Thanks to the people from FlandersDC I will be attending the 11th European Conference on Creativity and Innovation. Expecting lots of inspiration and new ideas for this blog.

Follow me live on twitter (hashtag #eccixi)

This year’s edition of ECCI is taking place in Brussels, at the brand new meeting place The Square. Great venue, if you ask me.

Getting ready for creative action
“Enough said about creative theory, it’s time for some creative action.” Talking about creativity is interesting but also frustrating. When attending creativity talks I often went home with lots of great advice, but those were just words. In the end putting these ideas into practice is what counts.

Not in this conference. Apparently, ECCI XI is all about making it happen.

Here great advice and practice should go hand in hand. Apart from the keynotes (more about that further on) there are a bunch of workshops to get us started.

Here’s my pick for the next 3 (!) days.

Day 1:

• 11u00: Virginia Stephen, “When Artist, Executive, Educator and Facilitator Converge: Visual Literacy Becomes a Dynamic Idea Mover” OR Jana Görs, “Five Theseses for Improving the Outcome of the Fuzzy Front End of Innovation – How to Launch a Bird, not an Egg.”
• 14u30: Sandra Minnee, “Creating Acceptance for Change: Mastering Conflicts”
• 16u30: Marc Bogaert – Luc De Schryver, “From Intention to Innovation: How a Company’s Cultural DNA can bridge the Gap between Innovation, Intentions and Results.”

Day 2:

• 11u00: Marcel van der Pol, “The Story of the Hero: Finding Treasures and Making Ideas Work”
• 14u30: Maureen Jenkins, “Regenerating Sources of Creativity – Your Personal Disciplines”
• 16u30: Stavros Michailidis – Donald M. Drost, “Make it Happen with Momentum”

Day 3:

• 11u00: Dorte Blegind, “Coaching as a Tool for Successful Implementation of innovative Projects”

Keynote speakers + Interview with Edward De Bono

Every great conference has interesting keynote speakers. I’m looking forward to the talks of Alberto Alessi, Kobus Neethling and Edward De Bono.

Thanks to Koen Peeters of Flanders DC I get the opportunity to do an interview with The Maltese Guru of Lateral Thinking: Edward De Bono. The interview will be published on this blog, later this week.

Earlier today I asked you to send me your questions for Mr. De Bono.

These are the questions I’ve selected for the interview:

- Is creativity a science or can it be a science? (Batist Vermeulen, Art Director @ Jetstream / Ceci n’est pas de l’art)
- What would you recommend to diplomats of the Copenhagen Summit? (Leen Creve, Journalist @ Knack Weekend)
- For people who feel they have a book or two in them, what would you recommend they do to get it written and out to read? (Bernd Nurnberger, Cocreatr @ Purple Pointr)

Thanks for the great questions tweeps!

Stay tuned.

via @cocreatr

Who would have thought that you could do this with water?

My guess is, it’s the water who told the designer that this was possible. My guess is, the designer had already done/seen/experienced something similar – however small it may have been – which, by paying attention to it, grew into this fantastic idea.

That’s what I believe about people as well. The great stuff, it’s already there. You’ve already shown some of it along the way but chances are you haven’t noticed yet. Pay attention to them and something beautiful is about to happen.

If you’d ask me what solution focused coaching is about, then I might say it’s about paying attention. It’s about discovering your own greatness and ability to deal with life’s challenges. It’s about caring for your own success.

It’s about planting the seeds and allowing them to turn into trees. It’s about water. And allowing it to become a creative waterfall.

“Can you allow things to happen the right way?”

This question crossed my mind while listening to a session about mindfulness by John Kabat-Zinn at Google.

I got a picture in my mind of a friend of mine who’s constantly worrying at work. It’s like she never has enough time to set things straight and to make things right. Often she takes her work home. And still things aren’t the way she wants them to be. And when they do there’s almost no time to enjoy them because another task is waiting, accompanied by another impossible deadline.

I wondered if she would be willing to sit back and be aware, just to allow things to happen the right way.

I wondered if I would be willing to do so. Maybe you wonder as well whether you’d be willing to do so.

Hold that thought for a while.

It seems absurd to say that ‘allowing to happen’ may be the best way to get things under control.

But there are many kinds of control. When you’re in resonance, when you – as a surfer – are one with your wave, then you’re in control. You are because your body is reading the wave in a way your rational mind can’t begin to understand. You read in dolby surround, in every kind of direction at the same time, with every sense possible.

Some people call this harmony.
Some mindfulness.
Some awareness, or flow.

I’m curious if I could become aware of moments when trying to control things keeps me from resonating, keep me from ‘allowing things to happen the right way’?

There’s a sentence popping up in my mind right now which may help me to open up.

“In you I trust.”

Let’s try that for a second. See what it does to us.

Seeing is believing. That’s what we’re supposed to believe right?

Look again. Or should I say think again?

Dan Ariely – one of my favourite behavioral scientists – shows that our belief in “seeing is believing” is fundamentally flawed. It is so flawed that it raises questions about that inner eye of ours which oversees our decisions. How much of what we think we judge as our own decision is actually a decision of our own?

If you’re interested in more stories like these: check Dan Ariely’s blog: Predictably Irrational or read his book Predictably Irrational.

Now what does this tell us about being superbly human?

“The map is not the territory”. This is a quote by A. Korzybski (wikipedia). What you believe you see is never what you get. It is however how you work with what you think you have. And that’s great as long as you believe that the real destination of your journey is the journey itself.

So how about your map? Whose map is it anyway?

In other words do you do what you do because you want it or do you do it because somebody else has drawn a map (and path) for you?

Quick example: as a kid, your mother has bought you three pairs of trousers: blue, black and red. Every morning before you get dressed, you open your closet and you can choose between blue, black and red. On the Trousers-Crossroad there are only 4 options: no trousers, blue, black and red. That’s the map. Is it the territory? Not likely.

Now look at your life. You get up in the morning, what do you do?

Do you still feel like the world is limited to the three pairs of trousers your mother has bought you?

This limited set of options can however be easy and helpful sometimes (we do need these patterns because we would die if we would have to weigh every possible option), but does it still work for you? If it doesn’t then stop staring at your map. Now.

Start exploring, start drawing.

What would happen if you ‘invented’ an option, add an extra pair to the set? Chances are you can do that. Chances are it will make you more satisfied than you are now.

The map you use to make your way in your life wasn’t drawn by fate. It is drawn by lots of people, also by you. And sometimes it’s helpful, but when you get stuck, it means you’ve discovered something new. It means you’ve presented yourself with an exquisite opportunity to redraw your map and discover a new area of the underlying territory.

Make no mistake. Drawing a whole new map out of nothing is not what I’m aiming at. What I’m talking about are small changes. Take one step at the time. Explore boundaries, learn how to deal with setbacks, grow confidence.

Are you willing to change your map and explore? Are you willing to decide for yourself, one step at the time?

If it helps, I’m redrawing my map as I’m writing right now. I just lost my job and I’m going to explore where starting my own business is going to take me.

Take care,

Hannes

Is there a right way to help?

This is a question which puzzles me, personally (as a friend, husband, brother, son, colleague) and professionally (as a communication and change coach).

It made me buy the book “The Art of Helping” (De kunst van het helpen, ed. Margreet Mossel, Het Noorderlicht 2007), a Dutch book with a collection of texts from Bert Hellinger about helping.

What did the book offer me with regard to my question?

Several insights.

Some of them I want to write down because they matter to me in a way which I can’t really explain. I’ll post them here in a series called “Is there a right way to help?”.

This is the first insight.

“Trying to understand is exactly the opposite of what I should do in order to respond appropriately to a situation.“

When I had this thought I immediately got the image of a soccerplayer trying to understand the game in order to decide what his next move would be. The result was that he froze. I felt my stomach ache and I got very nervous.

This made me think of an experience I’ve had a couple of days ago while I was walking through the trainstation when I got back from work. The main hall was very crowded. I was tired and the constant movement of people and the noise made me nervous. At one point I deliberately decided to get out of the way and allow my eyes to watch and my legs to walk. I also invited my breath to be free.

What happened was very powerful. I had the feeling that whatever I had to understand and read from the situation was being read and cared for in an appropriate way. I allowed myself to take care of myself by blending in in a natural way. I noticed how people looked and I even got a few kind smiles which I responded to in a very relaxed way.

A day or two later I was reading a book on my way to work. I often read in the train and for some reason or the other reading scares me. It’s like I’m running after a prey I can’t catch. At one point I was reminded of something the Vietnamese Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hahn said about being attentive. It’s a different kind of attention than observing which is a more narrowed, mind controlled and detailobsessed kind of attentiveness. I noticed how I was eagerly collecting crumbs but never managed to get hold of the stories I was reading. And while doing so, I was missing out on so many things which happened around me.

So this is what I did. Instead of reading, I looked at the page and made my way through it. What had to come accross and was supposed to be understood would be understood. Again, a very powerful experience. It was as if there was more respect. I respected the book for being well writen and wise in its own way. And I respected myself as being able to deal with the book and the world in which it was writen and read.

Now what does Hellinger say about this? In one speech, Hellinger writes about observation, paying attention, insight, intuition and resonance. What struck me was the clear distinction he made between observation and paying attention (or being attentive). I have to say that this is hard to translate because when you look up “observe” in an English-Dutch dictionary you get both observeren and waarnemen, the latter being the word Hellinger uses to refer to paying attention. Weird.
From my work with non-violent communication, buddhist writings and solution focused therapy I know how important paying attention is. But knowing it is something different than recognizing it and doing it while being aware of it. When reading Hellinger’s definitions of observation (sharp, precise, aimed for details, limited, sometimes intrusive and aggressive) and paying attention (seeing the bigger picture, systemic, simultaneity, limited details, more about cohesion and coherence, …) I knew I had made that shift while both walking through the trainstation and while reading my book on the train.

I was so eager in trying to understand that I didn’t realize that what I needed was a balanced use of observing and paying attention. In fact, I only looked at the world to my mind’s eye while all I had to do to come to an understanding of the situation (feeling at home, comfortable with what you’re in) was to open ‘my other eyes’.

Thich Nhat Hahn says that looking through your mind’s eye (call it consciousness or reason) costs a lot of energy, while being attentive and paying attention to the world costs less energy. I can now say I have experienced this intensely. And the beauty of this is that I’ve experienced a relaxed way of understanding.

Does this mean I should just get rid of this little voice in my head or this focussing eye? Not at all.

I am faced with a new and exciting challenge and that is to experience how and when my ability to focus and look for details will emerge and be more effective than when it’s constantly on guard. In fact, reason is like a tool, not a toolbox. It should be used when needed, if not you end up breaking more things than you fix. And while being very ‘reasonable’ and smart, you may end up very stupid and said (I guess I’m saying this to myself in the first place).

That being said trying to discover more tools and make use of my complete toolbox (and even collect more tools) (aka being mindful) sounds like a nice plan to keep busy for the rest of my life.

Have you ever experienced anything like what I describe here? Feel free to share it with our readers. I definitely love to hear about it.

Take care.

Hannes

Change begins with respect. Respect for your own boundaries. Respect for other people’s boundaries.

I find it hard to keep that in mind. Sometimes I’m so eager to tell my story, fill reality with my point-of-viewishness, that I forget to respect people’s space.

I used to mistake a question for an invitation to fill the gap, to start ‘flowing’.The result was always the same. I felt exhausted and unsatisfied. It always seemed like ‘people didn’t get it’. On top of that I was tired. I ‘pushed’ the whole time and didn’t give people the chance to give something back.

Over the last few years I came to realize what went wrong. Questions were often invitations from people who wanted your attention while they explored a thought, a feeling, an experience. Sometimes they just asked for a hint to get them going. Sometimes they asked nothing at all. They just connected, invited me to pay attention.

Again, easier said than done.

Yesterday, it happened again. It was in class. I’ve started a 4 year training to become a solution-focussed-therapist. One of my classmates showed a mindfulness cd to me and another colleague. She showed it because … well I don’t know, because I used this as an occasion to tell her how important mindful breathing can be while doing sessions with a client. It helps you to be aware and allows you to pick up much more information. End of a never-ever-started-conversation.

What happened was that I actually forced myself out of the conversation instead of being heard. The conversation went on, but without me.

Going back to “change” you could say that the change (conversation / process) took place elsewhere where it was allowed to happen.

This was a great lesson and a great reminder for the rest of my training.

In a sense this example is a two-way invitation. It made me wonder where my urge to talk is coming from. What was my drive? What, deep down, makes this happen?

My guess? Control. I like being in control. Pushing myself out of the conversation (clearing my space) is one way of being in control. Another way would be to allow the conversation or any other change to happen and explore how it happens and how it affects me, look forward to where it is taking me. That would be a whole other level of control.

Looking at it from this point of view I’m actually glad this happened since situations like these challenge / invite me to explore new ways to satisfy my need for control, ways which may be more satisfying both for me and the people around me.

It’s the beginning of a more respectful way to look at myself and at others.

One of the things I’ve learned during my first lessons was this: If you can’t find anything worth caring for in a client, it’s hard – maybe even impossible – to treat them.

I guess this holds as much true for myself.

Do you recognize this?

Which Way To Go © Hannes Couvreur / Arne Schoenvuur

I’m done trying to be happy.

From now on I aim for at least one act a day which improves the life of at least two people, including me.

For now, I’ll enjoy the ride.

We’ll see where we’ll end up.

“Relativity is the description of the fantastic in our perception of reality. Aka the mathematics by which we seize reality are fundamentally flawed by assumption.”

This post is a follow-up of this post and this post.

I sometimes wonder whether inter-being means that there is no such thing as an active or a passive state. When all things are connected, is your life being lead or can you have free will? I think this is a question asked from the point of view of the meaningful self. It starts from a perceived illusion. For a meaningful self as described by Descartes’ “I think, therefore I am” free will is the ultimate evidence of self-realisation, of proof that you are here.

How can that be true if there are always things in life which you can’t consciously control? It also implies that the absence of free will is a bad thing, but your eyes see and hear without you consciously wanting it. They help you avoid collision when you’re driving a bike. It’s no ‘free will’ but it’s not a bad thing either, is it?

Descartian logic is also trapped in the following paradox: you can only be a free and independent you from others or regarding others. To me, this is inter-being. Every act towards free will is at least inspired by the world around you.

This post is a follow-up of yesterday’s post.

All of us are meaningful, since all of us are constantly in the middle. We are in a state of permanent connection. We are always in touch.

You are meaningful, because it is through you that the world connects. It is through you that life as such makes its complete and full sense. The same goes for every single part of you. Look for example at how every part of your body holds the rest of the body together. But the same goes also for every part outside your body.

The more you are aware of your being here, the more you can transform yourself and your world around you into a path of insight, into a possibility to transform this world into a meaningful world.

When you allow yourself to tap into that world of inter-connectedness and be in between or inter-be, you can actually access that meaningfulness, or even better, allow that meaningfulness to access you.