My wife and I arrived at the coffee shop much earlier than usual. The waitress recognized us because we have breakfast there a couple of times a week. “Why are you here so early?” she asked, while pouring our usual two cups of steamy-hot black coffee. “We’ve shifted our work schedule forward in order to get more done each day,” I responded, with some pride in my voice. Without missing a beat, she said emphatically, “That’ll never last!”
All three of us laughed out loud.
Comedy often comes from the intersection of truth and pain, and there’s plenty of evidence to support her implication that people can’t sustain new behavior long enough to make fundamental changes in their lives and their work. What she was really saying was, people can’t change their behavior and expect it to last. What she was implying was, she’s tried it and failed so many times she’s just given up on it altogether.
Every January 1st, 120 million people make New Year’s resolutions in this country. 20% of those “determined decisions to make a change or create a new result” don’t last three days. Another 68% don’t make it three months. An additional study tells us something equally remarkable. 97% of the people who sign up for a gym membership stop going after three visits. How can this be?!
Most of what we’ve learned about achievement, and most of what’s still being taught is completely or partially incorrect. This explains some of those awful statistics and the defeatist attitude of our playful coffee shop waitress.
One thing that keeps us from creating the results we truly want is the popularity of “problem solving” as a business approach. And although problem solving has its place in our work and our lives, it is a “reactive strategy” that is structurally unsound for creating important results. In fact, problem solving is the opposite of creating.
THE PROBLEM WITH PROBLEM SOLVING
When you really think about it, “problem solving” is about organizing your actions to get rid of something you don’t want. “Creating,” on the other hand, is about taking action to bring into being something you do want. It’s important to understand the difference. In my work with my client groups, I’ve met many people who are excellent problem solvers, who are good at reacting and responding to circumstances, who’ve never really learned how to proactively organize their thinking and their actions to strategically create desired results. They’re good at “putting out fires,” but not a lot of positive progress is made.
Here’s a question for you. What is the most common New Year’s resolution?
You guessed it! To lose weight. To get rid of something we don’t want!… a classic problem solving approach. And, as is so common with efforts to lose weight, a problem solving approach will almost always create an “oscillating experience.” Don’t let the word “oscillating” throw you. I’m talking about that experience best described as “two steps forward followed by two steps back.” First there is some success. You lose 15 pounds. Hooray! But all too soon that is followed by a reversal as you gain back 14 pounds. Oh no! Two steps forward is followed by two steps back. Like a pendulum swinging back and forth. Like going around in circles.
If you’ve ever had that kind of experience with anything you were trying to accomplish — and who hasn’t? – chances are you were engaged in some problem solving. This problem solving orientation is an easy habit to get into. Our culture admires it, and reinforces it. But it is structurally unsound, and… there is a better way. A much better way.
Staying with our weight-loss illustration for a just a little longer, people who shift to a creative orientation about their bodies, who choose to create a trim healthy body, rather than focus on getting rid of weight they don’t want, are capable of sustaining changes in their behavior that successfully support the creation of long-term excellent health. And, their bodies slim down as a by-product of the choice they have made, and the actions they then take to create vitality and health.
This distinction between “problem solving” and “the creative orientation,” is an important one. We’re going to look at the structure of the creative process, but we can begin to make this shift to a creative orientation by asking ourselves the question, “What do I truly want to create?”
When we are faced with an overwhelming problem, we certainly don’t want to ignore it or deny it.
Our problems can be very real. And as you will see, as part of the creative process we will learn to see our problems very clearly. However, they will not be our primary focus. Our primary focus will be on creating results that are most important to us.
This wisdom was discovered and organized by a genius from Vermont, named Robert Fritz.
I study with Robert at his workshops on a regular basis. While attending one of his workshops last year I met a high school principal from Colorado who has been using this shift to a creative orientation in her work as an education administrator.
When she took over as principal at her high school it had such low educational scores the school board was planning to close the school down. She told me her teachers would continually come to her, complaining about their problems. So she decided to help them shift to a creative orientation by asking them, “What do you want to create?” She’d listen to them describe their problem, so as not to ignore the problem or their emotions, and then she would ask them, “So, what do you want to create?”
At first this question disoriented her teachers. As she continued to ask the question, they began to complain they couldn’t think about what they wanted to create because they were certain they didn’t have enough money or time or resources to make it happen. She would calmly listen to that complaint, and then ask them, “Not thinking right now about how you would do it or whether you have enough resources, what do you want to create?”
Within six months the educational scores for the school began improving, the school board decided not to close them down, and now their scores rank right at the top for the entire state.
That school principal’s question is worth repeating. “Not thinking right now about how you would do it or whether you have enough resources, what do you want to create?” Asking this question in the face of marketplace challenges and drops in revenue, when it can seem impossible to create what you truly want, can require discipline. In fact, learning to ask this question, is a discipline. A discipline worth developing, that will pay big dividends.
THE MOST IMPORTANT PRINCIPLE YOU”LL EVER LEARN
The good news is, there’s a structure to the creative process, and you can use it. And, using this structure you can generate energy that is sustainable, that will not diminish, that will continue until you bring into being the positive result you are focused on creating. This approach will also drive innovative thinking. You’ll experience a natural tendency to use the resources you have more effectively, as well as discover and develop new resources to use in creating your desired result.
Let’s take a look at the structure of the creative process. It has three parts:
- DESIRED RESULT
- CURRENT REALITY.
- STRUCTURAL TENSION.
DESIRED RESULT is the first part of the structure of the creative process. It is the end result we desire enough to want to bring it into being. It is the answer to that primary question, “What do you want to create?”
But DESIRED RESULT respresents only one part of the structure. If all a person needed to do, to gain leverage to create a result they wanted, was to define that result, then all those millions of people who make New Year’s resolutions every year, that they never follow through on, would have what they wanted.
One reference point doesn’t make a structure. It’s the second reference point, CURRENT REALITY, which creates the structure, and develops the energy for taking action to create the result. (I’m going for a world’s record on using some of these words repeatedly, so stay with me. I’m about to share with you the most important principle you’ll ever learn.)
So… these two points of reference, Desired Result & Current Reality, actually define the structure of the creative process. And — here comes that super important principle — the discrepancy between these two points of reference, the difference between your Desired Result and your Current Reality, generates a form of tension energy called STRUCTURAL TENSION. It’s not emotional tension or anxiety, or anything like that. It is a natural force, an energy dynamic that becomes available for taking action to create your desired result.
Read this part as many times as you need to, in order to “get it.” Once you understand this, you’ll greatly increase your capacity to create results you care about.
Question: What does tension seek? Tension seeks to resolve itself. A metal spring compressed down seeks to return to it’s uncompressed state. A rubber band stretched out tight, wants to go back to being relaxed. This is a universal principle. Tension seeks resolution. And indeed, the structural tension energy generated by the difference between your desired result and your current reality seeks to resolve itself in favor of your desired result.
We create this STRUCTURAL TENSION ENERGY by defining the DESIRED END RESULT we want to create and then clarifying what our CURRENT REALITY is in relationship to that outcome. At that point, in order to resolve itself, the structural tension energy will begin driving innovative ideas and action. It will also provide you with sustainable energy for fueling your actions.
You’ll also experience a natural desire to learn what you need to know, to move your current reality to become or include your desired result.
There is so much to learn today, to use the new internet marketing strategies to gather new prospects and serve your customers in more effective ways. Christine’s training can also really help you. But where does the leverage come from to make the time to learn new strategies and new behavior, and then integrate those strategies and that behavior into the way you do business? Structural tension is the answer.
Creating with this kind of structure actually generates energy, drives innovation, and creates a thirst for learning.
To use this structure, it’s important for your desired result to be clear in your mind. Write it out at the top of a legal pad. Visualize a picture of it in your mind. Be certain it is something you truly want to create, not motivated by problem solving. Then describe your current reality conditions, relative to your chosen result. Write out a description of your pertinent current reality at the bottom of the pad.
Then write out action steps that come to mind, on the lines on the pad, between the descriptions of your desired result and your current reality. These action ideas will become your strategic action plan. Not all of your action steps will come to you at once. But you’ll find that as you move forward with your initial actions, the necessary next actions will come to mind. Write them on your pad.
This is the structural method of the creative process, for developing and using the power of structural tension. And the more you use this method the better you’ll get at creating results that matter to you.