The Most Creative Man in Silicon Valley

Michael Ray has discovered that for some companies, inviting him to conduct a workshop on creativity can be a little nerve-racking at first. Ray is a warehouse of research, anecdotes, and exercises that people can use to enhance their creative powers inside companies. So what's the problem? "My course causes poeple to delve into what they really wnat to do in their lives," Ray explains. "At companies, there's often the thought that if people think about what they really want, they'll start leaving in droves."

In fact, Ray reassures his hosts, the opposite is usually true: "People who take the course decide, almost without exception, to stay in their jobs. If you know the answer to the question, 'What is my work?,' you can bring that answer into any job. People often find that where they are is the best place for them to be."

Generally, Ray goes into a company -- past clients include Charles Schwab, Clorox, and Hewlett-Packard -- for three workshops. In between those workshops, employees use software that contains the same material that Ray teaches in his Stanford course. (Additional classes, known as the "open-enrollment program," are offered and usually occur on or near the Stanford campus.)

For many people, the course's candor and contemplation are revelatory. At one fast-growing company, Ray led an exercise in which about 35 top executives within a 600-person division discussed their fears. They each wrote their deepest fear on an index card. (Ray recommended disguising handwriting.) The cards were shuffled and redistributed. People then sat in groups of seven or eight and discussed the fear on their index card as if it were their own.

During this time of transition at the company -- among other things, the head of this particular division was leaving -- many people had the same fear: that they would not be recognized. Remembers Ray: "One person stood up and said, 'Wait a minute! We're the leaders. If we have these fears, what about the other 565 people who work here?' She and the others were able to start addressing their fears by moving toward them."

Curtis Sittenfeld (curtis-sittenfeld@uiowa.edu), a former Fast Company staff writer, is a graduate student in the Iowa Writers' Workshop at the University of Iowa. Contact Michael Ray by email (ray_michael@gsb.stanford.edu), or visit him on the Web (www.michael-ray.com).