Creativity – the missing ingredient?

Career research and practice have always focused on this question: what are the critical factors that facilitate moving clients into a space of career growth and development?

Think of a time when you have had a significant breakthrough with a client. What factors or ingredients stand out as being critical in enabling that shift? All practitioners have their own recipe book of ingredients that are essential when working with clients, be it relationship, assessment or the methodologies that a practitioner applies. Often what results from those ingredients for the client are hope and a belief that there may be new possibilities to express who they are within their job or broader career life.

Can creativity play a part in career practice?

This article suggests and opens up for debate the idea that creativity is a significant but often-forgotten factor that helps move a client forward. It is suggested that at the heart of creativity is hope, hope for new beginnings. Previously, creativity has not always been an embraced concept within careers. "Because of its trait and factor origins that continue to dominate practice, career counselling traditionally has not been viewed as a creative discipline" (McMahon and Patton, 2006).

It is argued that creativity is much needed within careers, and that it has an energy and contains a spirit of hope that can be a catalyst for change. This is particularly relevant in a time of significant economic turmoil, subsequent organisational change, and when employees are finding change forced upon them.  The challenge is, if creativity has value – and we believe it does – then how do organisations, practitioners and clients nurture and harness creativity in a meaningful way?

Start by looking at self

A great place to start is looking at self. Often we ask clients to think creatively about:

• their transferable skills
• their occupational options
• their philosophy on work-life balance.

Question: how creative are you in the way that you live your life? Clearly, career practitioners and organisations can also ask this same question of our practice. Is the way that we provide information and guidance to our clients crisp and fresh, or is it a bit stale?

How can we expect our clients to be creative and hopeful if we as practitioners or organisations are not? It is acknowledged that creativity just does not just happen! The reality is that most people have limited amounts of freedom or time to be truly creative, or to do what they want, in their jobs. Putting aside time to be creative and to think and act creatively is often considered a luxury, when the time invested in harnessing creativity at all levels of the career landscape could bring significant benefits to all who participate.

Ways to stimulate creativity

Here are some suggestions for stimulating creativity, both personally and within your practice:

• Use narrative, humour, metaphors and naive questioning in your work as a way of gently pushing career boundaries.

• Utilise visual means of expressing thoughts and emotions to complement the traditional verbal and cognitive methods – examples include interactive drawing therapy or vision boards. This allows the fast flow of ideas to have expression.

• Take the time to have discussions with other practitioners – people are a great source of ideas and creativity. Tapping people’s different world views can create a wealth of fresh ideas. People also feel great for being included.

• Focus on personal goals away from work, be it exercise, sport, writing, art, or music, and make sure that you follow those goals through. Active engagement in other things can cross-pollinate with the ideas that you’re working on.

• Gain personal insights from time out, and allowing yourself the freedom to indulge in creative pursuits. Learning to stop and tapping into your intuition and creativity is vital.

Committing to using creativity in career practice

Clients come to see a career practitioner for many reasons. One reason is often managing change and personal growth. What is critical is creating an environment that stimulates that growth and development. One ingredient that has often been overlooked in the past is creativity. It is suggested that creativity is the "spark" where the tide turns on old beliefs, opinions and paradigms, and people generate hope and different ideas for the future.

Clearly, organisations and practitioners have a responsibility to their clients to be creative in the career information and processes they provide. The challenging question is: how creative are we? Have we got the commitment to develop this vital competency in our organisation, ourselves and our clients?  We all need creativity in all its wonderful dimensions, especially during times of change.

References

• McMahon, M, and Patton, W, 'Career Counselling: Constructivist Approaches', Oxford: Taylor and Francis, 2006.