Creative Courage

PREFACE

I believe that a work culture that supports the growth of its employees creates more favorable conditions for its brand, its products, its services to be and stay relevant. Our well-being, our ability to lead efficiently and creatively, is connected to the quality of our culture at work. That culture can suffer from the tension between the status quo and the need for transformation. In fact, in every culture, we find forces aimed at preserving the status quo and opposing energies dedicated to its transformation.

In that potential conflict sits the promise of creativity, innovation, and breakthroughs. Finding the harmony between these two necessary forces is not easy, and when one force takes over too radically or disruptively, the other force likely reacts. When the status quo tries to impose itself resolutely, the war on imagination lives strong, as a state of conflict where imagination, free association of ideas and the connection of unrelated concepts, or diverse teams and people is strongly discouraged, even punished. In other words, when the status quo takes over, the war on imagination follows. When the energy of transformation goes too fast for the people it affects, we are left with incomprehension, anger, and reactionary retraction from the world. We step back into our identities and our politics when at work. I call these moments in organizations, brand grabs. We hold on to a less than optimal, often nostalgic vision of who we are.

The distress between status ...