In my previous post about the Spaces You Need to Innovate I explored a range of specific domains of thinking and practice that impact on your ability to innovate.
Each space contributes to the culture and in particular the conditions for innovation. Some spaces are more prominent and noticeable than others, whereas some have a more significant influence than others but cannot be seen.
In this follow up post, I share a few further examples of ‘spaces‘ that seem to influence our ability to bring ideas to fruition.
Digital Space
Technology has always been part of my work as a teacher and as a consultant. I have seen how students can work together on ideas from the the very earliest days of collaborative docs to blogging.
More recently there are a whole plethora of tools that allow remote teams to operate and innovate together. Without such a Digital Space remote teams would not exist.
I wonder if a complimentary Digital Space has become a default arena which helps innovation projects. When digital spaces operate effectively, they improve communication (outside of email), facilitate collaboration and allow for improved project management.
I am still not completely convinced you need a Digital Space for creative, innovative work. Although it has become a standard space for us to operate it in, a Digital Space seems a “nice to have” not a “must have”.
That said, asynchronous work needs to occur somewhere and digital spaces offer us great opportunities for staying connected and organised. What do you think?
Relational Space
“I prefer to bounce ideas of other people.” How regularly have you heard colleagues, friends and peers say something similar?
A strong contender for a fundamental space for innovation is the opportunity to share the innovative work with others. Encased within this effort is, of course, the process of collaboration which defines many projects. It is rare for us to have to implement creative projects alone.
The Relational Space for Innovation not only refers to the level of collaboration that fundamental but also to the quality of the relationships that exist.
We might consider these relationships as being central to the work taking place: colleagues you are working with, teams and others you consult directly regarding the project.
Relationships exist obliquely too. These might be the fundamental relationships between the industry and stakeholders, or even those indirectly impacted by your work.
Whichever type the Relational Space for Innovation is a key component; the quality of the relationships at the heart of the innovation process is directly proportional to the likelihood of success.
Developmental Space
My final contender, in this blog post, is the Developmental Space to Innovate. I define this space as the room you have developmentally to explore new projects, programmes or opportunities.
In a previous article (Innovation Compression) I explored the situation when new programmes and initiatives pile up. Despite the best of intentions we need to clear the way for new developmental work.
How much is on your plate right now? Are those who bought the crockery removing stuff as well as piling things on?
Innovation compression might be when good ideas or innovative programmes are introduced [forced] into a space still occupied by previous innovations. Programmes get compacted as nothing is removed, nothing is freed up. This is about new and old(er) innovations attempting to co-exist and it typically leads to a reduction in efficacy of the newer innovation. I suppose the incumbent might hold existing ground and resources.
If the Developmental Space is not available we will be fighting for attention, resources and energy at every turn. The Developmental Space for our new thinking, renewal projects and creative ideas is key.
FREE Bonus Innovation Resource
My innovation resource explores the conditions for innovation at different levels of an organisation and offers some great prompts for improving your innovation culture.
The PDF resource includes
Question and Dialogue Prompt Cards
Explores the common emotional blocks to creativity
Extends the ideas through various levels of an organisation
Builds on known innovation models
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Innovation is a process with a range of other ideas nested within it. When you peer inside you see creativity, curiosity, feedback and taking action. All interdependent and collectively they might be called innovation.
When you think of the “space to innovate” what immediately springs to mind? The physical environment around you? Space where you might develop ideas? Alternatively perhaps something about the time you have available?
During my work with architects and learning environment projects over the last eight years, I have started to identify a richer, more complex, set of spaces and dependencies. Beyond just the physical space we design.
Each space contributes to the culture and in particular (for this blog post at least) the conditions for innovation. Some spaces are more prominent and noticeable than others, whereas some have a more significant influence than others but cannot be seen.
For each concept, I have shared some initial thoughts, links and quotes. Each section concludes with some small steps, Protocols and Practices you might take to encourage thinking about it’s relationship to your innovation efforts. You will see these in the green blocks like this one.
To conclude the article I have shared a mental model to explore the relationship between the different spaces. I am interested in what happens when one of these spaces is missing or poorly resourced. What impact might this have on the overall Space for Innovation.?
One of the first times I consciously experienced the impact of the physical environment on my thinking was when organising some of the first Teachmeets in my region back in England.
I was able to secure a modern, purpose-built professional learning space for an inaugural TeachMeet in the Midlands and it was a considerable departure from the Victorian school buildings I was accustomed.
The physical environment signalled collaboration and connection as well as high expectations. It was an inspiring place to plan and develop the event.
Of course, the impact of the physical space on our ability to innovate can be unconsciously negative. We normalise our surroundings pretty quickly and so get used to a lack of collaboration, visibility or space to externalise our ideas.
Physical spaces for innovation have become a little cliche. Whiteboards and open spaces, you don’t have to go far to find image galleries of all sorts of workspaces squarely designed for innovation and creativity.
On a much more personal level, the physical space for innovation may look very different for each of us. Fresh air and exercise is an excellent primer for new thinking. Or perhaps you prefer the utility of the whiteboard and the proximity to abundant post-it note supplies.
Of the spaces I am exploring in this post, the Physical Space for Innovation is the most observable. Take a look around you now dear reader; you can quickly judge your surroundings for yourself in how much they are the right conditions for curiosity and ideas.
Protocols and Practices > Triage your space for what is not needed or used infrequently. > Create visible spaces for externalising and storing your ideas. > Change things up – get outside, get out of the room.
Temporal Space
A further space that often conceals the opportunity for innovation is Time. It is one of the most critical aspects of creating the right conditions for change and new ideas to flourish.
It is not just about the amount of time we have but the way we use that time. Too much haste is an emotional block to creativity and will likely push people away from exploring original ideas.
Think carefully about how the pace of thinking and work is being used to suit the needs of different people. Vary the pace to allow everyone the opportunity to share ideas and develop original concepts.
Just as “one size does not fit all” – when it comes to the Temporal Space for Innovation one pace does not fit all.
There’s never enough time to do all the nothing you want.
Bill Watterson
The structure of Time can be lightly resting on us, or it can create pressure. A pressure to perform, create or submit ideas by a deadline. This false-haste can have a negative impact. We need time to play.
John Cleese explains it well:
The open mode is a relaxed, expansive, and less purposeful mode in which we’re probably more contemplative, more inclined to humour (which always accompanies a wider perspective), and, consequently, more playful. It’s a mood in which curiosity for its own sake can operate because we’re not under pressure to get a specific thing done quickly. We can play, and that is what allows our natural creativity to surface.
In schools, we organise time into a table. That enduring structure can dictate the experience way beyond the original remit. Blocks of time signal the start and end of thinking or work. Often days are punctuated by a rhythm a long way from what might be considered ideal for play, deep thinking and innovation.
We might have beautiful, creative physical spaces but time structures that do not match. We have to pay attention to them both.
Protocols and Practices > Explore different times of day for development work. > Protect longer blocks of time you have set aside for deeper work. > Look at the medium to long-term provision of quality project time.
Cognitive Space
The further we are from the Physical the more difficult it is to observe these concepts. The Cognitive Space for Innovation refers to the capacity we have for thinking in a playful, creative and exploratory way.
When our thoughts are swamped or overwhelmed with too many projects, deadlines and tasks it is very difficult to be able to commit to the challenge of innovative work.
You will always be able to pick those moments when your Cognitive Space is crowded, or when your colleagues say, “I don’t have time for that now.” We need to ensure we clear some room for the wide-ranging thinking that innovation requires.
One of my favourite mental models is the analogy of the mind used by Sherlock Holmes. He describes the (Cognitive Space) as an attic. You may have heard of Attic Theory. This passage from a Study in Scarlet explains it some more:
“You see,” he explained, “I consider that a man’s brain originally is like a little empty attic, and you have to stock it with such furniture as you choose. A fool takes in all the lumber of every sort that he comes across, so that the knowledge which might be useful to him gets crowded out, or at best is jumbled up with a lot of other things so that he has a difficulty in laying his hands upon it. Now the skilful workman is very careful indeed as to what he takes into his brain-attic. He will have nothing but the tools which may help him in doing his work, but of these, he has a large assortment and all in the most perfect order. It is a mistake to think that that little room has elastic walls and can distend to any extent. Depend upon it there comes a time when for every addition of knowledge you forget something that you knew before. It is of the highest importance, therefore, not to have useless facts elbowing out the useful ones.”
A Study in Scarlet – Arthur Conan Doyle
Attic Theory is an excellent example of applying a physical space analogy to the Cognitive Space between our ears.
The Cognitive Space for Innovation is something that can be hidden to us. Teachers, facilitators and leaders need to carefully uncover the signals of an overcrowded cognitive space.
My favourite method is to ask “What is on your mind?” to a group. Give it a try and then adapt what you are about to do in response.
Protocols and Practices > Identify ways to relieve the pressure so others can focus. > Pay attention to the number of active projects and programmes. > Ask “What is on your mind?” to allow the pressures to be shared.
Emotional Space
“Head, heart and hands” right? The Emotional Space for Innovation is a close ally to the Cognitive Space. The Emotional Space for Innovation for me refers to the commitment, passion and purpose each person has.
This space is about how much we care about the ideas and challenges we are exploring. Perhaps it is linked to whether the people in your team have self-selected (see Agentic) to be there or they have been told.
In teaching, we often talk about how our relationships are at the centre of what we do and how to engage students on an emotional level. Deep down this is true for creating the right conditions for innovation and creativity.
It is literally neurobiologically impossible to think deeply about things that you don’t care about.
So our neurobiology dictates terms when it comes to purposeful work. Regardless of the Physical, Temporal or Cognitive Space, unless we care, we will always be working against a neurobiological tide.
Protocols and Practices > Take your time to connect to the wider purpose of your work. > Use empathy activities (like shadowing) to connect with others. > Regularly re-establish the emotional connection to the task.
Agentic Space
Many of us have experienced this particular space, mainly due to the lack of agency we have. The Agentic Space for Innovation is the room we have to define our own experience.
Put a different way it is how much license we have to implement new ideas. This type of space impacts the pointy end of any innovation process, the implementation and application of ideas.
Without agency, innovation can falter. I sit here writing this thinking I have complete agency over my work. I have control over my calendar and who I work with. As a small business owner, if there is a new idea I want to implement, I don’t need to seek permission or beg for forgiveness.
Collective agency – coordinate with others to secure what cannot be accomplished in isolation.
Personal agency – act with intention, forethought, self-reactiveness, self-reflectiveness to secure a desired outcome.
Which do you most commonly experience during Innovation processes? I would hazard a guess that Collective Agency is the most frequent experience. This is due to the collaborative nature of innovation.
If we are relying on other people, we have very little ability to act with intention and purpose.
The Agentic Space for Innovation may well be a circuit breaker. With all others in play, we may still be waiting for the permission from others. Consider how you might de-couple teams and colleagues enough to have a more open Agentic Space for innovation.
Protocols and Practices > Establish how much agency a team has from the beginning. > Reinforce the permissive culture within the project. > B authentic about follow through and implementing ideas.
What happens to innovation when one of these spaces is missing?
The relationship between these spaces is perhaps the most interesting aspect of this work. They each depend on each other in varying forms. Let’s explore some of the potential ripple effects if we have a space that is not functioning well.
What do you think?
When you don’t have the Physical space for innovation, the process takes longer. This might be true because there is less visibility of ideas and progress, fewer opportunities for working collaboratively and poorer communication between teams.
If our Cognitive space is crowded and overwhelming us, we will likely only engage at the surface level. The commitment to the work will probably wain over time as other competing agendas and projects take their toll. Mental energy is limited.
Time is a crucial ingredient for any creative or innovation work. Without enough quality time, ideas might become less ambitious and revert to safe bets.
Without the Emotional commitment to the work, we get projects that fizzle out. We don’t see the connection to the broader purpose and start to reduce our energy and effort as the drive is not there. Fighting our neurobiology is futile.
If we are trying to innovate without Agency in a culture that historically moderates heavily from the top-down, it creates apathy. Why bother getting invested in innovation when nothing changes? Why should we care when the decision is out of our hands?
Other Spaces
This article is not an exhaustive list so let me know what different types of spaces for innovation you might add.
While I have been working on the post, I have been wondering about the Digital space for innovation as remote teams across the world build software products together.
Alternatively the Collaborative space for innovation which directly refers to the overlapping physical and digital spaces we use for creating ideas together.
From an education perspective, the concept of a Pedagogical Space for Innovation is interesting. The room provided in the approach to teaching and learning for change and renewal.
This article is an exploration of some emerging ideas, and I would be pleased to hear from you in the comments about each of the different concepts.
FREE Bonus Innovation Resource
My innovation resource explores the conditions for innovation at different levels of an organisation and offers some great prompts for improving your innovation culture.
The PDF resource includes
Question and Dialogue Prompt Cards
Explores the common emotional blocks to creativity
Extends the ideas through various levels of an organisation
Builds on known innovation models
Download your copy of the resource by subscribing to my small but perfectly formed newsletter, the Dialogic Learning Weekly – ideas and insight about Innovation, Leadership and Learning,
I recently started a keynote talk with the message, “You are all innovators.” This was not some empty platitude to win over the audience, and the message remains sincere for you dear reader.
After becoming pretty jaded with the polemic and doom-laden openings of most education keynotes these days – I wanted to start on a more positive idea.
Teaching and the world of learning design is one of the most creative of pursuits we have. It certainly is one of the most challenging environments to work in.
Innovation can only be defined in context
One of the main reasons I believe teachers are all innovators is that we apply new ideas, big and small, in a continuous effort to improve the learning experience for students.
Sometimes those ideas take time to implement, but often they occur at the point of learning we share with our students.
When we think of innovation as ‘renewal’ (from the Latin root ‘innovare’) – any teacher will understand the constant questioning and reflection on “what more can we do?”, “how else can we explore these ideas?”, “how might we approach this in a more accessible way?” or “where can I continue to challenge these students?”.
This type of curiosity leads to creativity and taking action. That is innovation in my book.
What needs “renewal” and what doesn’t, is completely defined by context. What is new for one region, district, county, school, department or class, is not necessarily new for another.
There are still people reading my articles on ideas I implemented over 10 years ago and sharing how interesting and exciting they are. What I perceive as innovative is defined by the context I am in, the same is true for you.
Keeping Up with Joneses
This popular idiom refers to people’s tendency to compare their own social standing according to that of their neighbours. It originated from a comic strip that went by the same name, created by Arthur Momand in 1913.
Within the frame of innovation in education, we might consider how we are influenced by the work and progress of other schools. I also think within the echo chambers of education social networking FOMO is generated, a Fear Of Missing Out.
If my class of 30 students is different to the one down the corridor, and to the school across the road / border – perhaps comparisons to other innovation stories is limited in utility.
You can gain inspiration, but whether it is innovative or not, to what degree it is a story of renewal, depends on your context.
Writing in a shared Google Doc
I have had the chance to work with lots of different schools throughout the last fifteen years. One example of innovation that sticks out is the use of Google Docs.
The ability for multiple users to simultaneously work in the same digital space, renewed the process of writing and feedback in my classroom. I was one of the first classroom teachers in the world to be using the technology with my Year 5 class in 2005-2006.
(If you go far enough back in this blog’s archive you will find those posts.)
For my class of students that technology helped with the way we were writing – it was innovative for us in 2006. Using that idea is not innovative for me any more though, it is no longer about renewal.
Since then I have worked with organisations and schools who have never used Google Docs. For them the process still can be renewed. It is still innovative for them even 10+ years after it was for me.
It all depends on our context.
The key thing is not to get caught up chasing other people’s innovative projects. They might just not be applicable for you. Ask yourself is this idea “new” for us or “new” for the world?
Pay attention to the needs of your own context and the students in front of you.
David Whitebread and Marisol Basilio, in their essay “Play, culture and creativity”, explain that play is ubiquitous in humans and that every child in every culture plays.
A key adaptive advantage of the long period of human biological immaturity is the opportunity for play.
She is a child-development psychologist at the University of California, Berkeley. Gopnik explains that humans have a longer childhood, a slower path to puberty in which we can exercise our urge to explore.
This occurs while we’re still dependent on our parents and have an unmatched period of protected “play” in which to learn exploration’s rewards.
Yet while other animals play mainly by practicing basic skills such as fighting and hunting, human children play by creating hypothetical scenarios with artificial rules that test hypotheses. Can I build a tower of blocks as tall as I am? What’ll happen if we make the bike ramp go even higher? How will this schoolhouse game change if I’m the teacher and my big brother is the student?Such play effectively makes children explorers of landscapes filled with competing possibilities.
Whitebread and Basilio explain that this longer childhood provides a critical foundation for thinking, establishing:
the basis for the ‘flexibility of thought’ (Bruner, 1972) which underpins the astonishing problem-solving abilities and creativity of humans.
What do you know about the links between curious children and how playful they are? How do you see children engaging in more purposeful exploration? What value does playfulness have in problem solving?
The impact of playfulness
I was interested to read of the wider implications of developing the creative problem solving capacities in children and young adults. Beyond simply the obvious value, creative problem solving skills have importance for both the individual and the wider society.
Children and young adults who are creative problem solvers have been shown to have better coping skills to deal with everyday problems and crises, and this skill is increasingly important in the ever-more complex and rapidly changing modern world.
Typically we focus on the intrinsic value of creativity, or the importance of young adults exercising that skillset in the workforce. We want those entering work to understand their own creative skills and be well equipped to apply them purposefully.
However we rarely look at the increased coping skills and resilience of creative problem solvers, as highlighted here by Whitebread and Basilio. That link between creativity and resilience is a new insight for me.
Playfulness and creativity have a strong relationship. The essay presents a range of studies that reveal the connection.
These go back as far as the 1960s, with the early studies of Wallach & Kogan showing that creative children were more playful than less creative ones (Wallach & Kogan, 1965). Subsequent studies have shown that playfulness predicts scores on divergent thinking tasks (Howard-Jones, Taylor & Sutton, 2002; Lieberman, 1977).
The ‘divergent thinking tasks’ are often used as devices to measure creativity. Divergent and convergent thinking modes are essential throughout an extended creative/innovative process.
I think there is an ebb and flow between these different modes or thinking states. An awareness of these and how we remain cognitively flexible enough to switch from one to the other, without diminishing efficacy, is a typical characteristic of those with effective creative problem solving skills.
As part of a previous article, I asked why we marginalise the conditions for children to be creative. I recognise that part of this is the reduction in opportunities for play in primary schools. Even in pre-school.
In comparing my experience from England I have noticed that classrooms in Australia don’t have as much resourcing around pretend play. Dress up and role play resources, everyday objects, sand, water and messy trays were always so plentiful in the early years classrooms I led and worked with.
It worries me to see early learning experiences morphing into readiness for future grades or preparedness for higher year groups.
If playfulness has such a strong impact on developing creativity, why are opportunities for play in school diminishing? How might we protect play environments in the classrooms in our schools? How might we help broaden the understand of this area of research?
Pressured play
One of the key challenges for early childhood practitioners, raised by Whitebread and Basilio, is the pressure of covering a prescribed curriculum.
They go on to suggest that this exists in all urbanised cultural regions and is especially evident in the Far East.
A review of attitudinal studies on play and creativity in Hong Kong and mainland Chinese societies revealed that,
a cultural emphasis on narrowly conceived academic achievement was deleterious to developing playful, creative school environments (Fung & Cheng, 2012).
Not only is the word “deleterious” a wonderful new addition to my lexicon, but I also think that this statement holds true for education systems. What do you think?
The latter part of the essay explores the impact of parents and teachers on the development of the child and early achievement. An important element of this is that “specific practices by parents and teachers consistently over-ride broader cultural influences.”
The authors conclude by focusing on the importance of the school experience and the impact of parenting.
while there are clear challenges for human culture on our increasingly crowded planet, we must believe we can overcome these, and playful, creative approaches to parenting and schooling are clearly likely to be very helpful in this endeavour.
Takeaways
Here are a few key ideas, insights and provocations that stood out to me.
The challenge set out by the writers to ensure that what we can control of the experience in school, nurseries or where learning happens, is a creative and playful one.
The influence of creative teachers as a leveller of achievement for students from different social classes and backgrounds.
Children with creative problem solving capacities are more resilient.
Creative children were more playful when they were younger. Would an increase in opportunities for different types of play help develop more creativity? How might we sustain access to play in our primary classrooms?
If we want innovation we need creativity, if we want creativity we need playfulness.
This is the second in my thinking series exploring the Cultures of Creativity essays published by the LEGO Foundation, and their relevance to schools and learning organisations.
Next in my series is “Building cultures of creativity in the age of the Knowledge Machine” by Michael Wesch.
I recently discovered the above quote from John Maynard Keynes, an influential English economist, about the challenge of thinking creatively.
It got a bunch of attention on Twitter and seemed to really resonate with people, as it did with me, so I thought I would spend a little longer considering what he is saying.
The creative process continues to be a passion and fascination of mine. What that process continues to rely upon is a creative culture within an organisation. When strong it is supportive of new ideas, when weak it erodes them.
John Maynard Keynes points us to the challenge of “escaping” old ideas, a direct reference in my opinion to two things. (1) The creative culture those new ideas are born into, (2) the mindset of those attached to existing ideas.
A 2010 study by the University of Pennsylvania points to an underlying negative bias towards creativity when we feel uncertainty. New ideas may often be generated in times of change and when things are in flux, and the sense of uncertainty may actually be getting in the way of being open to new ideas. As Maynard Keynes states escaping old ideas is harder and the bias research sheds some light on this.
Our results show that regardless of how open minded people are, when they feel motivated to reduce uncertainty either because they have an immediate goal of reducing uncertainty, or feel uncertain generally, this may bring negative associations with creativity to mind which result in lower evaluations of a creative idea.
Back to thinking about culture. If there is such a bias, implicit or otherwise, we have to mitigate against this within our schools and organisations. Familiarity with constant change and development is key, creating a new norm. If we can reduce the negative bias by increasing our level of collective comfort when faced with uncertainty we might recognise and encourage more creative thinking.
This makes me think of Dear Mr Judgy Pants, my open letter to those judgemental types who shoot down ideas too soon. Those people, and I know many of us have encountered them, are showing a fear of the wider uncertainty that is in fact forcing us to think creatively in the first place.
I just wanted to let you know that there are thousands of idea headstones carved because of people like you. We mourn those precious little sparks, those little glimpses of something new, different and unexpected. We still think about those ideas and the fleeting moments we had with them.
James L. Adams refers to the “Inability to tolerate ambiguity; overriding desire for order; ‘no appetite for chaos’” as one of a number of emotional blocks to creativity. When it comes to complex development and problem solving the ability to tolerate some chaos is vital.
You must usually wallow in misleading and ill fitting data, hazy and difficult-to-test concepts, opinions, values, and other such untidy quantities.
The key thing I have been pondering on, since I shared that tweet, is about better understanding the people in our organisations and so better understand the creative culture.
Perhaps if we were to extend the research to create a measure of people’s tolerance of ambiguity <a> and compare this with a measure of their propensity for divergent thinking <b>, we would have an interesting +/-differential <c> that we could explore further.
If we were able to gather individual or collective measures we might be able to better understand the collective creative culture and make plans to support and encourage positive change.
Of course we can easily hypothesise that those individuals who are able to generate new ideas and have a high level of divergent thinking, coupled with a high level of tolerance for ambiguous and uncertain developmental states, may prove to be the most innovative.
Across an organisation these values may be carried by different people at different times and the make up and balance of our teams is something else to consider.
As much as it may feel odd to attempt to measure the artful design of innovative culture, I think there is huge value in exploring the science of it too.
Maybe a further thinking matrix or framework might look like this.
I am grateful to have had the provocation from that quote this week to think more deeply about the individual contribution we make to a creative culture. As always, let me know what you think and how you help yourself and others “escape old ideas”. I think that is the next step to consider, what are the practical tools that allow us to escape.
