Build your creative resilience capabilities
In today’s fast-paced world, creative resilience is essential for reinvention and innovation. Drawing from Stoicism, Positive Psychology, and Appreciative Inquiry, we can build pathways to bounce back from challenges with creativity and strength.
- Stoicism teaches us to reframe obstacles into opportunities for growth, as challenges carve our path to success.
- Positive Psychology focuses on strengths, helping us persevere by viewing setbacks as learning opportunities.
- Appreciative Inquiry ignites change by emphasizing what’s working, sparking creative energy for growth.
Let’s explore how these approaches fuel personal and organizational change.
The Power of Reframing
We see the world through pre-existing frames and these frames help us interpret reality. Frames provide a focus, but they can also limit our thinking. The ability to change how we frame our experiences and beliefs about any given situation is key to creative resilience. Reframing helps us to see our situation from a different perspective. The facts remain the same, but we can see things in a new light. When we shift our frame of reference, we discover new perspectives and creative insights.
The Stoic approach to reframing a negative into a positive
The Stoics provide us with ancient wisdom for overcoming obstacles and adversities. To the Stoic, everything is an opportunity. The things that test us make us who we are.
Ryan Holiday, author of The Obstacle Is the Way, [i] quotes the Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius:
The impediment to action advances action. What stands in the way becomes the way.” In other words, Holiday says, “No matter how bad or seemingly undesirable a situation becomes—we always have the opportunity to practice virtue, to use the situation as an opportunity to be our best selves.
We can’t control hardship, but as Victor Frankl wrote in Man’s Search for Meaning, we can always control how we respond. We can choose to embrace virtues such as patience, courage, humility, resourcefulness, reason, justice, and creativity.
Benjamin Franklin, another Stoic, observes
All great victories, be they in politics, business, art, or seduction, involved resolving vexing problems with a potent cocktail of creativity, focus and daring. When you have a goal, obstacles are teaching you how to get where you want to go – carving you a path. The things which hurt instruct.
Holiday says the Stoics had an exercise called “turning the obstacle upside down” to train their perception so that the obstacle can be regarded as an opportunity. He describes this perceptual reframe as a two-part mental shift: “Firstly, to see disaster rationally, to see the reality of the situation, to not panic, or make rash decisions. Secondly, to see opportunity in every disaster, and transform that negative situation into an education, a skill set, a virtue or a fortune.”
These companies exemplify how creativity and stoicism can be powerful tools for resilience, enabling them to navigate and thrive through various challenges
- Auth0: Eugenio Pace, CEO of Auth0, has applied Stoic principles to his leadership style. By focusing on what can be controlled and accepting what cannot, he has guided the company through various challenges, fostering a resilient organizational culture.
- IBM: Faced with declining hardware sales in the early 1990s, IBM embraced a Stoic mindset by focusing on their strengths in software and services. This strategic pivot helped them recover and thrive in the tech industry.
- Corning: Known for its innovation in glass and ceramics, Corning has repeatedly adapted to market changes. Their development of Gorilla Glass for smartphones is a testament to their resilience and ability to leverage their core competencies.
Distinguishing between problem-solving and creativity
I want to pause for a moment to distinguish between problem-solving and creativity.
Problem-solving is about making the problem go away. You can put out fires all day long and never create anything. Creativity is about bringing something into being.
Use Positive Psychology to focus on your strengths and persevere
Studies in Positive Psychology show we boost our ability to persevere when we can reframe our failures or setbacks as learning opportunities or as ideas for growth. When we view setbacks as providing useful information so that we can overcome obstacles, we are less inclined to give up and persist toward our goal.[ii] We develop our creative resilience when we learn to reframe.
Positive Psychology is itself a reframe. It is a movement founded by Martin Seligman who was frustrated with the traditional model of psychology which focuses on fixing deficits. So much attention is paid to mental illness, abnormal psychology, trauma, suffering, and pain. Seligman reframed the focus of what can go wrong with us by asking, “What could go right?”
The goal of Positive Psychology is to identify, study, and enhance the human strengths and virtues that make life worth living. Rather than trying to fix deficits, positive psychologists emphasize that people should focus and build upon what they are doing well. Positive Psychology has become a movement dedicated to understanding and fostering happiness, wellbeing, exceptionalism, strengths, and flourishing.
To flourish is to be creatively resilient.
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Take an appreciative approach to problem-solving
One of the most profound insights into management practices occurred in the ’80s when David Cooperidder was conducting a study at Cleveland Clinic. By reversing the deficit-problem analytic methods of the day, and experimenting with an appreciative inquiry to find out what works, and what gives life to the organization, he discovered an untapped source of strength and energy within employees. Appreciative Inquiry not only served to catalyze a huge momentum at Cleveland Clinic but also sparked an era of unprecedented growth for the company.
What is Appreciative Inquiry (AI)?
Appreciative inquiry is a strengths-based, positive approach to leadership development and organizational change. The aim is to build – or rebuild – organizations around what works, rather than trying to fix what doesn’t. AI is a co-creative process that empowers groups to find what’s working, create an ideal vision for the group, and design a way to get there together. AI can be used by individuals, teams, organizations, or at the societal level.
Appreciative Inquiry is a constructive inquiry process that searches for everything that “gives life” to organizations, communities, and larger human systems when they are most alive, effective, creative and healthy in their interconnected ecology of relationships. To appreciate, quite simply, means to value and to recognize that which has value – it is a way of knowing and valuing the best in life… Appreciative Inquiry has a positive bias – toward the good, the better, the exceptional, and the possible.
— David Cooperrider
I’m fascinated by how Cooperrider came up with the idea for Appreciative Inquiry. His wife Nancy, who was studying art appreciation at the time, subscribed to the notion that “in every piece of art there is beauty.” He wondered why we don’t have “business appreciation” and came to believe that instead of asking “What’s wrong,” we should ask, “What’s right, and what’s going well?”
Cooperrider believes that like art, every organization has beauty and is an expression of spirit. If we can uncover and focus on that beauty and that spirit, we can envision a future of where we want to be, and we will be more likely to succeed. [iii]
Focusing on problems (a deficit bias) creates inertia that clouds our ability to feed strengths and fuel opportunities. We are better able to meet our challenges creatively by defining and using our strengths, instead of spending so much time defining our deficits. Appreciating what works fuels positive energy, excitement and creativity.
Comparing problem-solving to Appreciative Inquiry
| Traditional problem-solving | Appreciative approach |
|---|---|
| Focus on what’s wrong; search for root causes of failures | Focus on what works; search for root causes of success |
| Obstacles treated as barriers | Obstacles treated as ramps into new territory |
| If you look for problems, you’ll find (and create) more problems | If you look for successes, you’ll find (and create) more successes |
| Can lead to blaming | Can lead to greater creativity |
| De-energizing | Energizing |
AI has become a worldwide movement that contributes to transformational change in individuals and organizations. AI is a contributor to the strengths revolution in management and the emergence of positive psychology.
Appreciative inquiry involves 5 stages
Define – Establish the focus of inquiry. This stage clarifies the project’s purpose and scope, answering the question, “What generative topic do we want to explore?” Though a recent addition, it’s essential to set the foundation for the next stages.
Discover – Appreciate the best of ‘what is’. Through dialogue, this phase uncovers the strengths, successes, and moments of excellence within the organization or community.
Dream – Imagine ‘what could be’. Building on past achievements, participants envision future possibilities, focusing on hopes and aspirations for a thriving future.
Design – Determine ‘what should be’. By combining the discoveries from the past with future possibilities, this phase crafts the ideal scenario for the organization or community.
Deliver/Destiny – Create ‘what will be’. This final phase ensures that the envisioned design is implemented and embedded within the organization. Originally called ‘delivery’, the term ‘destiny’ is now more commonly used to emphasize the ongoing, evolving nature of change. [iv]
Appreciative Inquiry in a Pandemic: An Improbable Pairing
As the pandemic wears on and many of us feel we are in a kind of purgatory, some have asked “Isn’t it an oxymoron to be appreciative while experiencing unprecedented states of angst and disruption?” David Cooperrider and Ronald Fry respond:[v]
What we would like to underscore here is that AI is not about being or thinking positively or negatively. Its call is to transcend this polarity. It is not about positive versus negative human experience, but the choice to inquire into what is life. The task of AI is the penetrating search for what gives life, what fuels developmental potential, and what has deep meaning—even in the midst of the tragic.
In so many times of disruption, there is always the radically increased potential to summon our better humanity. That is why the best in human systems can burst forth just as life, even a blade of grass can bust out all over, even after a heavy cement highway has been placed over it. Resilience, even amid tragedy, CAN grow. It is not a noun, not a thing, but a verb; something that can be built and forged in the crucible of crises.
Leveraging the 80/20 ratio
Cooperrider and Fry’s research shows that disruption can actually drive progress in organizations. For example, during the pandemic, many businesses quickly adapted, shifting to remote work and offering new services.
They argue that focusing on strengths rather than weaknesses leads to even bigger breakthroughs. Instead of spending 80% of the time on problems and 20% on strengths, flipping that ratio can unlock the full potential of the “positivity ratio.”
Gallup and others have consistently found that most managers focus too much on fixing weaknesses. This 80-20 mindset is common in areas like parenting, media, healthcare, politics, and bureaucratic management. The positive strengths movement challenges this, pushing for a focus on what’s working instead. By emphasizing strengths over flaws, organizations can make radical and transformative shifts. [iv]
Appreciative Inquiry (AI) can be applied in everyday practices, from improving relationships and mental health to enhancing collaboration and innovation in organizations. It’s a powerful tool for co-creating change and building on what’s already working well.
Summary
To become creatively resilient, make a habit out of reframing situations in ways that invite new perspectives and inspire creative solutions, especially now when circumstances are challenging. Look for the silver lining in any negative situation, and find ways to turn your insights into action.
References:
[i] Excerpted from The Obstacle is the Way, by Ryan Holiday
[ii] VIA Pro Strengths profile. VIA Institute on Character. 2011
[iii] Cooperrider, D.L. and Avital, M. (Ed.) Constructive Discourse and Human Organization (Advances in Appreciative Inquiry, Vol. 1), Emerald Group Publishing Limited.
[iv] 5-D Cycle of Appreciative Inquiry, AI Commons, retrieved March 11, 2024,
[v] Cooperrider, D. L., & Fry, R. (2020). Appreciative Inquiry in a Pandemic: An Improbable Pairing. The Journal of Applied Behavioral Science, 56(3), 266–271.
[vi] Cooperrider, D.L. (2012). The concentration effect of strengths: How the whole system ”AI” summit brings out the best in human enterprise. Organizational Dynamics, 41, 106-117.
