Cameron Conaway Cameron Conaway

Today, the division of labor between human and machines/algorithms across total task hours looks like this:
Humans: 71%
Machines/Algorithms: 29%
By 2022, according to a report by the World Economic Forum, it’s predicted to be:
Humans: 58%
Machines/Algorithms: 42%
While this shift naturally generates both excitement and fear, stories about the future of work are often technology-focused and, therefore, fail to capture one aspect I find critical: As machines/algorithms automate once-impossible tasks and replace those that are repetitive and laborious, it is likely that creativity will increasingly become a vital (and, further down the road, measurable) skill of the modern worker.
LinkedIn recently analyzed the skills listed on profiles of candidates who are getting hired at the fastest rate and found creativity to be the top “soft” skill. The report’s summary stated that this result wasn’t surprising: “Organizations everywhere need people who can innovate and conceive fresh ideas and solutions.”
A Note On ‘Soft’ Skills
According to an article in the Journal of Management Inquiry, soft skills are more accurately referred to as CORE (competence in organizational and relational effectiveness) skills. This definition is likely to cause less confusion than “soft.”
In line with LinkedIn’s findings are those from the World Economic Forum’s “The Future of Jobs Report 2018,” which lists creativity as one of the major skill groups in demand today and set to grow through 2022. With creativity rising, the heat is on to tie its impact not only to disruptive, industry-changing ideas, but also to key performance indicators throughout the company. And future research is likely to shine more light on the dichotomy between what companies believe and say about creativity and their actual practice.
One global study from Adobe offers a glimpse into this: While 76% of respondents say companies that invest in creativity are more likely to have happier employees, 77% also believe there is increasing pressure to be productive rather than creative at work.
Business leaders spend considerable time thinking about how to best keep up with technological advancements to prepare their companies for the future of work. While addressing this is an important, ongoing process, few seem to be considering an equally important topic: how they’ll improve their organization’s creativity skills.
Shiny new tech tools don’t always achieve their promises, and companies that are in constant pursuit of the next incrementally better tool while neglecting aspects of organizational creativity are setting themselves up to be a house of cards. As employees will need nearly 100 days of training to provide maximum organizational value from now until 2022, now is the time to begin prioritizing individual and organizational creativity — no matter your current domain specialty.
Besides taking on more creative projects, here are a few ways to build the foundation for a sustainable creative practice.
***
Read the full article at Forbes.com

“When I move half as fast, I notice twice as much,” says psychologist and mindfulness teacher Dr. Tara Brach. It’s a truth we’ve all experienced in one way or another, often when it’s forced upon us by life circumstances. Brach shared one such insight in a talk earlier this year when she described a new mother who was diagnosed with cancer and not given much time to live. The mother’s mantra became “I have no time to rush.” It was her way of savoring every last drop of her life. 
These quotes can serve as a reminder of the benefits of slowing down to wake up, of the timeless and practical wisdom in this line from The Provincial Letters by Blaise Pascal: “The present letter is a very long one, simply because I had no leisure to make it shorter.” 
But how can the lessons of mindfulness be applied to workplace communications in the “fail fast and break things” culture of many startups, including those that are increasingly embracing remote work? First, it’s important to note that mindfulness has become a buzzword and even spawned a thriving McMindfulness industry, where it’s often used in the workplace for “subduing employee unrest, promoting a tacit acceptance of the status quo and as an instrumental tool for keeping attention focused on institutional goals.” 
With that realization out of the way, let’s establish a shared understanding of how we’re defining mindfulness. What’s the definition of mindfulness? 
Mindfulness definitions vary slightly across disciplines and speakers, but the thread remains the same. Vietnamese Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh, considered by many to be a pioneering figure in bringing mindfulness to the West, describes it as “the capacity to be aware of what is going on.” Having attended a retreat with Thich Nhat Hanh, I can attest that this “what is going on” applies and can extend to everything. When sipping tea, for example, it could mean being aware of the bodily sensations that arise with each sip and having gratitude for every element of the tea’s long journey to your cup. 
Another definition comes from the American Psychological Association, which defines mindfulness as “a moment-to-moment awareness of one’s experience without judgment. In this sense, mindfulness is a state and not a trait. While it might be promoted by certain practices or activities, such as meditation, it is not equivalent to or synonymous with them.” 
With those definitions as our base, here are a few practical ways to bring mindfulness into your remote work communications. 
1. Choose the medium that maximizes human intelligence. 
This advice comes from a recent workshop by Dr. Donald Rothberg. During a conversation about how best to communicate with colleagues in increasingly digital environments, Rothberg explained that it’s critical to step back, consider the context of our communication and then choose the medium that gives us the best chance to establish a human connection. If, for example, you typically use a workplace chat tool for quick back-and-forth dialogue on tasks, consider upgrading to an audio conversation or, better yet (and if both parties are comfortable with it), a video call for longer or more important matters. 
These upgrades can create a more mindful environment because they bring the nuances of voice and natural human contact into the picture. I’ve recently “upgraded” from audio to video calls with a public relations firm my company works with and, even after just two weeks, I feel our overall relationship has improved dramatically.
***
To read the rest of Cameron's article, please visit Forbes.com.

The democratization of innovation over the last decade — as the organizational concept of innovation has spread from top-down to shared ownership — is mirrored in a growing body of academic research exploring the impact of individual and team-based creativity on macro-level innovation initiatives. One oft-cited study published in the Journal of Management frames the relationship like this: “Considerable evidence now suggests that employee creativity can substantially contribute to organizational innovation, effectiveness and survival.”
But there are a few mindset challenges many organizations face.
First, I find that many business leaders view innovation like they view creativity — as a realm only accessible for a select few. This fixed mindset disregards the microelements of innovation and equates it with breakthrough discoveries and industry-disrupting ideas. This belief creates distance between the potential innovator and innovation, and I’ve worked with creatives long enough to know that sometimes these barriers are purposely erected; if you convince yourself that you’re incapable of being creative or innovative, then there’s no pressure to be either.
Second, some leaders think innovation and idea generation are synonymous. In this light, ideas become the default answer for seemingly every organizational challenge:
• New offerings from competitors are tightening the market. We need more ideas.
• A marketing campaign didn’t resonate with its targeted audience. More ideas, please.
The truth, however, lies closer to what David Burkus, author of The Myths of Creativity, wrote (subscription required): “In most organizations, innovation isn’t hampered by a lack of ideas, but rather a lack of noticing the good ideas already there.”
An organization’s inability to capture creative ideas that already exist is just one element to the innovation puzzle. Today’s business leaders must also reimagine innovation by taking its microelements seriously and finding new ways to empower and incentivize employees. Here are a few creativity exercises capable of kickstarting employee innovation.
The IGA Framework
The inefficiencies, glue, alternatives (IGA) framework involves three five-minute sessions of sitting with your eyes closed. For this exercise, you’ll need a piece of paper folded into three equal parts, a pen or pencil, a timer, and a comfortable, quiet place to sit. Here’s the three-step approach for recognizing challenges, understanding why they exist and discovering creative solutions.
1. Choose a recent project you’ve worked on, either completed or in progress. Then set a timer for five minutes, close your eyes and reflect on the most notable inefficiencies that arose during this project. As you discover them, open your eyes and write them in the “inefficiencies” section. Ideally, you’ll have more than one.
2. Choose one inefficiency to address. Before setting the timer for another five minutes, set your intention: Your goal is to understand the glue that held this inefficiency together. A few questions to ask yourself could be:
• Why did this inefficiency persist?
• Has it happened before?
• What was my role in it?
Try not to let blame dominate this session. The goal is to pinpoint the glue so we can melt it (find a suitable solution). Write a few relevant notes in the “glue” section.
3. In this final five minutes, you’ll brainstorm potential solutions to the inefficiency, capturing what comes to you in the “alternatives” section.
***Read the full article over at Forbes.com***

Courage is having a mainstream moment. Use of the word has spread beyond military stories and into the ordinary (but often profound) moments that make up our personal lives. The work of researcher-storyteller extraordinaire Brené Brown is serving as one catalyst; her writing on “ordinary courage” is front and center in most bookstores, and she even has a Netflix special titled, The Call To Courage.



Notably, courage (alongside authenticity, vulnerability and empathy) has become part of the lexicon of modern business. The word has various manifestations in the workplace, from having the courage to give and receive feedback with Radical Candor, a framework developed by Kim Scott, to the work and speeches of Harvard Medical School psychologist Susan David, which link emotional courage in the workplace to improved rates of engagement. There’s even a Workplace Courage Acts Index (subscription required) that seeks to recognize and rank acts of workplace courage.



But as S&P 500 life spans are predicted to continue shrinking over the next decade, innovation is increasingly expected (and rewarded) across all departments. Top-down innovation initiatives still have their place, but the leaders driving today’s most innovative companies also realize their next big idea might trickle up — and that scaling innovation horizontally is the best way to prime the pump.



Innovation Is Creativity Made Manifest



Juxtaposed next to innovation’s importance is the alarming lack of focus placed on creativity. Executives rarely mention it, and when they do, I find they often default to using the word “innovation.” Even worse, many conversations on creativity are relegated either to obviously creative companies (ad agencies, for example) or to the creative services teams within larger organizations.



But creativity is the underpinning of innovation, and all teams across all departments are creative teams. Research suggests that engineering students are exposed to fewer creativity principles than most throughout their coursework, but this in no way means an engineering department can’t become an innovation hub. Department leaders must have the courage to build a new kind of culture. They must, in a way, see themselves as artists leading artists.



***



Click here to read the full article.