Creativity and Leadership

We all have talents and aptitudes from an early age.

Creativity gives meaning and unfolds as an inherent language we trust.

Our internal state influences our external actions, abilities, and responses, including our capacity. By focusing on disciplined efforts, we enhance our creativity and capabilities. Personal growth is a genuine gradual process, like building a structure brick by brick, leading to meaningful accomplishments. Because you are laying one brick at a time, you look back and see the inevitable. Learning from others is part of this value, but it’s important to find fulfillment in our unique journey and creativity rather than mimicking or being envious others, otherwise frustration is not resolved and development restricts or diminishes.

Our development, however, is not as simple as this. Sometimes we have to decide if we push through barriers. Our intelligence should tell us when not to as well. Breaking seemingly impossible barriers can be excruciating with exceptional rewards. Even if we are stale-mated, we can usually find some smaller thing to achieve, which is empowerment. This means you can make future decisions that otherwise would have been beyond yourself.

Dysfunction or limited personal development can understandably cause people to encounter loss. A chronic condition may show self-delusion, a person thinking they are highly skilled when they are not. If they were, their activities would be validated. Non-validation leads to self-validation or justification, blocking out dialogue from others.

The key is to enjoy what our interests are, within a context absent of envy or competition. Competition is a particular refinement and skill with a goal.

Both creativity and technical skills are essential. Just as an accountant is crucial for financial outcomes and an architect for design. We see the pragmatic versus enterprise. Boredom indicates internal restrictions. Where does this come from? For example, growing up with fear rather than confidence. You are allowed to be confident, but what if you were never taught that?

I struggled with musical understanding and technique at a young age, partly due to starting late and lacking a supportive emotional environment. Over time, I overcame or engaged various life-challenges, gaining insight into musical expression by default, meaning there was an inherent disposition towards that form of creativity. It is easy for me to see where others flounder in musical expression. Chopin knew he was dying when he wrote Prelude #4. Concert performers may move their bodies, change facial expressions, lift their hands off the keyboard differently, trying to evoke emotion, but to me the expression is annoying and false from striving for emotion. Certainly if you have confronted life and death you would likely perform a good rendition of the prelude.

We have a right to develop the talent we are disposed to. Expression is exposure. How often in the workforce do we say someone has no idea what they are doing? This goes back to personal development. Good development is a valued intangible asset because it contains certain qualities such as good direction. People love good direction. These people do not become bored.

I had limited teaching at University. The way I played music was completely “wrong”. The musical teaching that benefits me has come from concert performers on YouTube – the COVID lock-downs opened up a new way to communicate when stuck at home, frustrated. My musical expression and ability changed due to life itself. It is worth noting though, at an early age I was told I would never do well in English, later that I would never be able to work with the company I wanted. I was even mocked at not being able to use computer punch cards. Well, all of those negatives were categorically wrong.

As we develop, we know what to do. In the workforce, rigid systems like time sheets or employment of certain types of ex-military can dehumanize and provide worse outcomes. If we learn how to make decisions and personally develop, we don’t need to compete in what we do, because we stay true to who we are. It is the world’s failing to categorise us as one thing or another.

And so we learn to trust what we learn. It is easy to identify when software is going in a good direction or a dead end. It is easy to “see” and follow industry best practices and business principles when others say why. It is easy to continue our own development and characteristics of leadership, developing working end-to-end solutions for people and their actual needs.

Over 25 years experience in IT with ASX listed and International companies.

I was an in-country specialist & Solutions Design Architect in the field of business communications, enjoying access to a wide range of Enterprise resources and people.

SDA – Solutions Design and Architecture – encourages you and those around you within the context of initiative, talent and aptitude, to facilitate the creative and technical design of low-risk delivery IT projects, including all kinds of projects such as financials, payment systems, email, web design, photography and more. This approach is based on IT best practices and business principles as known by industry professionals across the board.

If we see definitive behavioural problems, people use controls like enforcement, anger, conditional approval, or as worse case, bullying or threat to conduct their projects. We will see a wide spectrum of these behaviours in the work force.

For over 25 years I learnt the value and reliability of not working on the basis of bad behaviours, instead all my projects being enjoyable and successful with constructs such as transparency and respect – not one failure.

solutions = people ≠ brochures

There are no IT “metrics” for “added value” or what we do behind the scenes.

Each of my projects were conducted with transparency with no project failures in my entire career. How is this possible?

Fear of failure and non-transparency is not a healthy and supposed “conservative” position, but inability to move forward, with loss of opportunity and reward to oneself and others. Failure has a broader definition at times than the obvious.

Planned risk and an inherent energy yields higher success rates with the right skills and people around us. Solutions help us see, providing incentive for change. Of course, not everyone wants change. On the other hand, some changes are bad, showing a lack of solution awareness. A solution is not just a technical achievement. Imagine a team leader saying, how do we better the experience of clients for both themselves and our revenue? I have always seen possible solutions. However, some people come up with demands, telling people what their “solutions” will be, irrespective of the outcomes. We can take any IT and people problems, and come up with inventive, surprising solutions. We always can. The good solutions will save money. In the lack of that trust and experience, people come up with bad solutions. The bad solutions will cost more money, even anger. We see this all the time.

Actual failure is usually the absence of the right conditions for solutions design. This means people do not know how to make decisions, take ownership, use intuition, or support mentoring. Good IT people will be noticed in the long-run by colleagues and clients, having a much sort after commodity called “added value”.

Some are unsettled at others’ success or as opportunity arises.

Common sense, research, intelligence and good practice enables project solutions. At times a solution is necessary but limited by current technology. Seemingly pleasant, regarded people may threaten or attempt to block our work without offering a viable alternative, even insisting our project will fail. Managers under panic or pressure may be unable to make calm, rational mission critical decisions when we know our solution will succeed.

“It won’t work! It cannot work!” [Senior mainframe engineer for an aircraft maintenance project.]
“I will stop your work if it is not finished in seven days!” [Translation of legacy data on a multi-million dollar project.]
“I won’t co-operate with you because no one else can do my job.” [Project for an ASX listed financial company.]
“I won’t let anyone else help you. Do it all yourself.” [Major proposal for all Australian residents.]

Substantiated solutions with behind the scenes support from specialists, developers, labs, technical papers, proof of concept and testing, commitments to delivery with associated financials, all of which follow industry best practice, ensure positive outcomes

These successes climb above any negative background noise as demonstrated in the above examples.

Usually unsubstantiated fall-backs have major faults or are technically non-viable. We are confronted by these kinds of behaviours, but we know the backbone of our experience and knowledge because other people we work with along the way are true. Good solutions do not second guess or leave a void from unknown or untested alternatives.