CREATIVE IN CHANGE

When does a puzzle become complex enough to demand creativity? Let's say we have an ant nest outside our house, causing you trouble inside.

Solutions might be:

🛑Simple: kill the ants with spray.

🛖Complicated: seal your house.

⏭️Complex: migrate the nest.

Our workspaces and movement communities too often treat complex problems with quick-fix solutions, often with unwanted side effects “down the track”. 

Spraying a nest might not work and could kill other life. 

You will find more holes in your house. 

My artistry as a facilitator is to hold space for a playful learning environment to emerge. 

To allow humans to sense,
Sense the creativity within them,
Within them, between them and around them,

I use movement to reveal creativity.

Moving reveals what is hidden.

In this hidden space, whole worlds unfold,

Moving Puzzles can help your teams build their creativity together. 

Complexity in the real world

In complexity theory, there are three types of problems. Simple problems are well defined, clear goals and known optimal solutions. Complicated problems are well defined, clear but multiple goals, known solutions that are time consuming. Complex problems are ill-defined, unclear and multiple conflicting goals, either tremendously slow or only partially solvable using seemingly ad-hoc exploration. 

Like the ants nest, many real world problems are complex and constantly in flux. Our education systems are not doing enough to equip us with tools for creativity in changing complex landscapes. 

Creative tools for changing complex puzzles

Whilst complex puzzles are by definition uncertain and unknown, we can use principles drawn from cognitive science, play, theatre, neuroscience, mindfulness, biology, and psychology. Using Inspire by FM philosophy, we construct movement situations. These look and feel like games. They help people develop tools to:

• Become present and slow-down in any situation despite dis-traction.
• Co-regulate behaviour inside collaborative relationships with others.
• Better manage energy and adjust to errors through behavioural flexibility.
• Creatively enact change inside embodied movement situations and perception-action loops.
• Reveal hidden qualities of objects and environments through playfulness.
• Leverage constraints, repetition and variation inside a creativity and evolution process.

In other words we use…

👉 Roles with different task goals 
👉 Tasks involving object relationships 
👉 Partners directly influencing behaviour 
👉 Mixing of playfulness with clear goals
👉 Variable timing and spatial constraints 
👉 Changing surrounding environment 
👉 Require diverse energy demands 

👉 Learning transfers between tasks

Evolution and Creativity

You might be surprised to know that evolution is not only about genetics! Evolution is also cultural! In their book, A Hunter-Gather’s Guide to the 21st Century: Evolution and the Challenges of Modern Life, evolutionary biologists Heather and Bret talk about the difference between consciousness and culture. Consciousness feeds learning of individuals, including explicit and tacit, into cultures including groups and teams to execute what would be impossible alone. Culture is “above the genome”, which they call Epigenetic. Epigenetic regulators are faster and more flexible than longer term biological evolutionary process. 

Moving Puzzles embraces culture as an creative evolutionary process. We use Movement Situations to study:

1. Teams engaging in complex puzzles 
2. How different constraints and variations evolve our puzzles
3. Mixing and merging teams, fusing their individual puzzles into new forms
4. Cross-cultural learning via different communication mediums

During these evolution games, we gain insight into team dynamics and confront questions of leadership and self-awareness that would be otherwise invisible. 

‍Character attributes of complex puzzlers - Developing team players

1. are curious to move and explore the problem space
2. are confident to try as they see opportunities for learning
3. are adaptable to the changing and morphing problems
4. play the long game, often called the infinite game
5. involve humans and non-humans from the beginning
6. look for creative solutions in collaboration with others

In short, look beyond the ordinary and embrace Creativity in Change.

Practice Pieces

• Collective Presencing - beginning with stillness, we move to partner behavioural co-regulation and flexibility, then explore group movement dynamics to build connection required to puzzle together
• Creative Evolution - exploring constraints, repetition and variation inside movement situations that reveal hidden creativity. Shining light group dynamics and norms, learning and cross-cultural evolution.
• Game-based Learning- abstract games and simulations that reveal hidden questions and value inside teams.
• Serious Play - object mediated communication to reveal strategic visions, goals and planning steps. We explore collective mental models to harness team creativity.

Creativity and Evolution

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