Global Conversations about Creativity, Innovation and Leadership
Jun 15th, 2010 by Linda Naiman
I host interviews and conversations with practitioners and academics about creativity, leadership and innovation, for members of the Creative Skills Training Council, focused on conversations that matter about our praxis. This provides a way for members to connect with each other in real time, and experience an emotionally rich exchange, not possible by email or other online exchanges.
We have had amazing interviews from thought leaders on various topics, and have decided to make the recordings available to the public.
2010 recordings
Managing Sustainably with Passion
with Dr. Paul Shrivastava,
David O’Brien Distinguished Professor and Director
The David O’Brien Centre for Sustainable Enterprise
John Molson School of Business, Concordia University, Montreal, Canada.
Before I even knew the word “Sustainability” my eco-footprint was 2 tons of carbon per year. Thirty years later, I fully understand what sustainability means, and have published 40 papers + one book on the topic – my eco footprint is now 22 tons of carbon per year. So, understanding sustainability concepts was not sufficient to live sustainably.
I will explore this dilemma, and argue that for our world to move towards sustainability, in addition to cognitive understanding of the concepts and techniques of sustainability, we also need emotional and passionate connection to it. Passion is engaging the issue holistically with mind, body and emotions (spirit).
Developing passion for sustainability can be aided by use of arts based methods, because the arts are both a repository of human emotions, and a way for evoking sensory and emotional perceptions. Art can help us to sharpen our sensory awareness of our environment. Van Gogh’s paintings and Ed Burtinsky’s photographs make us see nature differently. This form of holistic engagement cuts across a major schism in our approach to managing sustainably – between understanding and action or between theory and practice.
Join us for a conversation on art, passion, sustainability, and the work of the David O’Brien Centre for Sustainable Enterprise at Concordia University in Montreal, which seeks to understand the science, the art, the politics and practice of sustainable organizations. Participants will gain an arts-based perspective on sustainability. We will explore how arts is being used both by artists and activists to engage challenges of sustainable development. Join us to find out how ecological art can be a ‘subversive science’ with far-reaching ramifications for all spheres of human society.
About Dr. Paul Shrivastava
Dr. Paul Shrivastava, is currently the David O’Brien Distinguished Professor and Director of the David O’Brien Centre for Sustainable Enterprise at the John Molson School of Business, Concordia University, Montreal. He also serves as Senior Advisor at Bucknell University and the IIM-Shillong, India, and on the Board of Trustees of DeSales University, Allentown, Pennsylvania.
Dr. Shrivastava was part of the team of professionals who helped to found Hindustan Computer Ltd., one of India’s largest computer companies. He founded the non-profit Industrial Crisis Institute, Inc. in New York, and published the Industrial Crisis Quarterly. He founded Organization and Environment, (published by Sage Publications). He was founding President and CEO of eSocrates, Inc., a knowledge management software company, and the founding Chair of ONE Division of the Academy of Management.
Dr. Shrivastava received his Ph. D. from the University of Pittsburgh. He was tenured Associate Professor of Management at the Stern School of Business, NYU, and the Howard I. Scott Chair at Bucknell University. He has published 15 books and over 100 articles in scholarly and professional journals. He has served on the editorial boards of leading management education journals including the Academy of Management Review, the Strategic Management Journal, Organization, Business Strategy and the Environment, and the International Journal of Sustainable Strategic Management. He won a Fulbright Senior Scholar Award. His work has been featured in the Los Angeles Times, the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Christian Science Monitor, and on the McNeil-Lehrer News Hour.
He co-organized the Steelman Triathlon 2005, 06, 07, the Passionman Triathlon 2008,09 and DJed of the World Tango Music show on WVBU, 90.5FM, Lewisburg, PA.
Click here to listen to the conversation
_____________________________________________________________________________________
April 2010
Leadership as Art
with Dr. Steven S. Taylor
Associate Professor, Department of Management, the Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) Worcester, Massachusetts, USA.
In this interview Steve talks about his recent research on arts based processes in learning which is starting to show the more emotion you have, the more learning you have and thus the importance of selecting the right media or medium to use when working in this space. eg what difference might one experience if using Lego as oppsoed to clay. He also offers a sneak preview of a special issue of the journal “Leadership” he is editing themed under the title “Leadership As Art” that will be published in August 2010.
Steven Taylor is an American playwright and a leading global researcher in the world of arts and business, He is an associate professor in the Department of Management at the Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) in Worcester, Massachusetts, USA. His research focuses on the aesthetics of organizational action and reflective practice. Recently his academic work has focused on theorizing the use of arts-based process within organizations and exploring beautiful action within organizations. Steve is also a playwright whose work has been performed in England, France, Poland, Canada, New Zealand, and the USA.
Click here to listen to the interview
2009 recordings
June 2009
Deep Diving
An interview with Cynthia Duval, Founder, the Pacific Ethnographic Research Center
Cynthia takes us on a deep dive into creativity through her ethnographic lens– uncovering how ethnography works to uncover history, culture, emotions, needs and wants of a target audience.
About Cynthia Duval
Cynthia Duval is a cultural psychologist who specializes in usingapplied ethnographic research to discover innovation opportunities. She has worked for Xerox Palo Alto Research Center studying artist/ scientist collaborations, Microsoft Mobile Electronics doing an ethnography of mobile professional work practices, and Verizon Labs identifying new service concepts for Broadband to the home technology and at IBM studying complex collaboration.Cynthia recently founded the Pacific Ethnographic Research Center, to do work that is good for people, nature and the world using ethnographic work to inform education, advocacy and entrepreneurial activities.
Click here to listen to the podcast
Click here to listen to the Q&A
July 2009
Creativity, Connectivity, Transformation
Presentation by John Cimino, president and CEO of Creative Leaps International
John’s work is informed by studies in neuroscience, perception, learning and creativity, the study of complex dynamic systems, the origins of order, musical composition, poetry, mathematics and the history of science. The broad theme of the presentation is about looking at what we strive to do and how we go about doing It. John shares insights into the why and how from four inspiring sources: G. Bateson, B. Fuller, M. Cervantes, M. Greene.
About John Cimino
John has a formal background in the sciences, education and the performing arts and for more than three decades has been a pioneer in interdisciplinary approaches to thinking, teaching and learning.
He and his colleagues from Creative Leaps International and The Learning Arts, work regularly with children, teachers, college students, university faculty and administrators, leaders in the corporate and government sectors, scientists, inventors and entrepreneurs. As a performing artist, John Cimino is the winner of more than 20 national and international awards and prizes as an operatic and concert performer and has performed to acclaim throughout Europe and the continental United States in productions including LA BOHEME (Academy of Music, Philadelphia, opposite tenor Luciano Pavarotti, and LUISA MILLER (International Verdi Festival of Busetto, Italy, opposite tenor Carlo Bergonzi)
Click here to listen to the podcast
August 2009
Creativity and on improving human maturity / wisdom / emotional intelligence /eldering
An interview with Bob Eckert, New and Improved, LLC
Bob Eckert is a founding partner at New & Improved, LLC. He came to the creativity & innovation field via his work in youth empowerment. His methods were focused on developing humility, curiosity, courage, passion & tenacity in the youth leaders he was working with around the world. For the past 15 years, he has been working primarily with adults in corporate, government and educational settings. He is seeing an interesting connection between the following 5 dynamics:
- Creativity skills development methodological maturity
- Serious commercial interest in the science of innovation
- Emotional intelligence development
- A desire for deeper meaning in work & life in the baby boom cohort
- A desire for constant development in the millennial cohort.
Click here to listen to the podcast
September 2009
The Dance of Leadership
An Interview with Robert Denhardt
Our conversation focused on the connection between art and leadership, based on the book The Dance of Leadership. The Dance of Leadership focuses on the art of leadership, employing material from art, music, and especially dance, to discover new ways of thinking about leadership and new ways of sharpening one’s leadership skills. A key idea to explore is be whether art is a metaphor for leadership or whether leadership is in fact an art.
About Robert Denhardt
Dr. Denhardt is Lincoln Professor of Leadership and Ethics and Director of the School of Public Affairs at Arizona State University and a Past President of the American Society for Public Administration, a nationwide organization of academics and practitioners in the field of public administration at all levels of government. His most recent book, with Janet Denhardt, is The Dance of Leadership, published by M. E. Sharpe
Click here to listen to the podcast
To read an excerpt of the Dance of Leadership click here
October 2009
Creativity and Innovation – The Cross-Cultural Dimension
with
Professor Kirpal Singh PhD
Director
Wee Kim Wee Centre
The Singapore Management University
Singapore
Prof Kirpal Singh is internationally renowned as a creativity guru and futurist, and wears many different and differently coloured turbans: He is a Founding Member of the CSTC and is currently Director of the Wee Kim Wee Center at the Singapore Management University, where he also teaches creativity. (visit: www. smu.edu.sg -click Centres and click WKWC)
Kirpal is also a Director of the Singapore International Film Festival and sits on numerous other Boards. As a consultant, he works with governments, non-profits and multinationals, on the issues and challenges of the sensitive arena of cross/intercultural engagements.
Clients include IBM, AMEX, L’Oreal, Daimler, and Novartis.
He is also Adjunct Faculty of Creativity Workshops and has conducted these workshops in Europe, USA, Singapore, and Australia, Kirpal’s well-known book THINKING HATS & COLOURED TURBANS: Creativity Across Cultures (Prentice-Hall, 2004) was an instant sell-out and he is now working on a *sequel*.
Kirpal is a highly sought-after Keynote speaker and he has given talks and seminars at many of the top universities of the world, including Yale, MIT, Georgetown, and Cambridge. Kirpal is also a highly acclaimed poet and fictionist, in addition to being a very respected scholar in the field of literary/cultural studies.
In his other life Kirpal is the very proud father of three girls and a son.
Click here to listen to the podcast
November 2009
The Chinese perspective on creativity and innovation
(Examples and stories of creative Chinese in business, art and living)
with Helen Zhang , Principal, China Time Inc., Beijing, China.
Haihua (aka Helen) grew up in Beijing China, then worked and lived in Sydney, Australia for 8 years (in management consulting, investment banking and wealth management) before returning back to Beijing in 2002 with her family.
Since 2005 Helen operates a China based strategic consulting business in Beijing. Her main focus has been advising multinational corporate and overseas government clients on various China challenges at the senior executive level, also consults to Chinese businesses going global.
Helen’s passion is to help people to understand and take the best from both the East and the West. She has written the highly acclaimed book “Think Like Chinese” which serves as an in depth guide to help more people understand China and the Chinese people.
Helen holds an MBA, a Master of Business in Finance from Australia and a BA (English Language and Literature) from Peking University, China.
For more details please see www.chinatimeinc.com and www.thinklikechinese.com
[...] 15 June Linda Naiman: Interview with Dr. Paul Shrivastava, Managing Sustainably with Passion [...]