This Wednesday evening, April 17, Adam will be the final speaker at Juice on the Loose, a celebration of World Creativity and Innovation Week at Catalyst Ranch, one of the premier creative meeting spaces in Chicago, which published another version of this blog here.
In my mid-twenties, I did not believe
I could ever, ever, play music or respectably sing or write my own songs. Even
though I loved music, my mindset was: I
am not a musician and it would be impossible for me to become one. But
thanks to spending time with others who helped me break that mindset and
inspired me to risk trying, I became a prolific singer-songwriter and now a
speaker-consultant-facilitator who uses music with corporate groups to help
them become better at collaborating creatively.
(Read more about my musical story on a past blog here.)
I had always been interested in
creativity and self-expression, having studied in college with Teresa
Amabile, one of the world’s leading creativity researchers, and,
after a master’s degree in education from Stanford, getting an opportunity to
experiment with group creativity for five years as an eventual teacher-of-the-year at
a top private school in Northern California. At
the time I began to play music, I lived in San Francisco and saw how easy it is
for all of us to turn off our creative faucet, to accept being a spectator
rather than a creator in our lives. So I
founded the Kreativity Network then, which eventually brought thousands of people together in
the Bay Area to share and support their own creativity through events and
workshops. When I moved to Chicago ten years ago, Kreativity Network became the
name of my business.
As adults in organizations (and in
our personal lives), many factors conspire to squelch rather than unleash our
creative thinking and doing. To be creative together, a group needs to operate
by different ground rules and permission to experiment, to risk, to sometimes be
wrong and sometimes fail. I share with clients this definition of innovation: To improve what’s now and to create what’s
next. To do that requires a shift of
mindset, a willingness to imagine and envision, that may seem nearly
impossible. My job is to help groups and individuals embrace new possibilities,
like the possibility, perhaps, that you too could become a musician.
Now I’ve worked with more than 100
companies and organizations, including McDonald’s, Panasonic, Siemens and the
Federal Reserve, to help them build cultures that are more innovative and
collaborative. You can check out a brochure here. My goal, through innovation retreats, teambuilding events and
strategy sessions, is for the group to experience creativity together so that
they bring a new mindset into the way they work.
I’ve also continued to take my own
risks as a creator, now directing a groundbreaking interfaith creativity
program for kids called Poetry
Pals, recently writing a musical with unusual audience-participation
components, and expanding my offerings to include how we are changing as a
culture overall, based on research on Cultural
Creatives.
So come out to Catalyst Ranch
Wednesday night to celebrate creativity and experiment with ideas (and perhaps
music…) with me—you might be surprised to find a shift is possible for you too.
Here is the description and bio for my 8:00pm program for Juice on the Loose. All information on the event can be found here.
Creative
Collaboration: Breaking the Creative Ice
How do we go from our left brain, logical side—which many our jobs
demand—to our right brain, imaginative side?
And how do we best do that in collaboration with others? Adam will take us from a left brain
understanding of what creativity really is to an interactive exploration of how
best to get out of our heads and into the creative moment together. Using principles from the most creative
groups—from improvisational theater to rock bands—you’ll learn key creativity
ground rules and skills to help you and colleagues (or friends) be more
imaginative together.
BIO
Adam Shames is a creativity expert, organizational consultant and
speaker who specializes in innovation, teambuilding and community events, and whose
recent clients include Walgreens, Whole Foods and the Federal Reserve. He
is also a musician, poet and executive director of Poetry Pals (www.poetrypals.org), an interfaith non-profit creativity
program that brings together Muslim, Jewish and Catholic kids and their
communities. A former “Teacher of the Year” with a master’s degree from
Stanford University, Adam is the founder of the Kreativity Network (www.kreativity.net), writes about creativity in his “Innovation
on my Mind” blog (www.innovationonmymind.com) and is
adjunct faculty for Depaul University School of New Learning.
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