A conversation with Ramon Vullings from Creativity Today

I had the priviledge of emailing some questions to one of the authors of Creativity Today, Ramon Vullings. He was kind enough to give me his responses - enjoy! (Charles Whitmire is CW and Ramon Vullings is RV)

(CW) I really enjoyed your book, Creativity Today, and enjoyed taking a look at the creative process in detail. I think I have always assumed creativity to be largely a “gift” or “talent” but you seem to be saying that we can all learn to be more creative. Why do you think we are prone to thinking of creativity as a specialty? And why do we not see it as a skill that can be enhanced and grown?

(RV) Creative people do things differently, people look at the results of their actions and think: ‘WOW, that’s really different’ or  ‘WOW, why didn’t I came up with that’. This leads to ‘underestimation’ of oneself.

Our education system is aimed enough towards stimulating the development of the skill Creative Thinking.

(CW) This book has been incredibly popular in Holland and Belgium. Do you think that Americans have a similar or different creative process? And what, if any, barriers do you see Americans needing to work on relating to creativity that perhaps our overseas friends could teach us?

(RV) Many of the basic thinking is the same, like in the US you have CPS (Creative Problem Solving Institute) and off course De Bono. Creativity Today focuses on and core basics, without making it process you ‘must’ follow. Also Creativity Today has some hands-on and proven techniques in it, where the reader ( actually ‘user’) is encouraged to adopt and change for themselves. The Creation Today part of Creativity Today, helps to understand that the road towards a creative culture is based on Inspiration, Experimentation and Co-Creation. These are really new (and applied) insights, hence the cases in the book.

(CW) I do most of my work in religious circles. I pastor two churches and so I lead various teams of people and write a lot of sermons. Do you feel that creativity is something that the “church” or religious institutions in general can benefit from?

(RV) Certainly, there are many ways religious institutions can use creativity. Especially on the area reaching of reaching (new or different) audiences, like young people.

(CW) I have noticed that churches are becoming increasingly creative in their attempts to get their message out to their communities. However, I have also seen that many churches develop pretty big ruts that are hard for them to break out of in order for them to become creative. Do you think there are certain unique creative barriers or hurdles that perhaps churches have that normal businesses don’t?

(RV) By definition, religious institutions want to protect the ‘base thinking’ and in many cases religious institutions will decide to ‘play safe’ and not be too creative. While there is actually always more room, if you allow yourself to see it.

You have to trust creativity, it’s a bit like trusting in God. And you’ll see which new paths will appear.

(CW) On page 26, you say, “innovative ideas rarely make it to implementation because they are judged too severely initially.” Can you explain what you mean by that?

(RV) A really new idea is so new, it’s not ‘mature’ one might say. So in the beginning it’s easy to turn an idea down, while actually the new idea needs to grow and overcome the initial perceived weaknesses.

(CW) One other great quote from that section of the book is “by definition, new ideas don’t fit into existing schemes of thought.” Can you speak some to that?

(RV) Real new ideas (not just adaptations of existing ones), require another way to look at things, this means change and by definition it’s hard for our brains to change (make new connections) especially when it comes to paradigm shifts.

(CW) I particularly enjoyed the diverging phase. I found it interesting on two levels. First, I lead a lot of groups, so having examples of how to coach creativity is very helpful. But I also found many of the exercises applicable to me personally as I write messages each week. Can you give a brief overview of what diverging is and then share a few of the diverging techniques and how they might relate to a church board?

(RV) Diverging: is accepting (trusting) that there are always more way to do something. You can use various techniques to help you step out of your normal scope/frame.

For the church board, the techniques vary upon the question at hand and the group itself.

(CW) Many of the diverging techniques take time, and often, in my meetings and sermon preparation, I am rushed – do you think time is important in the creative process? …and is it possible that creative sessions have to be scheduled separate from regular meetings?

(RV) At the end, creativity helps you to gain time. Yet, yes it’s hard work and initially it takes time. Most importantly, you learn the creative attitude (posting your judgment, to allow new ideas to rise). This helps in every interaction (i.e. meeting).

(CW) One of the beginning places for creativity in your book that you talk about is postponing judgment. I want to go back to that because I think a lot of churches and ministers really struggle at this most basic simple starting point. I feel that because of our tendency to control, we never allow people to offer new ideas and therefore we tend to not be very creative. Can you explain the idea for postponing judgment and why it is crucial for creativity?

(RV) Most of the conflicts we experience, personally and on a global scale actually come down to mis-communication, mis-interpretation. We judge too quickly. Also when really new ideas come up, we tend to ‘frame’ them in our old paradigms, so we start using ‘idea-killers’ like: can’t be done, too expensive, yes, but… While actually we should first accept everything to be able to allow ideas to rise and to ripe a bit, afterwards we can select ideas. This gives way wider options to choose from. So ‘postponing your judgment’ is THE most importing creative skill, if you can manage this, you’re already a major step ahead as it allows you to see and understand more.

Comments

[Chris Wilson]

Charles,

Great questions. I loved how you brought a specialized point of view to the table. It really shows how this is method of thinking that can be applied in any context.