The importance of creativity
Sometimes I find it hard to convince business leaders that creativity counts. A busy life can lead to dismissing the fun aspects of a creative life as a ‘waste of time’. In her book “Creativity Works’ Anneke Elwes interviews a cross section of the most powerful leaders in business today. The consensus reached was that a good leader needs to inspire and challenge. That innovation, risk taking and “shaking things up” are an essential part of the job.
A spirit of enterprise
Entrepreneurs tend to feel more comfortable with the creative label than professional business managers. However, creating a spirit of enterprise within a large organisation is essential if people are to be enabled to ‘get things done’ in their own way. Perhaps in recognising that it is not necessary to re-invent the wheel, but rather ‘the imaginative application of new solutions to new and old problems is the way forward for the future of the global economy” (Gordon Brown, ex Prime Minister).
Welcome to Beirut
Creativity offers the element of surprise – the chance to do something different, or out of the ordinary. It asks us to challenge our patterns of behaviour and question. There need not be clear answers.
Storytelling is a form of creativity. Our own stories inform the way we work. They provide the lenses through which we see the world. This is part of my story, with which many of you may not be familiar.
My story
“Friday as I took my shower I opened the window to let out the steam and in my left ear I could hear the Imam calling the faithful to prayer.
Ya allah….
As I proceeded out of the bathroom, I opened the door and in my right ear I heard the Christian litany for Christ’s crucifixion. It was good Friday 2005.
Friday morning, 7am. There was no mass that day. Later that afternoon I went for a walk in the district with my mum. My uncle’s house is on the green line which divides Christian East and Muslim West Beirut. We saw many people coming down a side street on what was otherwise a quiet day (a public holiday). They were each carrying a flower and I assumed that a church service had just finished. Mum and I decided to go and pay a visit. As we approached the newly renovated church, I saw that it had an armed guard outside. Not that these young soldiers touting rifles could stop a suicide bomber, should one chose to pay us a visit…but the gesture itself made me stop and think quite deeply about what it must be like to live in this city.
Protest
My family belong to the Maronite Christian faith, a Lebanese speciality. This was a Catholic church, beautifully decorated with white flowers and the occasional chandelier and what looked like orthodox icons.
We sat down for a while and I placed a flower arrangement I had bought for my aunt’s Easter Sunday lunch table on the chair beside me. My mother, a catholic, was praying and I was quietly contemplating the universals when a man came up to me, gesturing toward my flowers. His gesture said simply – “These are a gift for our church – thank you!” and before I could say “Nadia’s table decoration” he had scooped them up and disappeared triumphantly down the church.
I recounted this story to my aunt and uncle on my return to their house. They were amazed and amused but said that in future should I even shake hands with a Lebanese I should learn to count my fingers afterwards and make sure that none were missing! This is a nation that can still laugh at itself in spite of everything.
On Saturday night, having watched England beat Northern Ireland 4-0 on the television (with Arabic subtitles) and my uncle, a keen footballer in his time and later referee, had given us the details of the match, we got out the delicious local wine, Chateau Musar, and toasted nuts and began the serious business of a leisurely dinner.
Robert Parker in the Wine Buyers Guide describes chateau Musar as “the top wine of the Middle East”. This excellent wine, created by Serge Hochar, is produced in his vineyard thirty kilometres from the raging civil war that tore apart Beirut for 30 years. Reminiscent of Chateauneuf du Pape, it is a tribute to his vision and sense of destiny. He refused to quit! Parker notes that ‘his wines are undeniable bargains given the quality”…. and the risk!
The clocks were being brought forward 1 hour that night to summertime. My uncle changed the clocks in the house at 9.00pm. At 9.30pm a large explosion shattered our evening meal. Not very close, but not that far away either.
Oh shit, I thought, that’s a bomb! With my back to the window and the electric lights on I didn’t see a flash, but instinctively, I knew that the Lebanese disease was back. Five weeks earlier and two days after I had bought our non refundable tickets a massive car bomb had killed a man called Rafiq Hariri, who quickly changed from hero to saint. The Lebanese people had been stunned by his death but spurned back into political activism. Massive street demonstrations had taken place demanding that Syria remove its 30 year presence from the country. Hisbollah had countermanded that the “peace-supporting” Syrians should stay and the rest is history.
Tradition
Reuters had the news of the bombing on TV in 30 minutes. We really appreciated being put in the picture so promptly. 70 buildings were burning.
Supper continued.
Much of Lebanese creativity revolves around its cuisine. The mezza or starter can have as many as 90 dishes, each person having his or her favourite, although others like myself might find dishes like sheep’s brains a bit of a challenge on first encounter!
Lebanon has as a strong culture around how its food is made and eaten. The national dishes is Kibbeh. This stuff is taken so seriously that I heard my cousin asking my aunt “and how was the Kibbeh?” when the two were discussing a visit to a third party. This is indeed a loaded question and women who’s Kibbeh does not pass muster are in for some severe criticism. In comparison, ‘queens’ of the kitchen who can create with their special ‘hand’ a heavenly Kibbeh, are much revered.
With the advent of food processors, long gone is my early Beirut experience of the maid sitting cross-legged in the kitchen from what felt like dawn until dusk, pounding the lamb and burghal (cracked wheat) in a huge mortar with a large heavy pestle. In my younger days my aunt’s kitchen seemed to be always like this as the five children and countless visiting relations made short work of clearing the table once the carefully nurtured and prepared food appeared on it.
My aunt is a very good cook and is meticulous about her food and its preparation. Indeed it is an insult to ones guests to be otherwise. The nearest western descriptive of Lebanese cooking come from Claudia Roden (references at end of article).
For whatever reasons of language, politics or economics, Arab fiction culture and photography are generally not widely available in the West. My visit to Beirut reminded me that I have two homes which are essentially very different. My journey back to Beirut after a 30 year absence reminded me starkly of the contrasts. When examining my own creativity and flow the two are somehow mixed in a way which creates a third state, an East meets West kind of cocktail which I accept as my unique contribution. My essence sits somewhere on the Green Line. The Lebanese are great storytellers, poets and philosophers. Ancient cities like Byblos, Sidon ad Tyre resonate with biblical meaning and are a very different world to London W1!
I recommend a journey into some of these areas of difference, for those of you who are interested, to learn something about a very vibrant culture. It is a melting pot for creativity, transformation and change, and if it gets out of control – war.
For an introduction to one’s own personal creative journey I strongly recommend “The Artist’s Way ” by Julia Cameron. It got me going. I have worked with clients whilst using this book and their creativity has astonished me, as sometimes has my own. Sculptures, paintings, poetry, fiction, music and dance all flow from our inner sense of curiosity and our need to self-express. To see and be seen. I would like to encourage everyone to explore their own individual creative self in business and most of all for fun.
The following books offer some interesting further reading on this subject.
“The Prophet”
Khalil Gibran
ISBN 0-434-29081-5
“Love Letters in the Sand – The Love Poems of Khalil Gibran”
Khalil Gibran
ISBN 0-285-63721-5
“Pity the Nation. Lebanon at War”
Robert Fisk
ISBN 0-19-280130-9
“Transit Beirut – New Writing and Images”
Malu Halasa
ISBN 0-86356-568-9
“The Artist’s Way ”
Julia Cameron
ISBN 0-330-34358-0
“The New Book of Middle Eastern Food”
Claudia Roden
ISBN 0575-40506-2
“Tamarind and Saffron Favourite Recipes from the Middle East”
Claudia Roden
ISBN 0-140-46694-0
By Pat Thompson
Read more about creativity.
Creativity: ‘Raft of the Medusa’ – Theodore Gericault (1819)
The greatest moment of wonder at the creativity process came to me in the Louvre in Paris, stood for the first time in front of Theodore Gericault’s “Raft of the Medusa’. I had seen reproductions of the picture many times on slides and in textbooks, and its content and construction had fascinated me. But no reproduction could prepare me for the experience of seeing the real thing.
Raft of the Medusa
The Story
In 1816 a French government frigate was wrecked on a journey to Senegal. Due to an insufficient provision of lifeboats for all, a raft was quickly fashioned from wood from the upper deck of the vessel. This raft was to be towed by the lifeboats to accommodate the remaining crew. Once in the water the lifeboat lines were mysteriously broken, and the raft drifted off, carrying with it 150 men. The raft was sighted 17 days later, and only 15 men were rescued.
The French government were accused of having appointed as captain an inefficient favourite of King Louis XVIII, and necessary means for safety had not been provided. The case was taken up by the liberal opposition of the day and Gericault was sympathetic to the their cause. He supplied lithographs to illustrate a pamphlet of accusation against the government, written by two of the survivors. The printing shop, where Royalist opposition material originated from was named ‘At the Wreck of the Medusa’ – a widely known meeting place for political malcontents.
The painting
A painting inside the French Salon would have a huge impact, delivering in the heart of the establishment, a message of anger.
This event was a political scandal – and Gericault’s painting – an exposé — a 17th Century tabloid headline!
How to be a creative polemic in the 18th century French Salon
In many ways the canvas is a masterpiece for its guile and nerve alone.
The French Salon committee would have looked for a Rococo style to hang on the walls of their establishment. Figures of authority or social standing, painted with decadence and frivolity – a style that, with lightness of touch, would quietly assure the ruling classes of their superiority.
The Raft of the Medusa is anathema to this. It is realistic and concerns the plight of ordinary, nameless characters – a huge break from tradition. It adopts sharp light and shade, giving the canvas a darkness that reflects the horror of the subject matter on display. It confronts death and suffering. Rather than an illustration of Monarchy achievement, it depicts a failing and a weakness.
Nevertheless, the painting was accepted and exhibited, to an institution conservative in nature and one that monopolised the promotion of creative output. It acted as arresting reportage for those who saw it first exhibited, and acts as cultural heritage for us all to wonder at to this day. How is this so?
To depict a ship of state running aground would have been both obvious, heavy-handed and unacceptable. Gericault instead chooses to depict the moment of sighting of the ship, The Argus that leads to rescue. (the ship is depicted as a tiny speck on the horizon). Hope is injected into the scene and the image made immediately more palatable.
From the prostrate bodies of the dead and dying in the foreground, the composition is built up to an emotional peak, embodied by the frantically waving central figure. This forward surge of the survivors parallels the movement of the raft they stand on. This scores valuable points for acceptance – structure and content are harmonious.
Although realism is a central concern for Gericault, where a story is here to be told, there is still an adherence to ancient tradition. Despite 17 days at sea, and the gruesome accounts of deprivation, disease and cannibalism that he had from survivors, his protagonists are presented as muscular and healthy. Gericault draws reference from antiquity, and is displaying his mastery of presenting the idealised human form and consequently himself as a worthy Salon contributor.
How to be creative in the workplace
The example of Theodore Gericault’s picture I hope illustrates the need to be mindful of our environment. Creativity as bold, daring and revolutionary as his, was still subject to the constraining forces of his time.
We all live, work in, contribute to and respond to our organisational culture. It is often more ubiquitous and powerful than we give it credit for. Perhaps this is because it is more comforting to believe our actions are self-determined rather than shaped by our working environment. Nevertheless, it, in no small part, guides our attitudes and behaviours.
It is thus of prime importance that our culture of work is frequently challenged. Such challenge comes in the form of creativity. New ways of working not only offer an exciting opportunity to be inventive and innovative, but also act as a ‘checking mechanism’ for the place we are in – a critical eye on our established practices. To be creative is to be self-determined – an empowering force. However, business culture has the power to shape our creativity, and effective creative change also requires a broader cultural sensitivity, that encompasses and enriches rather than fights present business practice. Effective and lasting transformation may then take place.
On August 1819, three days before the opening of the Salon, Louis XVIII examined the painting of the raft and concluded,
‘Monsieur Gericault, your shipwreck is certainly no disaster’
By Phil Jefferis
Read more about creativity.