How Can I Take My Creative Talent to Work?

This is the question that keeps coming up in conversations with people who are in career transition. Increasingly professionals want to be employed and engaged. The choice can not be made from desperation (which results in a costly short term affair) but out of thoughtful selection of the working environment and corporate culture that is calibrated for humans, not machines.  Meanwhile, companies operate either as if nothing has changed or as if nothing can change. Few are using the economic crisis to innovate and better calibrate their business cultures to adapt to the speed of change. Most are focusing on surviving the ‘economic crisis’ over tapping into their creative talent internally to shift their capacity to achieve. This is completely understandable given that, like the employees in the job market, they too must face their fears and examine the core assumptions that drive decisions. This takes courage, the kind of courage that is talked about in leadership but rarely cultivated in low risk tolerance environments.  Talent is no longer prepared to leave a part of them at home when they go to work. Companies that fail to engage what matters to employees fail to engage. Passions are integrally linked to purpose. The outmoded beliefs that underpin business cultures, systems and decisions require that the power of the human spirit remains alienated from performance.  This duality is placing a huge amount of stress on individuals who know they bring much more to their jobs than is currently valued.  Duality is merging to a more holistic perspective. No more can people leave their creative and intuitive intelligence at home. In the same way that professionals in the job market are examining who they are without their roles and external trappings, companies are at a critical crossroads where deep introspection on their core identity drives the innovative process. We are at a tipping point where the personal growth of the professionals who still aspire to contribute to corporate environments drives the personal growth of the companies who aspire to engage workers.  Those who are secure enough to recognize their own talents, who see themselves as being self-employed whether or not they work for someone, are inventing their employment. Put simply, the creative talent that companies prefer to dismiss as touchy-feely or woo-woo is the same creative talent that has the capacity to foresee trends, see clarity in complexity and to recognize when things are going off the rails long before the mind has registered the data. Working for yourself gives you the control to engage that natural wisdom.  Companies racing off to the bank for bailouts have relied heavily on their intellectual process largely driven by fear of losing market share, fear of not getting to market on time, fear of opening and sharing in a highly networked environment. To discern fear from a gut-feel requires a much higher level of consciousness than is currently operating. Creative talent is hardwired to the neural system of the heart which in turn accesses the subconscious that senses, sparking insights, to inform sound timing and vision. Without it, few companies will be positioned to make the jump to warp speed as we collectively face the consequences of industrial capitalism that threatens the very viability of our existence. Engaging creative talent to generate radical innovation demands more trust than fear. Are you ready?