Of course, business leaders and visionaries have always been intuitive and able to make leaps in understanding and imagination, but haven't always known how to pass these visions and skills to others in their organizations.
External helping professionals are often afraid to make use of their more intuitive and expressive sides in business settings because they do not know how to overcome the resistance they imagine they will face. In my experience, this has not been a problem when I have focused on the needs and objectives of the organization and have built good relationships with the decision makers. I do not sell intuition, Rather, I sell my ability to meet the client's objectives. Once I am with the work group in a training or consulting context, I can be my whole self and model that possibility for others. It becomes apparent that I am having so much fun that it is catching! The challenge, however, is to have the self-confidence and fluidity it takes to make this approach seem easy and valuable.
My work in recent years has been to offer these possibilities and skills to people professionals wishing to enhance their clients' processes, whether organizational or individual. I offer a set of tools and methods not usually associated with business settings, and connect the joy of this serious play with the value it adds to the effective accomplishment of the organization's tasks. Whether I am working with an individual client, a trainee, a group or an organization. my approach integrates insights and techniques from my own background in the arts in which I've been involved since childhood, to Gestalt (Rhyne, 1973; Oaklander, 1988; Lampert, 2003), and many other human potential approaches such as Psychosynthesis (Assagioli, 1965) and neo-Jungian process work (Mindell, 1985).
In training coaches, therapists, trainers and others who work with business clients and various kinds of groups, I help them integrate what already exists in their background but is not being used as effectively as it might, as well as introducing them to new possibilities. They, in turn, can pass some of these tools on to their clients and organizational groups.
Examples of workplace objectives and benefits. Development of the kinds of intuitive and creative skills described here customarily lead to one or more of the following results:
- Improving work environments (morale, commitment, etc)
- Increasing communication abilities and flow
- Doing creative assessments, reviews and evaluations
- Making meetings more productive
- Building teams that go beyond what they thought they could do.
- Developing more effective planners and problem-solver
- Improving decision making strategies
- Using innovative approaches to career development
- Focusing on the alignment of personal process with career choices
Examples of working with multiple creative channels, The central aspect of the process described here is the development of multiple sensory channels in addressing a task. As Richard Bandler and John Grinder (1975) have shown, most people tend to think and speak in terms of one particular representational system, which is visual for some people, auditory for others, and kinesthetic for still others. Opening up to systems other than those a person customarily uses can both enhance creativity and make tasks more interesting and engaging.
Visual activities and data include drawing, collage, photographs, fantasy, and dream images. These can be used for such purposes as expanding ways of collecting data, discovering personal and problem-solving symbols, finding new meanings and insights with visual metaphors, generating innovative solutions to problems, altering perspective in stuck situations and work relationships, and becoming a more comprehensive observer and feedback giver.
In an organizational context, for example, a beginning focus might be, "What is our experience of being part of this group, team, or organization? What aspects of the experience feel right and which do we want to change or
at least become more aware about?"
After articulating this theme, you could ask your group or team to close their eyes, take a few minutes, and draw their felt experience of working in this group without thinking about what they are drawing. Then, before they open their eyes, ask them to imagine what is on the paper. When they open their eyes, have them compare what they did with what they thought was there. Then, with a partner or several others, have them discuss the similarities and differences between the real drawing and their fantasy. What new possibilities and perspectives emerge? Also, the members of the group can be asked to compare their impressions, talk about their drawings, become their drawings, and have dialogues between their drawings, or between themselves as picture-maker and the picture.
Auditory activities and data include the use of music, text, poetry, sounds, and dialogue. These are useful in such ways as investigating how, in a given situation, alternative forms of sound affect mood and atmosphere; in increasing the ability to communicate effectively and hear more, and in stretching perceptions of available information in a situation. Many of the benefits listed for visual media above can also accrue from the effective use of auditory media.
An example of using the auditory modality is to think of a song that runs through your head a lot. Write down the lyrics. Then find an idea or feeling in the lyrics that you can apply to your work situation or life situation that gives you a Fresh perspective on it. (A tip: If you remember just a line or a few words from almost any song in the world, you can put them into a search engine, do an internet search, and it will take you to the complete lyrics for the song.)
Kinesthetic/proprioceptive activities and awareness (Body movement and placement, internal sensations and feelings) can assist in learning to "think" with the body, loosening up and having more of one's creative intelligence available for discovering new possibilities, increasing energy and a sense of presence, discovery of unrecognized information and new approaches from subtle body messages, increased consciousness of the major role non-verbal communication plays in conveying information, and use of the body as a metaphor for collecting and processing information
Contemplative meditation can also be integrated into multimedia-oriented problem-solving. An example is holding still with a question and allowing an answer to appear in a sensory channel. Such meditation can involve finding inner guidance to challenging situations by consulting one's highest, most aware self as the repository of new ideas, solutions, and possibilities.
Dreams and fantasies can also be rich creative sources for all sorts of new ideas. Fantasies can be individual or done in a group. For example, "Let's imagine what our organization (product, service) might look like in ten ye
Applying Gestalt approaches by encouraging relational and empathic investigation of the sensory material further enriches the process. Of course you will tailor your choice of tools and channels to the type of client with whom you are working. Additional examples of methods that are useful in an Intuitive-Creative multimedia approach can be found in the "Something For You" archive page on my website. These are mainly to free up the individual and are not intended as verbatim examples of what I might do in an organizational setting. An extensive manual of tools and experiments, Being Alive! Creative and Emotional Intelligence Tools for People Professionals. Is further described on my website at http://www.peoplesystemspotential.com/publications.html and can be ordered by e-mailing me at creativist@peoplesystemspotential.com.
REFERENCES
Assagioli, R. (1965) Psychosynthesis. New York: Viking Compass.
Bandler, R. and J. Grinder. (1975). The structure of magic. Palo Alto, CA: Science and Behavior Books.
Lampert, R. (2003) A child's eye view: Gestalt therapy with children, adolescents, and their families. Highland, N.Y.: Gestalt Journal Press
Mindell, Arnold (1985). Working with the Dreaming Body. N.Y.: Routledge.
Miller, Niela (2000). Recognizing Roles in Teams: McGraw Hill Training Sourcebook.
Miller, Niela. (2001) Being Alive! A manual of creativity tools. Nagog Woods, MA: Peoplesystemspotential.
Oaklander, V. (1988) Windows to our children. Highland, N.Y.: Center for Gestalt Development.
(A comprehensive bibliography of creativity tools is included in Being Alive! cited above.)
Niela Miller (BA Creative Arts, MS Education and Communications, LCSW, LMHC) has a business called PeopleSystems Potential in Acton, Massachusetts. She offers training and supervision groups for people professionals* with established practices and/or client organizations who want to learn how to use more intuitive creative processes in their work. For information about how to order her manual, Being Alive! Creative & Emotional Intelligence Tools, and for more background and contact information, please visit her website: www.peoplesystemspotential.com.
*People professionals are defined as those in any field whose main job is to provide coaching, training, supervision, consulting, or counseling to improve processes and performances of people in business, medical, non-profit and other organizational settings or in face-to-face work.