Does your environment foster creation or stagnation? A recent study in Psychological Science has shown that while administrators and corporate CEOs talk a lot about creative innovation, they routinely block it. Threatened by the uncertainty of the creative process, they stifle the creative ideas of their people to maintain a predictable status quo: an absolute formula for stagnation (Mueller, Melwani, & Goncalo, 2012). And when they do promote change, these administrators over control. Instead of listening and learning from the people around them, they impose a new policy top-down, rewarding complicity, not creativity.
What our world needs now is not complicity but deep creativity, the courage to reach beyond the status quo for new solutions, new possibilities. This vision of creative leadership is affirmed in the ancient Chinese classic, the Tao Te Ching, which has inspired artists and innovative leaders for over twenty-five centuries. The Tao reminds us to look beyond divisive policies and limited definitions to learn from the wisdom of nature, the patterns within and around us:
The earth and sky cooperate
And the soft rain falls
Not by man’s laws
But by natural harmony.
When civilizations developed,
Definitions arose.
We know the part and not the whole.
Wisdom is seeing the patterns.
. . .
The powerful currents of Tao
Are like a river
Flowing homeward
To the sea.
(Tao Te Ching, chapter 32, from Dreher, 2000, pp. 242, 6, 198)
Change, in the Tao, is part of the natural cycle, and uncertainty the path to higher wisdom:
The way to greater light leads through the darkness.
Going ahead feels like falling back.
The even path seems rugged and hilly,
The highest power, a yielding valley.
The greatest virtue seems unreal,
And strength of character appears like folly.
Great space has no boundaries.
The greatest skill is developed gradually,
The greatest music rarely heard.
The great Tao is without form,
Elusive, undefinable,
Yet the source of all life.”
(Tao Te Ching, chapter 41, from Dreher, 2000, p. 213 and Dreher, 1996, p. 9)
As you face the challenges in your life, you can draw upon the wisdom of Tao. By pausing to recognize the larger patterns within and around you, you can transcend the status quo, experiencing the power and joy of new possibilities.
Take a moment now to breathe deeply. Know that you are part of the larger process. Embrace the infinite source of your creative power, right here, right now.
References
Dreher, D. (1996). The Tao of Personal Leadership. New York,NY: HarperCollins.
Dreher, D. (2000). The Tao of Inner Peace. New York,NY: Penguin Putnam.
Mueller, J. S., Melwani, S., & Goncalo, J. A. (2012). The bias against creativity: Why people desire but reject creative ideas. Psychological Science, 23, 13-17.
See Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching. (2011). Gia-Fu Feng, Jane English, Toinette Lippe. (Trans.). New York, NY: Random House/Vintage for a beautiful translation of the Tao Te Ching with original Chinese calligraphy and evocative nature photography.
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