Creative thinking can help area small towns
When I drive through small towns, I’m often struck with a reality that has enveloped a large part of our population and our country’s geography: stagnation caused by the lack of creative thinking. We were the Industrial Revolution, and now much of what is left is the remnants of that time.
Although many businesses still embrace the Industrial Revolution model, so do many towns, but without one important thing, the industry. What will Silicon Valley look like in 100 or 150 years?
These towns were once thriving, pulsating industrial towns, but now their one unifying element is their lack of a new story, a new vision, and the imagination and creative leadership to move them into the future.
What makes a place vibrant? Ideas? Where do ideas come from on a regular basis? They come from creative people, story tellers, innovators and creators.
What is the first thing that many businesses cut when things begin to deteriorate? They cut the marketing budget. They believe they can make their business grow by shrinking to greatness, by cutting salaries, then laying off their employees until they reach a point of no return.
What’s the first thing that’s targeted in schools when the budgets get tight? It’s the arts.The music and other arts-related programs are always first on the block. Instead of producing creative, exciting ideas, we are left with people who focus on facts, reality, sure things and concrete numbers.
There’s obviously a place for them, but the risk takers are discouraged and the creatives are pushed out. Everything becomes quantitative and qualitative values are often diminished, put aside, or completely ignored.
This isn’t a condemnation of the schools, the school boards, the business leaders or the political leaders. It’s just a creative’s view of the world. Let me be clear about this: When you visit the remnants of any civilization, what survives? The arts.
The creations of artists survive the millennia. OK, so does the science and math, but the works of the great artists are the markers of ancient civilizations.
What the small cities and towns are missing is creative, inspirational vision. Why did our lieutenant governor make it to Harrisburg? It was because he demonstrated creative leadership in a dying town.
What does it take to turn around any town? What does it take to turn around any business? It takes creative thinking, big hairy audacious goals that capture the imaginations of the people, the politicians, and then attracts other creatives.
Another problem is fear, fear of nonconformity. Fear is quite a motivator.
It’s fascinating when you are around brilliant people who are taught to question every nuance of every idea with complete commitment to detail. Their thought processes often become obstructions to progress. Ideas are often choked by their obsessions over the things that could go wrong.
I’ve worked with several valedictorians, and the one thing they all had in common was fear of imperfection. They couldn’t pull the trigger because A-minus is failure to them. Whereas failure to a creative is an F, complete and total rejection.
As a professional, classical trumpet player, missing a note more than once could be a CLM, a career limiting move. When I discovered jazz, however, it became clear to me that missing a note was not a problem because overall judgment was about the complete journey of sound and not the perfection of each and every articulation of each perfectly produced note. Variations were expected and encouraged players to climb out of the proverbial box of restrictions.
How do we help small towns and small businesses back away from the precipice? We bring creative ideas to the table that enable them to move out of their restrictive box, off the printed page and into the creative world that is looking for emotional satisfaction and excitement.
These are the challenges of our time.
Nick Jacobs of Pittsburgh USA Principal with SunStone Management Resources and author of the blog healinghospitals.com.