to us at podcast@longitude.site. We would love to hear from you.

Join us next time for more unique insights on Longitude Sound Bytes.

Glory Nwaugbala, associate at Wilmer Hale, New York City:

Hi My name is Glory Nwaugbala and I currently reside in New York City. I’m an associate at WilmerHale.

What does Creativity mean to me?

Well, creativity to me is using old experiences to create new ones. The idea of creativity reminds me of the time I studied abroad in Argentina during college. My psychology class required that we include an artistic aspect to our finals project – a creative representation of how the mind processed input to create a desired output. I remember being completely stumped at first. What on earth was I going to do? Singing was out of the question. Playing an instrument was a no. And let’s not think about drawing or painting. And then it hit me – dance! Specifically, incorporating the step dance routine I’d learned for Rice’s BSA Soulnight event the semester before into a new rendition for the project. With some tinkling here, and some tweaks there – a new routine was born. Weeks later, it was D-day. Entering a room where three other oral finals took place at the same time, I began my own. After completing my final, it was time to bust out the artistic component. I took breath and started in on my step dance routine. By the time I was done the entire room was silent. You could hear a pin drop. Oh no – I’d thought – was it really that bad? I’d practiced for hours! And then the claps began – a literal round of applause as the others in the room with me – both those taking their finals, and the professors giving it – applauded the performance. Where did you learn that? What dance is that called? More questions came from excited and curious onlookers. I explained the history and background of step dancing  – happy and touched that I could share a part of my culture with others, and that they were interested in hearing about it. Of course, later hearing that I’d aced the final wasn’t bad either.

Whatever creativity means to you – don’t be afraid to take chances and create wonderful new memories.

Rachel Carlton, Longitude fellow, Rice University, Houston:

Thanks to Glory for that great example of how creativity doesn’t have to mean starting from scratch. It’s easy to think of yourself as someone who isn’t creative – the creative people we often think about in society are the musicians, the painters, the architects – but everyone has it in them to innovate and produce something one-of-a-kind.

Whether you’re thinking about academia and building upon past research to ask and answer new questions, using engineering design principles to solve problems through inventive solutions, or coming up with ways to explain historical trends, creativity is the basis of that innovation.

It’s the conduit through which people in any field can contribute and advance work that has been done. And as Glory said, it’s a lot of fun.

Think back to your last big project or task and what you did to approach it. What previous knowledge or experience did you draw from to help you? How were you able to answer new questions with what you had already done? You’re sure to identify ways in which you were creative in your efforts.

We hope you enjoyed todays segment. Please feel free to share your thoughts over social media and in the comments, or write to us at podcast@longitude.site. We would love to hear from you.

Join us next time for more unique insights on Longitude Sound Bytes.

Carrie Ott-Holland, manager of performance design research at Google, San Francisco:

Hi, my name is Carrie Ott Holland. I live in Oakland, California, and I currently work at Google where I manage a team of researchers that are working to redesign performance management and promotion processes. And today, I am going to be talking to you about creativity and ways that I have cultivated creativity in my career. 

As a young adult, I was very passionate about classical music. I studied it very intensely, I went to a performing arts high school, and then studied music in college. And I feel like that experience of growing up like that taught me a paradoxical lesson about creativity which is that being creative requires you to be a very boring person for a very very long time. So I’ll give you a couple of examples of what I mean. 

Being creative involves in my experience sticking to a routine. It involves developing a strong foundation of craftsmanship for whatever area that you are in. It requires you to sit with people’s work that gets you excited, that you like, and get incredibly analytical about disecting what it is you like about that and being able to be able to pull that out so can you draw from that in your own creative work. It also requires you to get lots of feedback from people but also spending the time to sit with that, particularly the feedback that you don’t agree with, and understanding where it comes from and thinking through how you can respond to that feedback. 

So, after college I went to do my Phd in organizational psychology. And in graduate school, I was suddenly expected to have all these good ideas about what I was going to do for my thesis or what we should do for a paper and I felt like the expectations were so high and I was constantly getting feedback from the faculty that just felt like criticism and it often left me feeling inadequate.

After several semesters of spending time in coffee shops, hours and hours, reading articles and writing bad papers and getting all this feedback and spending time, I started to find a creative place for myself. And by that, I mean I started to feel like I had tools in my tool belt and I could pick and choose which ones I wanted to apply in which situations. I also got comfortable with the idea of writing down my thoughts and writing down a plan and discussing it with a friend or advisor and then maybe, afterwards, determining that it was terrible and throwing all that work away. And realizing that is part of the process. 

The last thing I want to tell you about, because I studied organizational psychology and am an organization psychologist, I do want to share a little bit about the field of creativity. I’ll share with you a study that personally resonates with me.

The thing about research in creativity is it is notoriously difficult to study. Just trying to determine what creativity looks like in the workplace, much less what contributes to creativity, is enormously challenging and has been many careers worth of work. The study I most like in the field of creativity has to do with going for walks. There were two Stanford researchers, I want to say this was probably 6 or 7 years ago, who had people generate ideas as part of their studies, but before they generated their ideas, they had some of them walk on a treadmill, had some go outside for a walk, and others had to sit at their lab, outside, or at a desk. After doing this for a bit, they were given a prompt and had to generate as many ideas as they possibly could. And the people who walked outside, and even the people who sat outside, tended to do better than those who were inside. And the people who walked versus the people who sat tended to have better ideas. And by better, I mean they had a greater volume of creative ideas and more novel ideas. And I personally have found that although I do need to spend the time digging into the problem space and getting through all the details, being in the weeds, what is most helpful for unlocking the solution is, after all that, going and taking a walk.Getting outside, talking to someone about what I’ve been thinking about, maybe not thinking about the thing at all, and just letting it come back to my mind because eventually, that solution will pop. 

So, those are some of my thoughts on creativity. Thank you so much for listening, and wish you well. 

Shvetali Thatte, Longitude fellow, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland:

Thank you, Carrie, for sharing such amazing insights from your career path.

Growing up I had this notion that creativity was almost spontaneous and you either had it or you didn’t. But similar to what you said as I broadened my perspective by speaking with different adults, mentors and peers, I learned that creativity is cultivated when you learn to combine the knowledge you have in new ways. The study that you brought up was extremely interesting, and it is actually something I have noticed in myself. In high school my favorite place to go when I was stressed was the parking lot, where I would walk along the curve and just think. Sometimes about the pressing issues on my brain but other times I was just daydreaming. The movement and fresh air helped me focus on something other than what was going on in my head, helping me get out of my head and a lot of new thoughts to subconsciously enter that I could later deliberate on. I didn’t stop myself from thinking about something that was maybe possible maybe it wasn’t I just let the ideas flow through me.

We hope you enjoyed todays segment. Please feel free to share your thoughts over social media and in the comments, or write to us at podcast@longitude.site. We would love to hear from you.

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Anthony Brandt, professor of composition at Rice University and the co-author of Runaway Species: How Human Creativity Remakes the World, Houston:

Often in the creativity literature, you’ll read writers talking about how the creative impulse largely springs from the desire to fix something that’s imperfect or needs improvement. That’s where the expression necessity is the mother of invention comes from. And that can certainly be true with things like devices and appliances, which are constantly being updated and tweaked. But that notion doesn’t really hold up well in the arts.

Beethoven didn’t write symphonies because he thought there was anything wrong with Mozart’s. And he didn’t write his 8th symphony because he thought there was something wrong with his 7th. Rather, I would turn that whole concept on its’ head and say that, humans show our love for something not just by preserving or memorializing it but, by turning it into something new.

One could say that goal of culture is to take the best from the past, and make sure it stays alive and active in human imagination. I have known plenty of composers, especially in my teachers’ generation, who are very intimidated by class of composers like Bach and Beethoven. They wondered aloud whether there was any point in still writing music, when those past masters were so great. To which I would say that a composer like Beethoven wanted to be the best composer of their day but he didn’t want to be the last. In fact, if you were to tell him that people revered his music so much they didn’t want anyone else to compose, I think he would be appalled. All he ever wanted to do was to put forth his best and then pass the baton. I think, if Beethoven could visit today’s world, of course he would be happy to see his music being played everywhere, but I think what would really make him tear up is that so many people would point to him as a role model and inspiration even if their music sounded very different from his. It would be like, he would be surrounded by his grandchildren, and his great grandchildren.

The great works of the past aren’t there to stop us. They are there to provide us with the raw materials to keep going. That is very important to stress in teaching. It is important to teach students that the past isn’t there to be this great edifice that can’t be surpassed, but rather is an invitation to go beyond and make your own.

Sarah Sowell, Longitude fellow, Rice University, Houston:

I loved how Dr.Brandt focuses on how composers used creativity in the composing process to glorify what they love – This insight into creativity as a celebration of what makes us human made me think of all the famous and beautiful artwork that honors the people, places, and beliefs we humans hold dear such as the Last Supper by DeVinci or Taj Mahal. I realized Creativity is an opportunity to celebrate the joy that unites us. 

We hope you enjoyed todays segment. Please feel free to share your thoughts over social media and in the comments, or write to us at podcast@longitude.site. We would love to hear from you.

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Molly Turner, orchestral conducting graduate student at the Juilliard School, NYC:

Of course, it’s hard to put a specific definition or hard-lined idea for what creativity is. But I had a freshman year music theory teacher, Tony Brandt, provide some structure and framework with which we can talk about creativity. Dr. Brandt wrote a book called, The Runaway Species, subtitled, How Human Creativity Remakes the World, and he wrote that with a pretty famous neuroscientist, David Eagleman, and they had this concept of creativity being founded on three important elements, and that’s the three B’s, which is bending, blending, and breaking.

So something that’s bending is that we take an idea that we know and we just kind of shift it in a slightly different lens. Blending is obviously combining two different ideas and seeing what comes between the interaction of them. And then breaking is taking this idea or multiple ideas and kind of crushing it in a way. And Dr. Brandt had a really beautiful way of connecting this with music because all the music that we wrote, and I have a music composition background, all the music that we write or the things we create, are just sort of an amalgamation of the things that we have already observed. Our creative process is intimately tied to everything that we have taken in already. And as a young composer, that was a really important framework with which to work with. And again, the bending, blending, and breaking are the transformations by which we create things.

Creativity is intimately tied to my identity as an artist, which is more specifically, a musician. And for me, that core of it has always involved observation and being a mindful observer. In order to create things, we have to observe the things around us.

Jordan Ramirez, Longitude fellow, Indiana University, Bloomington:

I believe Molly Turner’s insights regarding the development of one’s creativity are very accurate. In many ways, what we put into the world is a reflection of our own experiences.

Artists are always lauded as being immensely creative, and this is because they are especially adept at displaying their unique experiences in a way that is both unique and relatable. Now, I know we’ve all heard some of the annoyingly repetitive melodies of modern pop songs and the comically simple pieces of contemporary art, but these are truly the minorities.

Fortunately, most artists pride themselves on creating art that is as unique as their own backgrounds. Many of the most famous artists; however, are those that can cause viewers to relate their work. There is a reason why Drake always mentions the “6” in his songs. Relatability is often essential for many artists to become widely popular

Something that really stood out to me was that Molly Turner mentioned how important it is to be a “mindful” observer. It is so important, given these current times that we do not simply project our own stories but the stories of those that have been neglected. We must be willing to listen and embrace others’ experiences, because this will greatly improve our creativity, but more importantly improve our world.

We hope you enjoyed todays segment. Please feel free to share your thoughts over social media and in the comments, or write to us at podcast@longitude.site. We would love to hear from you.

Join us next time for more unique insights on Longitude Sound Bytes.

Kerim Miskavi, architect and owner of MAS Architecture Studio, Istanbul, Turkey:

Hi, my name is Kerim Miskavi, I’m an architect from Istanbul, Turkey and I currently run a small architecture studio called MAS.

Creativity is an essential part of my life because I rely on it both in my work as an architect, and as a broader lens to look at the world. For me a lot of times it’s an automatic reaction sort of like breathing, because I need it to do my work on a daily basis, but I think that if we make a mindful effort, we can understand creativity and use it to tackle the problems that we face as a society.

I never really considered myself to be very creative person by nature but I think there’s a process through which creativity can be cultivated by anyone over time. While that may sound easier than done, I’ve found that there are some key concepts that can be useful.

First of all, I think you have to lay the groundwork by constantly feeding your mind stuff from the world. You need to be positively curious about things that are interesting to you, no matter how unimportant they appear at the time. Travel, films, books, music, botany, coding, history, cooking, art, technology…. You name it – your constant wanderings through these interests will build up the reserves so that when the time comes you can draw inspiration from them.

When you do take on a problem, it’s all about making new connections between these seemingly disconnected ideas or experiences. The process is never a linear one and can sometimes be frustrating so it is going to feel painful at first, but as you practice you will be able to get better at making those connections and push yourself further. The most important part to focus on your process without worrying about the results. You need to suspend anxieties about the outcome and just focus on trying things, even if they seem stupid at first. Never give up on an idea before testing it, trust your instincts and intuition, and learn to just go with it.

Finally, once you have followed your creative thinking process to exhaustion, you must look at the big picture and decide on which path to pursue based on your best judgment. This is always the hardest part because there is never really one answer to any given question. Most people imagine that creativity is something that appears out of thin air just like magic, but in reality, it’s a rigorous process with lots uncertainty. As creators we should learn to embrace uncertainty, and keep trying. Sometimes things work out and sometimes they don’t, but every once in a while you create something new and beautiful, and that feels quite close to magic. That’s why I think creativity has the potential to make the world a better place for all of us, and I think it’s something that we should all strive for.

These key concepts have been essential in my creative work. For example, when we were responding to an open call for installations at Dubai Design Week last year, we started by looking at the region’s built history for some fresh ideas. We tried to keep the search as broad as possible, and look for clues that would guide our response in a way that would be relevant to the built environment of Dubai today. When saw the Barjeel, which is the name for historical wind towers that have been used in the region for centuries to passively cool people’s houses, we thought “Oh wow that’s a great concept, what if we could build a contemporary wind tower for people to cool down during design week?” Taking this as a starting point, we built a series of small scale mockups to test the idea out of cardboard, and at some point started wondering “if we can build the mockups out of cardboard, why can’t we build the real thing out of cardboard too? It would be light, sturdy, cheap and fully recyclable.” It took a lot of trial and error, but in the end we managed to build a 6.5 meter tall structure almost exclusively out of stacking recycled cardboard layers without using any chemical adhesives. But most importantly, at every step along the way we questioned “How is this relevant today? Why do such a thing?” and my instinct was that in today’s increasingly urbanized global society, it’s important to go back in time and find highly successful, local solutions to sustainable living such as the wind tower because these can actually inform how we think about cities and architecture in the future. Bringing all of these ideas through a creative process led us to push the boundaries by taking an idea and a material that have been readily available and bring them together in a completely new way. 

Yi Luo, Longitude fellow, Rice University, Houston:

Thank you, Kerim, for sharing such amazing insights from your career path.

I really appreciate the three key concepts you talked about. Stay positively curious, making new connection between seemingly disconnected ideas, and follow creative thinking process to exhaustion. I found these concepts echo with my own studio experiences as an architecture student, especially the last one. Often when I found myself stuck in a phase of designing; I tend to start over with a new idea. At the end of the day, I may have ten all very aspiring directions, none of them really work because they remain in very surface level. Last semester I decided to only focus on one design instead of making 50 variations.  It was hard but by pushing harder and digging deeper, I can force myself to break down the problems and really think about creative approach to solve it. There is no design that is completely hopeless. I think You just need to keep pushing yourself through a systematic approach.

We hope you enjoyed todays segment. Please feel free to share your thoughts over social media and in the comments, or write to us at podcast@longitude.site. We would love to hear from you.

Join us next time for more unique insights on Longitude Sound Bytes.

Jasmeet Sidhu, supervising creative producer at MasterClass.com, San Francisco:

Hi. I’m Jasmeet Sidhu, and I’m supervising creative producer at MasterClass.com,  based here in San Francisco.

Creativity is such an elusive concept. It’s something that we all seek and want in our lives in many ways, whether or not we are artists.

How do you become creative? How do you sustain creativity? How do you harness that creativity in productivity? How do you develop creative taste?

I think these are all questions for those who work in creative fields like myself are constantly asking.

In my line of work, I get to help create MasterClasses with some of the most creative minds in the world: photographer Annie Leibovitz, Vogue editor Anna Wintour, director Ron Howard, actress Helen Mirren, DaVinci code author Dan Brown are just some of the creatives we have on the website.

What’s interesting to me, is that they all have a different approach when it comes to creativity and the creative process. No process is the same.

I think what this tells me, with over 80 people that we’ve now interviewed on the website, is that you have to let your process be your own.

There’s no magic formula for being successful, and certainly there’s no magic formula for being creative.

But you have to continually allow space for that creative energy to flow through your life.

For myself, its important that I engage with projects that have nothing to do with my work, or for gain for my career. These projects become a safe space for me to express, make mistakes, and live in the safety that no one has to see what I make in the light of day.

That’s what helps me keep my creative juices flowing and sharpened when I do have to bring those muscles into my work.  That’s what creativity means to me.

Bilge Arslan, Longitude fellow, Yale-NUS College, Singapore:

Thanks for sharing your valuable insights with us, Jasmeet! I find the idea that we should think of creativity as unique to each individual quite interesting. I also think that there is not a magic formula to become creative.

Related to this, I want to go back to Jasmeet’s point about the importance of engaging with projects that are completely different from work. I resonate with this idea a lot because I enjoy ballroom dancing in my free time and it serves as the fresh air I need in between my studies.

More importantly, it helps me see things from a different perspective, which allows me to be more creative. I learn about how harmony and good communication with and respect for each other can lead to an aesthetic show that the audience enjoys. The intricacies of dance then teach me to pay attention to small details that can bring about creativity in other areas as well.

So, what is your creativity and where do you find it? The journey through which we explore the answers to these questions can be creativity itself!

We hope you enjoyed todays segment. Please feel free to share your thoughts over social media and in the comments, or write to us at podcast@longitude.site. We would love to hear from you.

Join us next time for more unique insights on Longitude Sound Bytes.

Laura Huang, professor at Harvard Business School and the author of Edge: Turning adversity into advantage, Boston:

Hi. I am Laura Huang. I am a professor at Harvard Business School, and I currently live in Boston.

In terms of creativity, I think creativity is very much about patterns and stories and narratives. In this way I think it is very three dimensional, rather than a two dimensional concept. And what we think about creativity has changed a lot in the years past, especially because we are so socially connected. Instead of using constraints and obstacles to make us more creative, we instead tend to look to others and their solutions, which entirely limits our creativity. But in fact, so much of creativity is in constraint.

So an example what I mean by this is…you know, a lot of work looks into entrepreneurship, a field where you need a lot of creativity and innovation. What we have seen a lot of recently is the cropping up of a lot of corporate incubators. Incubators, where companies like Microsoft and Intel and Google will have an incubator that is their own. And within these incubators they will be trying to have startups that originate, startups that are able to answer some of the questions that they are looking to answer, come up with technologies that might be useful for them for the future and this is a great way for them in-house to be able to support the types of technologies and innovation that they need.

The problem is that these startups, what they have found over time is that these startups do not have the constraint in the same ways that other startups do. These startups know that they are getting funding from their companies, so they are getting funded by Microsoft or Intel of Google, and they don’t have that same kind of hustle, or that same type of constraint where they need to be creating a product that lots of people want. Instead they are trying to tailor their product what they think Google, or Microsoft or Intel want. And by doing so, they are actually less creative and less innovative.  So having some of that constraint, having some of those limitations, those obstacles are sometimes what actually enable creativity.

Claire Wang, Longitude fellow, Rice University, Houston:

What Professor Huang said about creativity really reminds me of having to write essays for class.

More often than not, someone before you has written about what you’re trying to write. When you’re stuck, the first thought that comes to mind is probably, ‘well what did other people write’. The truth is, we really do like to look at others for inspiration! But once we see what others have done, it often becomes much harder to come up with our own ideas or think for ourselves.

And like the corporate incubators, with school it’s also easy to fall into the trap of writing what you think your instructor or professor wants you to write based on previous lectures and discussions in class, and that in itself limits your creative capacity.

So maybe if we added some constraints, if we put ourselves in a smaller box, maybe it becomes easier to think outside of the box. Perhaps it’s time we become a little bit more deliberate and courageous with facilitating creativity. At a certain point, we should reflect and be honest with ourselves: are we fostering, or are we limiting, our own creativity?

We hope you enjoyed todays segment. Please feel free to share your thoughts over social media and in the comments, or write to us at podcast@longitude.site. We would love to hear from you.

Join us next time for more unique insights on Longitude Sound Bytes.

Leticia Camara Roinesdal, senior manager at Deloitte Consulting, Houston:

Hi everybody! This is Leticia Roinesdal, excited to be here with you guys today to talk a little bit about creativity on my first Longitude Sound Bytes.

I am a Rice University graduate, 2010 Jones College, married to a fellow Rice alum, who is also Jones College but we could talk about that another time. We have two small kids and we live here in Houston, Texas.

One of the things that I wanted to talk to you all about today is creativity. And, you know, I am in a fortunate position where I actually get to apply creativity on a daily basis. Not only at work but also home with two little kids. So, you know, as a senior manager in a consulting environment, it’s my job to lead teams to help companies with complex problems. And from a human capital perspective, I look at these problems from a people lens. And I like to say that my job is to focus on making humans better at work and the workplace better for humans. So, I am typically at the intersection of how digital, future of work, employee experience, you know, demands from younger generations, all of these exponential changes are impacting us from a work, so how does our job actually change, to work place and a work force perspective. So, this is complex and most of the time, it’s my job to help clients understand what this even means and how this impacts their employees and then how they can message it and work through, you know, their strategy with their employees.

On a daily basis, I would say, I am typically thinking outside of the box. That’s how I think about creativity. You know, how do I take a moment to pull myself out of my typical, you know, answers and solution type mind to, you know, ask the right questions, like what’s the right question that we’re trying to solve today, how do I walk a moment in someone else’s shoes, and how do I make sure that I am asking the questions even if they sound like simple questions that folks would typically hesitate to think through in more detail. So, for me it’s really taking a full step back to allow all of the possible before we get to an actual solution. So, you know, working with clients, I typically pull clients into labs and I force them to kind of have a different environment, so, you know, bean bags, lounge chairs, plato, wire-tubbing- things that’ll help senior folks get out of their daily, you know, shoes essentially and pull them out of their daily habits of no questions and work some anxieties and have them just think creatively and help them think outside of the box. So, we do different types of labs and ideation sessions to make sure that, you know, they’re lowering all of their inhibitions and allowing themselves to approach a problem from a different lens. And I do this, you know, everyday almost in one way or another and making sure that we are progressing towards the right strategies and the right implementation plans with our clients.

You know, also as a team leader, it’s my job to make sure that I’m creating an effective environment for my teams to bring their authentic selves to work. So, when you are working and leading different teams, how do you make sure that everybody has enough time to process information, how do you make sure that everyone feels comfortable, you know, participating in a brainstorming session, how do you know enough about people to understand what motivates them, what energizes them, you know, and what’s gonna be a drain task, and how do you assign, you know tasks to team members, based on what’s gonna energize and excite them. So, these are all things that I’m thinking through, you know, on a daily basis as I am talking to my teams, you know, managing across multiple projects and then also managing the client scenarios.

One of the things that, you know, has really changed in my life, of course, is becoming a mom. And so, as a mom, creativity is challenging because kids think in really simple but abstract ways and they remember some vivid details and they just absorb everything around them. So, in my house, creativity for me is slowing down, being present, playing with kinetic sand or finger painting. And you know what, wouldn’t you know it, sometimes I get my best ideas for different client sessions from these moments.

Thanks so much for listening!

Jimmy Ren, Longitude fellow, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia:

Leticia works on getting her clients to think about things in different ways to approach problems to implement the right strategies and plans with their clients

Also has to work towards making sure people are working well and authentically

Personally, I find Leticia’s work fascinating because her work has to take a deeper look into how individuals act in a team, and how we can help others think differently.

In retrospect, I think leading teams requires a complex understanding of we as humans work. Trying to get people to work more effectively and in a comfortable, more authentic matter definitely takes an understanding of how they think, what they can do, and what they enjoy. I know in my past, I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about the strengths of my team members, and helping them utilize that energy to try to get the most out of them to work on projects.

While it for sure takes some practice to get used to, I would recommend for every person to think about this as they continue throughout their lives to be conscious of how others think. The way Leticia steps back to try to think outside of the box to ask the right questions is something we can do every day in our lives to try to understand other people.

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