For the longest time, I believed I was not creative. I’ve never excelled in art - I was always trying to “get it right.” Growing up, I loved math. I was (and still am) analytical, a thinker, and I love a good intellectual debate. I thought I was going to be a lawyer. Therefore, I must not be creative.
The label and determination that I’m not creative, was reinforced by the popular theory of left brain vs. right brain, popularized in the 1970’s. Remember that? The trending philosophy was a fairly binary categorization - you were either one or the other. So I quite logically labeled myself solely as an “analytical thinker.”
Creative AND Analytical Thinking
In the more recent decades, brain research continues to suggest that tendencies toward analytical thinking and creative thinking are a lot more nuanced than the “right side vs left side” theory suggests. And the most impactful strategic leaders leverage the gifts of analytical and creative thinking. Gone are the days of the binary thinking of “I’m either analytical or creative.” We all have the capacity for both, to varying degrees.
Fast forward to my work as a strategic advisor and executive coach, where I see other leaders potentially caught in this same binary thinking and sense of identity: analytical or creative. I designed a Strategic Impact Quiz to help leaders orient themselves to where they are on the journey to game-changing strategic leadership - a Thinker, Planner, Creator or Transformer? Each stage with distinct strengths and opportunities for development. It’s mostly at the Creator and Transformer stages that leaders leverage the gifts of both analytic and creative thinking, and understand when and how to apply them.
It’s the label of Creator that leaves many a leader pleasantly surprised. It can be a complete shake up to an identification held since adolescence, and even add a transformational layer to their self awareness as strategic leaders. Especially for highly analytical thinkers.
Expanding beyond Predicting: To Creating
When we’re making comprehensive decisions on a massive scale that affect revenue projections and the jobs of real people, it makes sense to leverage data and analytics to find a path with high probability of success. But sometimes, too much focus on control for predictable outcomes can be limiting. To create change and transform industries for the better, even the most analytical of leaders must open their minds to possibilities in the absence of data.
And this can mean temporarily muting the need and desire for the most efficient and highly probable path to success. It can even mean redefining what success will look like.
Creative thinking can feel messy and murky - and it is.
As a leader trying to navigate large-scale decisions in a complex landscape, it’s difficult if you can’t orient yourself with reliable data or proven market research. Your organization looks to you for the answers, yet at the same time, you won’t know if a new idea has the right value, or a new approach will contribute meaningfully to the bigger vision. Yet part of being a strategic leader is the ability to lead others (and ourselves) through the unclear and the unknown. Even when this comes with fear and discomfort.
When guiding executives through complex decision making, I ask them to pause the analytical mind, and simply open themselves up to some strategic questions. What is their trailblazing vision? And what conditions would need to be true in order for this vision to be possible?
Because to be a game-changer, we must shift into an imagination space.
Even self-identified “analytical thinkers” will adopt the creative thinking model to transform their business or impact. To envision transformational change, we must release ourselves from the pressures of the process, people, and profits aspect, and simply play with the possibilities for a while.
Putting it In Practice: Combining Rigor and Creativity
When working with clients, I encourage them to lead their organization through the following strategic thought process:
- Examine where the organization is now (analytic), and envision what that future state could be (creative)
- Then diverge from the proven paths to theoretically explore alternative possibilities (creative)
- Understand assumptions and beliefs - what would need to be true in order to successfully achieve a new vision (analytic)
- Then converge back into the path of sound analytics and cohesive decision making for the organization as a whole
I liken it to this…
We would never have dreamed of putting a man on the moon if we relied solely on what was already true and what had already been done.
And would never have succeeded at putting a man on the moon without relying on existing expertise and proven theories to inform a sound but innovative strategy and the right technology.
Curious to see if you are a Creator too? You might be surprised. Take my Strategic Impact Quiz to discover if you are a Creator, Thinker, or Planner.
