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Using Creative Strategies to Combat Uncertain Times with Natalie Nixon · Authentic Living

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  Welcome to authentic living with Roxanne, a place where we have as conversations about
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  things that really matter in our lives.
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  And now here's your host, Roxanne Derhodge.
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  Hi, everyone.
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  It's Roxanne Derhodge of authentic living with Roxanne.
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  Thanks for tuning in again.
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  Today, I have a special guest, Natalie Nixon.
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  Hi, Natalie.
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  How are you today?
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  Hi, Roxanne.
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  Doing well.
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  Thank you for having me.
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  Natalie is the president of, the Figurate Thinking and the author of the creativity leap.
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  So she, helps leaders design, optimal experiences to leverage creativity and sustain
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  innovation and to prioritize their goals resulting in happier employees, which I would
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  think that that's in this time that's something that, most, I think before 2020.
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  Most people were wanting to be happy at work, but I would think that that's been more of an
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  issue lately.
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  And you work in the strategy, foresight, and change management spaces.
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  So I would think that you've been pretty busy this year.
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  Yeah.
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  Actually, I have been.
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  It's it's been an incredible year for all of us.
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  And as I'm become really fond of saying days of uncertainty are designed for creativity.
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  So I I've been keeping busy indeed.
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  So let's talk about that.
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  When you say days of uncertainty breeds creativity, I would say that the average
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  person, I don't know if you would agree with that, would say Absolutely not.
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  We're we'd be diametrically opposed to when we're when we're uncertain, more often, and
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  fair.
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  And when we're in fear, we're kind of, you know, our Maglia is or is kind of activated and
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  oftentimes people get into a frozen state, but you're saying, actually, the opposite is is
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  true of, creativity.
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  Tell me a little bit more about that.
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  It with it being your your your ex strategies?
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  Well, I say that days of uncertainty are designed for creativity because creativity
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  loves mass and these these this is a bit of a hot mess of a time.
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  And creativity is not doing whatever you feel like.
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  Creativity actually loves constraints.
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  It loves constraints on time, constraints on resources, constraints on people talent, And so
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  when we have this pressure cooker environment and moment as we've been living through in the
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  in the COVID quarantine, this is actually the time when it actually is pretty fruitless to
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  pull out a a linear gantt chart, you're not gonna project manage your way out of these
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  sorts of circumstances.
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  The best way to navigate uncertainty is, which is a complex system.
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  The best way to navigate complexity is with complexity.
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  And creativity is a complex system.
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  It is, I I think about creativity as toggling between wonder and rigor to solve problems.
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  And when we are living through what in systems, designing systems thing we call, wicked
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  challenges, you know, these are questions like, how do we ensure that every child gets, a 1st
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  class education?
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  How do we ensure that there's equitable access to to healing and and health systems, how do we
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  ensure all those sorts of big questions that requires creativity to problem solve our way
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  through that.
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  So that that's my perspective on how we get through these times.
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  Well, you know, it's it's interesting.
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  So Tell me more about when we think from a micro level, let's say.
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  So, you know, when you see employees and most employees, are wanting a bit of certainty.
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  And you would say that in 2020, the certainty has been the the polar opposite of what people
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  generally are looking for.
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  We re we recognize that there's you know, when I was in, salting and health consulting with
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  health and wellness, at any given point, my portfolio of companies were in flux.
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  About 75% of of them were in flux.
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  In 2020, you know, that that percentage would even be more because they're at any given point
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  there was change going on and it was change over change over change.
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  So how is it that when you're out there?
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  How are you seeing, senior leaders dealing with the element of their mental health and
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  well-being in order to to make the most of that tension that you're talking about.
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  I wouldn't call it attention.
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  It's actually an opportunity to, lean in to the what feels like a ball of confusion is a bit
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  it's actually a bit counterintuitive.
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  What I'm finding with my clients is that right now the they there's a con kind of awakening
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  moment that that that this is requires very much inside out work.
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  What I mean by that is we have the opportunity now to bring more of our fully human selves to
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  work.
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  And actually, we're doing that through these digital meeting spaces.
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  So if you're on a Zoom or teams or whatever the the platform is meeting, you get a glimpse into
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  people's home life.
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  You get a glimpse into their spouse walking by.
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  You get a glimpse into dimensions of themselves that we took have been unaware of or who
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  haven't been curious about.
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  And so right now, we get to redesign our relationship with time, We get to redesign our
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  relationship with ourselves and with our colleagues.
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  And in fact, I find that it actually improves productivity.
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  Because otherwise, most of us have been showing up to work in drag.
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  It's it's Natalie's greatest hits, the best of and, anyone who's had to hide a dimension of
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  themselves at work and not fully, truly, with their their human selves, it does diminish
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  productivity.
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  So if people were to know that I am an emerging, ballroom dancer, I love ballroom
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  dance, and they were to ask me, from from basic hallway moments and casual conversation to what
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  I can borrow from that world to give to a challenge at hand at work, it actually helps me
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  to show up differently.
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  And we're now in what's called the 4th industrial revolution.
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  Which is the revolution characterized by ubiquitous technology and the trains left the
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  station.
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  That moment is here.
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  So I have an Alexa app in my office.
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  I'm talking softly, so it doesn't start to ding ding ding.
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  And that's powered by, as an example, actually augmented reality and, AI.
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  If we don't know the meaning of a word, we Google it or do a Yahoo search on it.
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  That's driven by artificial intelligence.
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  A lot of of health care surgeries are done with robotics now.
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  So because there there will be casualties in this 4th industrial revolution, or any kind
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  task oriented work will be most likely be replaced.
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  The silver lining is that actually makes more space and room for our human selves to show up.
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  So going back tough my answer when I when I said that there's actually no more opportunity
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  for us to do inside out work.
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  It it what I'm saying is is opportunity for us to to merge the individual and the group, the
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  private and the public work in home.
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  And I and I don't we're we're not gonna go back to the old normal.
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  The next normal is going to be a a hybrid working style where the boundaries are a lot
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  more blurred.
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  Well, I like that perspective, because oftentimes when I talk to people, they'll talk
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  about that blurring of the lines as being a negative.
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  And you're the first person that I've spoken to had that has had that perspective, which is
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  it's so true because recently I interviewed a, a recognition expert.
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  And what he did is he oftentimes would say to people, tell me what you're doing just before
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  we got on the line, and tell me what you're gonna be doing right after you got off the
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  line.
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  And I thought, is not quite inter it's a fascinating thing because, obviously, we know
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  that leaders have, you know, the the more that they're connected to them selves, they're more
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  able to connect to others around mom.
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  And when he and then so I said, okay.
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  Let's play the game.
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  He said, He just had to get rid of the cat that was in he was climbing up climbing up his leg.
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  His daughter just ran in with her homework that she's kinda semi finished but was trying not to
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  finish.
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  And then was trying to finish off lunch before he could kinda come on do the podcast and then
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  go off again, and then he had to pick up exactly what he left off.
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  So He was talking, which is what you were you're sharing, Natalie, about the the the
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  reality, like, that blurred lines actually let's us get to know each other on a on a
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  completely different level other than the typical, hey, how are you doing Roxanne?
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  Pretty good.
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  How how are, you know, how are your children?
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  What's new?
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  How's your mom and dad?
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  Blah blah blah blah blah.
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  We move on, and that's about the extent of it.
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  But what you're saying makes so much more sense because now work at home are 1 than the same.
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  When people feel scene and when people feel heard, they show up differently.
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  And that's one thing you're talking about in a in a school environment and talking about the
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  size of a classroom or talking about corporations that move kind of more towards a
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  pod model so that people feel seen and heard.
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  We we, as humans, we crave connection it's it's it's part of how we are designed.
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  And so, any ways that that we can we can do that, the better off the organization will be,
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  the better off the people will be who are, who are showing up every day.
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  And I I I was I was really reflecting back in April how, you know, a couple of centuries ago
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  when when most of the world was based in an agricultural economy, You'd wake up in the
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  morning.
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  You do your ablutions.
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  You'd have something to eat.
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  You'd cross over your threshold.
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  And you were at work.
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  And I've been working from home for about 3 years now, but now more and more people are
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  waking up in the morning, showing their oblivions, having something to eat, and why
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  it's a 30 second commute.
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  I step over my threshold, and I'm at work.
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  So that's another example of just how this moment is is blurring the lines between work
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  and home and personal and professional and that sort of thing.
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  So I'm just curious, right?
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  Like, for companies that were already into that element of creativity, and recognizes accepting
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  all the moving parts, they would be way ahead when they had to shift completely to say a
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  virtual workforce.
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  What about for other environments?
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  How what have you seen out there?
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  People that, had to adjust quickly that hadn't maybe had some of the parts together.
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  What what were some of the struggles, that you've heard of or even that you've worked with
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  with people that hadn't, you know, I'm gonna say you embrace the elements of of, what it
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  takes to be creative.
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  So let me unpack how I define creativity moment for a moment to answer that question.
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  So I've already shared that I think about creativity as toggling between wonder and rigor
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  to solve problems and produce value at scale.
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  And I talk about that in my new creativity leap.
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  And wonder is about all and audacity and asking big blue sky.
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  What if questions and it's also about pausing.
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  Rigor is about discipline and time on task and deep skill development and both are really
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  essential.
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  So what I find, in in in a lot of of organizations, they're not quite the the
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  further away from the wonder piece.
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  And often what they think is rigor, they've conflated it with rigidity.
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  And rigidity and rigor are not the same thing.
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  So re rigidity might be, you know, tightly bound constraints that are inflexible.
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  As I say, creativity needs rules and loves but they are fluid structures.
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  Think about an improvisational jazz band.
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  There are rules to jazz that improvisation jazz is not about doing whatever you feel like.
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  And, so the the opportunity is to design in more space and more time for both the wonder
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  and for the rigor.
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  And I've really been honing on what I call the value of the pause.
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  And the COVID quarantine has has incentivized a lot of us to pause.
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  Some of us are less comfortable with that pause than others.
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  But as an organization, really accept that, you take your medicine now or you take it later.
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  If you don't pause now to reevaluate in order to reboot, you will have to pause in a very
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  actionary way.
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  And as one of my professional crushes, as to perel, Esther Perez says, you know, one of the
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  many wise things she was she was saying in one of her her podcasts in in in rapid forms, she
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  referenced how being reactionary is the opposite of being creative.
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  When we're creative, we're not being reaction Mary.
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  We are actually, responding and acting in the moment.
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  The other dimension of creativity that's part of my creativity framework is what I call the 3
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  I and the 3 i's are inquiry, improvisation, and intuition.
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  So those are 3 specific dimensions of exercising creativity that we as individuals
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  and our companies can do.
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  So, asking more question leading with questions, being more transparent about as
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  leaders, about, the questions we have about where we are.
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  Where the company is in inviting encouraging questions and understanding that asking
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  questions is a way of thinking as Warren Berger likes to say.
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  Improvisation.
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  I did my my entire doctoral research was about the Ritz Carlton and the ways that they design
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  experiences for guests.
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  And it turns out the the Ritz Carlton organization is an improvisational
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  organization.
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  They could not be a micromanaged, permissions to the culture, if they wanted to consistently
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  delight and surprise guests.
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  And then and then finally intuition, is that something we about in business school, law
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  school, medical school, yet every successful leader acknowledges intuition or what I call
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  pattern recognition in decision making.
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  So those are three ways that companies can really start to engage in the creative process.
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  And, you know, I'm I'm I'm also launching my second book as well, Natalie, and it's on,
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  authentic heart leadership.
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  And it's coming from the space that when the leader is able to take that pause to use your
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  your your term and really, center themselves and understand, you know, their leadership
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  story and and their decisionational, process or matrix and what are the influences that, you
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  know, made them become the kind of core leaders that they are, then they, you know, they become
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  that much more attuned to themselves and they have to at the end of the day make decisions
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  from a very, very deep space within themselves.
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  And the leaders that are, you know, cutting edge are actually taking that space ongoing on
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  on ongoing time throughout their day, their week, even before the pandemic, to be able to
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  get to that space, but I think now everybody kinda got slammed into March.
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  And then it's like, you know, there was this reverberation for people to say, Wow.
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  I've got all this time, and I've got all this family around me.
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  And, you know, I need some kind of space.
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  So it got created out of that space, but really leaders that are connected at the ones that
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  were always making that as a part of their diet throughout, throughout their day, throughout
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  their quarters, or just generally.
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  Yes.
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  So
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  let's talk a little bit about, uncertainty, right?
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  And there's obviously from your world that's a really positive space, but unfortunately I was
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  just reading some stats just on LinkedIn and from a Canadian workforce.
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  And what they're saying is a lot more people are stressed you know, they're talking about
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  millennials being, you know, the ones that are kind of remote or hybrid, they're more
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  uncertain of their their futures and a lot of them are making decisions based on fear, which
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  is kind of where I work with with mental health and well-being.
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  What what kind of strategies, which is suggest for leaders that are having a lot more of their
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  population coming from a place of care.
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  Well, first, I should clarify.
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  I I don't come from the perspective that the uncertainty is a great thing.
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  I come to the perspective that if we build our our creative competency.
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  If we build that muscle and exercise it, we will get increasingly better at sitting with
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  the discomfort of ambiguity.
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  I don't think I don't think the discomfort of ambiguity and uncertainty ever goes away.
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  It's much more a question of how you re how we respond to it.
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  So I recall I I I include this in the book the creativity lead that I listened to a podcast.
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  I love the podcast called Hello, Monday, with with just Jessie Hempel, and she was
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  interviewing the actress Lara Lenny.
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  And Lara Lenny was talking about how how artists, specifically, actors, are really good
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  at wrestling with the discomfort of ambiguity.
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  They're they're much more trained to embrace process rather than solution.
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  And all of this work starts with a shift in mindset.
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  So, you know, I have a background in culture apology and fashion.
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  And, I needed I keep saying this.
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  I'm just gonna go ahead and do it.
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  I'm gonna make I'm creating a teacher that says it's culture silly.
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  Because at the end of the day, all of these changes lee lead to needing to make a a shift
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  in culture.
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  And Chit Charles Machine starts with shifts in mindset, which lead to shifts in behaviors,
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  which culminate in in an organizational change.
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  And that doesn't happen overnight.
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  So I would say the leaders who are who are identifying, you know, current employees and
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  thinking about ways they want to prepare going forward to spend a lot of time, with mindset
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  shifting and mindset shifting away from being solutions up assessed to being process
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  obsesses.
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  I call it, becoming ambiguous confident and future friendly.
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  And that also means you have an opportunity to start to hire different sorts of people so much
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  creativity is sparked from cognitive diversity, from people who don't think the way I do who
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  would approach the same, challenging, completely different ways.
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  So those are a few of the ways that that organizations can can tackle this time.
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  What sounds like you've been, busy, and I I know you also you're a global speaker and
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  people have the opportunity to, you're being very gracious will it allow them to download a
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  copy, a chapter of the book.
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  So why don't you tell them, where they can do that and also for opportunities to, either
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  consults or have you come in and speak with it, they can also reach, reach you Natalie.
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  If they go to figure 8thinking.com.
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  That's the word figure, the number 8 thinking.com, Right on the home page at the top
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  banner, they can click right there and they can download a free sample chapter of the
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  creativity leap, and then you will also start to receive the ever wonder newsletter.
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  Right?
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  I I had all sorts of updates on on group coaching opportunities that I'm starting to
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  launch as well as my consulting practice and my advisory So thank you so much for for asking me
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  to share that.
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  Well, thanks so much for spending the time.
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  So what have I learned?
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  I think Coming up at, you know, uncertainty from the mental health space, I like that,
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  concept of wonder and wonder and rigor.
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  Like, I love that space because really what it it it kinda puts you into the space to look at
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  it from a different angle versus the deficits, and none of us liked uncertainty to your
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  points.
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  Right?
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  Most of us, we're human beings.
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  We like buckets to put things in.
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  But when you kind of start to accept the space and really what we're seeing already with 2021
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  that there's gonna be a lot more uncertainty to get comfortable with process versus outcome or
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  solution, that that seems to be a better space.
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  So that's would be the challenge to people listening to to to try to start to think or
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  develop from that space of, getting comfortable with the unknown.
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  And and I know we've We've tried to do that for the 1st 6 months.
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  In the last couple of months, I think we're probably finding our footing a little bit
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  better.
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  So, again, Natalie, thanks so much for your time for everyone if you're ever wanting to
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  connect about authentic leadership, you can reach me at Roxanne.
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  Take care.
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  We'll talk to you soon.
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  Thanks for tuning in to authentic living with Roxanne, creating the space for positive
• 22:07
  healthy chain.
• 22:09
  Roxanne is a keynote speaker, psychotherapist, and coach to work with Roxanne, visit Roxanne
• 22:16
  Durgesh dotcom/blueprint.
• 22:19
  We'll see you next time on authentic living with Roxanne.