The unplayable piano - LI11

Tim Harford: How frustration can make us more creative

The video of Tim Harford’s TED talk gives appreciation to disruption. Tim Harford's speech is something I will certainly carry in my thoughts for a long time and, I believe, find helpful in my future. For me, creativity was always sometimes ‘out there’ and random and even though I had certain ways of ‘inspiring’ creativity they weren’t as accessible as the system Tim is speaking about. Tim argues that challenges and problems can derail your creative process and make you more creative than ever. Are there indeed advantages with having to work with a little mess?

Tim shared a few stories about teams and leaders who had to deal with messy situations. It seemed like all of them produced better results, but weren't sure that the results were good or just didn’t like the process. The main story that was shared was about Keith Jarrett and a young producer. Keith Jarrett once had to play piano at the Cologne Opera House where everything was going wrong both for the producer of the show and for him. The piano wasn’t good enough to be played on and on the top of that, it was too small for the hall. The 17-year-old producer was unable to find a new piano and all she had left was to beg Keith for help. Maybe on some previous occasions Keith left and just cancelled his performance, but this time it was different. He decided that the young 17-year-old producer is the only reason for him to stay and play that piano in front of 25 thousand people…and magic happened.

Tim shared some other similar stories which got me thinking. Is it really that mess in my life can produce something extraordinary? Trying to recall a situation or a project where there was a mess in some part of the process brought me to my dissertation. I usually try to go through work step by step with clearly set goals, but as my dissertation subject suddenly changed at the start of the year there was no time for thinking. I was on ground zero again and had to start from a really messy point. I had to both work for somebody and write up my dissertation. Even though I had no research proposal nor a clear way of doing the research I just started roaming through the mess and eventually something great surfaced.

As of now, I have written up almost 2/3 of my dissertation and feel comfortable with my current position. All the mess and tight self-imposed deadlines pushed me to work harder and produce something useful and of value. However, my approach to work didn’t change, it was just more efficient, dynamic and I was more motivated to actually do it. My dissertation is also of a higher value than what I had planned last year and it makes me feel that some mess indeed can bring value to my work.

Watching Tim’s video again I have to say that I understand the methods he is proposing, and I believe that these can be utilised almost anywhere. Likewise, connecting this to change management, a lot is connected to that state of urgency and constant bearable pressure where people have less time to question their work and decisions and, therefore, they just ‘DO’. I found this approach very useful and plan to incorporate it in my life both from the personal and professional standpoint.

Link to the video

#mess #creativity