DEVELOPMENT
and creativity, and it is creativity we will focus
on here. So, what makes up creativity’s ‘forever
skills’?
The first creative forever skill is an ability to
generate insights
Data isn’t an answer, it’s input. There’s quite
a difference between jumping off a one metre
high wall 100 times and jumping off a 100
metre high wall once. Both involve traversing a
vertical distance of 100 metres by jumping off
a wall but only one will earn you a place in the
Darwin Awards. Insight requires an ability to
create connections where there were none and to
transform information into meaning.
The four creative
skills that will be
useful forever
Human skills are the future of work, and
EAs are going to need to hone them to stay
relevant in the coming decades. Flanagan and
Gregory lay out four creative skills to foster.
THE EXPERT
Kieran Flanagan and
Dan Gregory are
experts in leadership
communication and
strategic insights. They
are the strategic and
creative team behind
the most successful
new product launch in
Australian history, have
helped entrepreneurs
build internationally
successful businesses and
worked with some of the
world’s most influential
organisations. They work
as speakers, trainers
and are the co-authors
of Forever Skills: The
12 skills to future proof
yourself, your team and
your kids.
In recent times the clarion call from futurists,
economists, marketers, educators and leaders is
one of slight panic. “The world is changing and
you’re not ready for it!” And of course, they make
a very good point. The world is indeed changing
at an accelerating pace, but is that cause for EAs to
panic? And what, if anything, might we be able to
do to ready ourselves for it?
Our observation is that we tend to focus only
on one sphere of change—what is changing.
However, in order to be more fully prepared
for change, we ought to also consider change’s
other spheres, what needs changing and what is
unchanging. This final sphere of change aligns
itself roughly with Dr Stephen Covey’s “Not
urgent but important” quadrant in his now
famous priority matrix and likewise, aides us in
better preparing for change without the associated
sense of panic.
So, as we are trying to keep up with algorithms
and AI that seems to know what we’re thinking
before we’re consciously aware of it ourselves,
how can we remain relevant, and more than that,
potent?
The ‘forever skills’ we identified clustered
around three key areas: communication, control
A capacity to convert raw materials into new
formats
Conversion has always been a powerful tool of
creativity, it’s just that the nature of raw materials
that have changed. Timber and fossil fuels have
simply been replaced with resources such as
information and time.
Solving problems in ways not seen before
Creativity is often seen as a talent, an ability to
draw or play music, but in fact it is an ability to
solve problems in new ways.
A sense of personal agility
This involves being able to transition from one
context to another with ease and resilience.
Resilience is, in essence, a creative skill.
Ultimately it is the ability to generate new
possibilities as others close down.
Of course, some creative skills can be performed
by machines, especially when they involve
pattern recognition and duplication of output.
Perhaps the most important of these skills lies
in the human ability to connect the seemingly
unrelated and generate seemingly spontaneous
inspiration.
Edward de Bono famously talked about
linear and lateral thinkers. We prefer the terms
‘linkers’ and ‘leapers’. ‘Linkers’ create through
connections, often linking future projects to past
reference points making the new seem familiar.
Machines can do this too. However, ‘leapers’ have
an ability to generate random ideas and then make
sense of them. The spontaneity and lack of logic
makes this hard to replicate.
And in fact, this is perhaps the most useful
filter for which skills will remain evergreen—if
it can be replicated, it will be automated. And
why not? Let’s leave the mundane work to the
machines and spend a little more time utilising
the higher functions of our extraordinary brains. S
www.theimpossibleinstitute.com
Issue 3 2019 | Chief of Staff 61