changing how leaders lead change
You pour your heart and soul into your work. But does it feel like you’re not seeing the impact you're looking for? What if the answer doesn't lie in adding more, but in seeing what you already have in a new light?
The magic of innovation lives in people - in you and your teams. We've shown time and again that when leaders create the conditions to reveal their teams' collective intelligence, they will achieve enduring impact.
Creative Catalyst empowers organizations to reveal their creative potential and amplify their impact. We facilitate teams and coach leaders to create the ideal conditions to unleash their creativity and solve their challenges more effectively.
Our experience-based, science-backed approach has shown, time and again, that unleashing our humanity is the key to unlocking our collective creativity and amplifying our impact.
We've helped organizations discover and unleash their teams' collective intelligence, and change how leaders lead change. Our work is to:
Build awareness of the drivers of creative output and team effectiveness.
Guide teams to gain new insight into wicked problems and solve them better.
Develop leaders' ability to create the conditions for innovation in their organizations.
Beginning in 2004, working in a Fortune 50 company, we were tasked with looking across industries to find new ways of innovating. It seemed every innovation process and tool had been tried, but something surprisingly obvious was missing.
Organizations have a long-standing love affair with process. The romance began in the early 1900’s with ‘scientific management’ and its emphasis on efficiency, tangibility, and predictability. These are great for manufacturing widgets, but when we lean too hard on standardized process, we smother creativity and innovation. It’s like having a gold mine and refusing to dig. To truly innovate, we need to shift our focus and balance, recognizing that our people are our greatest asset for discovery and impact.
The real magic of innovation isn't in the process—it's in the people. Organizations hit gold when they cultivate environments that let the brilliance of their teams shine through. Incredible things happen when people bring their full selves to tackle tough problems, freed from the usual status, bias, and rigid roles. It's about more than just a belief that people are your most valuable asset; it's about actively revealing and unleashing their innate capacities for curiosity, creativity, and collaboration.
There are a small set experiential practices that most help teams see challenges in new ways and solve them brilliantly. These aren’t your typical approaches; they’re deeply human practices that spark curiosity, creativity, and collaboration. Whether woven into weeks-long journeys or applied to specific challenges, these practices have changed how leaders lead change and how teams innovate. When teams go on experiential journeys of discovery, they learn to view challenges with fresh perspectives and devise unexpected solutions.
When leaders create the conditions for teams to unleash their individual and collective creativity, extraordinary innovation happens. This isn’t just theory—we've done it time and again in product development, service offerings, core strategies, organizational designs, and even nonprofit mergers. The impact is real and enduring.
After years of guiding teams to solve a range of complex challenges, we paused to ask "What experiences have most helped teams see differently and solve brilliantly?" Team interviews, session reviews, and research led to the synthesis of 9 human-centered practices that nurture Curiosity, Creativity, and Collaboration.
“When creativity is under the gun, it usually ends up getting killed.” — Teresa Amabile
We often fall prey to the mistaken belief that working faster increases creativity and productivity. It is an illusion reinforced by cultures that prioritize speed and quick wins.1
Slow down peoples minds to improves their receptivity to new ideas.2 Enable deep understanding through reflection, and use well-timed incubation to help teams subtly process information and uncover better insights.3 Since cognitively diverse teams solve problems faster,4 facilitate inclusion to help them go fast when the time is right.
1 Deci, E. L., & Ryan, R. M. (2000). The “What” and “Why” of Goal Pursuits: Human Needs and the Self-Determination of Behavior. Psychological Inquiry, 11(4).
2 Kahneman, D. (2011). Thinking, Fast and Slow. Macmillan.
3 Dijksterhuis, A. & Nordgren, L.F. (2006). A theory of unconscious thought. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 1(2).
4 Reynolds, A. & Lewis, D. (2017). Teams Solve Problems Faster When They’re More Cognitively Diverse. Harvard Business Review.
"Empathy is about finding echoes of another person in yourself.” — Mohsin Hamid
Too often, we engage in 'self-oriented' empathy that draws on personal and 'tribal' biases.1 We often fall in love with preconceived solutions, hindering our discovery.
Facilitate experiences that build teams ‘other-oriented’ empathy that leaves personal preferences behind to understand others’ stories, feelings, and needs.2 Expand thinking to help teams fall in love with the opportunity and resist the ‘Einstellung Effect’ that blinds us to better solutions due to our bias for prior solutions.3
1 Vugt, M. & Ronay, R. (2013). The evolutionary psychology of leadership: Theory, review, and roadmap. Organizational Psychology Review.
2 Decety, J. (2011). The Social Neuroscience of Empathy. Cambridge University Press.
3 Barlach, L. & Plonski, G.A. (2021), "The Einstellung effect, mental rigidity and decision-making in startup accelerators", Innovation & Management Review.
“Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate” — Carl Jung
Treasures and troubles lie in the hidden dynamics that can enable or disable a teams efforts. Adaptable solutions require invisible dynamics be revealed so that a fuller picture of the challenge comes to light.
Facilitate teams to explore and tell stories about the invisible cultural dynamics that shape team dynamics and members’ behavior.1 Craft experiences to explore the underlying and unspoken assumptions that shape the challenge and potential solutions.2 Help teams visualize the interconnectedness of the broader ecosystem to understand its profound, and often unintended, consequences.3
1 Coyle, D. (2019). The Culture Code: The Secrets of Highly Successful Groups. Random House.
2 Grenny, J., Patterson, K., McMillan, R. Switzer, A., & Gregory, E. (2021). Crucial Conversations: Tools for Talking When Stakes are High. McGraw Hill.
3 Meadows, D. H. (2008). Thinking in systems: A primer. Chelsea Green Publishing.
“The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes.” — Marcel Proust
Creativity is based on our ability to see what has been unseen. But our ‘educated incapacity’ can get us stuck in familiar, myopic points of view that prevent us from seeing broader possibilities.
Form cognitively diverse, multifunctional teams. This provides the diverse thinking critical for exploring a wide range of possibilities and solutions1, and makes innovation more likely due to the intersection of disciplines and ideas.2 Create the conditions for teams to shift out of educated incapacity by crafting experiences that encourage seeing issues with beginner’s mind.3
1 Dyer, J., Gregersen, H. & Christensen, C. M. (2019). The Innovator's DNA: Mastering the Five Skills of Disruptive Innovators. Harvard Business Review Press.
2 Johansson, F. (2017). The Medici Effect: What Elephants and Epidemics Can Teach Us About Innovation. Harvard Business Review Press.
3 Suzuki, S. (1970). Zen mind, beginner's mind. Weatherhill.
"Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.” — Xunzi
When teams lack true insight they feel little ownership for ideas, which cripples their ability to discover new possibilities and territories.
Facilitate honest conversations about teams’ strengths and weaknesses to help them self-regulate and persist through difficulties.1 Enable learning and sense-making with cycles of experience, reflection, and experimentation.2 Give teams greater control of their learning path to enable greater persistence3 and building of problem-solving skills.4
1 Dweck, C. S. (2007). Mindset: The New Psychology of Success. Ballantine Books.
2 Kolb, D. A. (1984). Experiential Learning: Experience as the Source of Learning and Development. Prentice Hall.
3 Ryan, R. M. & Deci, E. L. (2000). Self-determination theory and the facilitation of intrinsic motivation, social development, and well-being. American Psychologist, 55(1)
4 Garvin, D.A., Edmondson, A.C., & Gino, F. (2008). Is yours a learning organization? Harvard Business Review.
“The cave you fear to enter holds the treasure you seek.” — Joseph Campbell
Exploring unfamiliar territories can help teams discover new insights and possibilities. By nature, though, people naturally demonstrate a strong bias for certainty and an aversion to ambiguity.1
Encourage teams to embrace ambiguity and explore new possibilities by fostering psychological safety and encouraging nudges.2 When we create the conditions and jump into ambiguity, our brains are forced to break away from habitual thought patterns, which promotes divergent thinking and the ability to generate fresh solutions.3
1 Ellsberg, D. (1961). Risk, ambiguity, and the Savage axioms. Quarterly Journal of Economics, 75(4).
2 Edmondson, A. C. (1999). Psychological safety and learning behavior in work teams. Administrative Science Quarterly, 44(2).
3 Beaty, et al. (2016). Robust prediction of individual creative ability from brain functional connectivity. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 113(5).
"When a butterfly flutters its wings in one part of the world, it can eventually cause a hurricane in another.” — Edward Lorenz
From evolutionary biology to complex dynamic systems, it is clear that the initial conditions profoundly influence outcomes.1
Creating the conditions for teams to self-manage is responsible for most of their effectiveness.2 Coach leader-sponsors to express their belief in the team3 and clarify the teams latitude in problem solving. Build a cognitively diverse team and nurture inclusion, psychological safety, and clarify the explicit and implicit rules of their work.4 Carefully prepare flexible work spaces that nurture ‘psychological ownership’5 and encourage risk-taking, reflection, generative conversations.
1 Bargh, et al. (1996). Automaticity of social behavior. J of Personality and Social Psych.
2 Hackman, J.R. (2011). Six Common Misperceptions about Teamwork. HBR.
3 Livingston, J. S. (2003). Pygmalion in management. Harvard Business Review.
4 Katzenbach, J.R. & Smith, D.K. (1993). The Discipline of Teams. HBR.
5 Pierce, et. al. (2003). The state of psychological ownership. Review of General Psych.
"Diversity is having a seat at the table, inclusion is having a voice, and belonging is having that voice be heard.” — Liz Fosslien
Diverse teams solve problems better, but they are often dominated by forceful personalities that rob the team of the full teams perspectives.
Teams members feel valued and are more creative when psychological safety and inclusion are nurtured.1 Ensure that all voices are heard to nurture the teams collective intelligence.2 ‘Change the geometry’ to amplify participation by shifting sub-group sizes based on tasks and group energy. Purposeful rituals can create shared mental models and norms of how teams works together, including hearing all voices.3 Use story and metaphor to elicit insights and balance quiet and loud voices.
1 Amabile, T.M. (1998). How to Kill Creativity. Harvard Business Review, 76(1).
2 Woolley, A.W., Chabris, C.F., Pentland, A., Hashmi, N., & Malone, T.W. (2010). Evidence for a Collective Intelligence Factor in the Performance of Human Groups. J. of Science.
3 Gazi Islam, G. & Zyphur, M.J. (2009). Rituals in Organizations: A Review and Expansion of Current Theory. Group Organization Management.
"There isn’t a stronger connection between people than storytelling.” — Jimmy Neil Smith
Teams often get stuck in old ways of thinking that lack meaning and emotion. They need more nuanced ways of looking at the world.
We are literally wired to learn from stories1 so use storytelling early and often to bring depth and richness. Sharing stories causes neural coupling2 and emotional stories, in particular, trigger the release of neurotransmitters that builds trust, empathy, and compassion. Enable team bonding through personal stories and use story to build teams’ understand of complex concepts in meaningful and personal ways.3
1 Gottschall, J. (2013). The Storytelling Animal: How Stories Make Us Human. Mariner Books.
2 Stephens, G.J., Lauren J. Silbert & L.J., Hasson, U. (2010). Speaker–listener neural coupling underlies successful communication. PNAS, Vol. 107, No. 32.
3 Suzuki, W.A, Feliú-Mójer, M.I., Hasson, U., Yehuda, R. & Zarate, J.M. (2018) Dialogues: The Science and Power of Storytelling. Journal of Neuroscience, 31.
The same principles are core to our offerings, with each focused on a specific learning objective.
‘Plant seeds’ to inspire people to practice new behaviors that unleash team effectiveness.
Pilot in April 2024
Explore a specific practice to foster awareness, insight and co-creation of team norms.
1-2 day in-person exploration of a practice with your team
Or a week-long virtual exploration of a practice
2 hour online exploration and follow-up synthesis sessions
‘Accelerate the growth’ of teams and ideas to discover insights and deliver holistic solutions.
July 2024 pilot
An intensive solving journey to deepen relationships, discover insights, and solve holistically.
Immersive solving journey for 8 to 12 team members.
1-9 week solving journey based on your challenge
Integration of practices, strategy, and visual thinking
‘Cultivate the soil’ to create an environment that nurtures creativity and innovation.
Contact Us
Leadership development to co-create how to unleash the creativity of your organization.
2 to 6 month engagement periods based on needs
Diagnostics of the core issues, and current and desired states
Custom engagement to meet your organization's needs