INTEREST AREA: CREATIVE EDGE ORGANIZATIONS

 

Below you will find the Introduction to bringing Creative Edge Focusing into businesses, corporations, non-profits, volunteer organizations, any place that has meetings. From www.cefocusing.com with active links to website descriptions of core concepts:

 

Core Principles of Creating At The Edge

• The Creative Edge Organization Method ensures maximum creativity and motivation at every level by encouraging Intuitive Focusing by individuals and Coordinated Collaboration in groups and teams
• Maximum motivation arises when people are encouraged to create their lives and solutions to problems from their own Creative Edge.
• When organizational structures lose touch with The Creative Edge of individuals, apathy is created.
• True change, at any level, from personal to global, happens by engaging The Creative Edge El Borde Creativo of individual human beings. There is no lasting way to impose change from the outside. Lasting change is empowered from the individual entering into collaborative action with other individuals.

The Core Skills of  Focused Listening and  Intuitive Focusing  provide the basic method for individuals, alone, in pairs, or in groups, to access The Creative Edge of thinking and experiencing from which totally new ideas and solutions can arise. They increase creativity and deepen communication and support in any volunteer organization or for-profit corporation.

The Creative Edge Pyramid

The seven methods of The Creative Edge Pyramid insure the application of the Core Skills at every level of organization:

• Focusing Alone allows an individual to access the Creative Edge, anytime, anywhere.
• Focusing Partnership provides a structure where pairs of individuals can help each other to articulate from The Creative Edge.
• Interpersonal Focusing can be used to find The Creative Edge inherent in interpersonal conflicts.
• Focusing Groups/Teams support continued Creative Edge exploration.
• Collaborative Edge Decision Making provides structures for access to the Creative Edge during group and team meetings, creating innovative, win/win decisions.
• Focusing Communities use Listening/Focusing skills to welcome diversity and overcome conflict.
• Creative Edge Organization, including The One Small Thing component, insures motivation and "buy-in" from the bottom up, The Creative Edge of each individual.

Focusing and Group Decision Making

The fast-paced, argumentative, competitive nature of much group decision making discussion makes it impossible for anyone to pay attention to and speak from The Creative Edge, the right-brain, "intuitive feel" which can contain the newest, freshest, most innovative solutions.  Given the energy expended on simply trying to interrupt and get a turn, participants cannot really listen to the contributions of others. Under Instant "Ahah!" Collaborative Thinking, you'll find the simple "How To's" for groups which Dr. McGuire discovered when she undertook research to describe the difference between aggressive, competitive, and "listening" task-oriented groups. More on Focusing and Group Decision Making.

Win/Win Decision-Making

The most creative solutions, either in individual or in group decision-making, arise when the individual or the group is able to sit with polarized oppositions and wait until a newly-created "third way" can arise. We call this a "win/win" decision : instead of a painful compromise where each side really gives up more than they are willing to, and, later, finds reasons not to carry out the decision, a "win/win" decision, a totally new option, really does contain enough aspects from both sides to produce satisfaction, and thus motivation.

Pure consensual decision making can be extremely time-consuming, since no action can be taken until every member agrees to go along with it. The Collaborative Edge Decision Making (CEDM) method includes the use of Coordinated Collaboration as a method for brainstorming from the bottom/up without having decision-making bog down. More on Win/Win Decision Making.

Bite-sized Projects

The Creative Edge Organization method,  with The One Small Thing component, continually breaks down projects to the level where as many individuals as possible can be actively involved in problem solving and decision-making from The Creative Edge and in carrying out projects.

This gives participants a feeling of "ownership" of the group's work and also the benefits to community building of working together on a joint goal. Although top/down hierarchical structures can also be used for aspects of the work, The One Small Thing component works from the bottom/up to involve every person actively in action and decision-making where that is possible. More on Bite-Sized Projects. 

See Instant "Ahah!" Empowerment Organization for a Focusing exercise to find "The One Small Thing."