Monty Python's guide to creativity

I came across this entertaining talk given by John Cleese to a conference in Belgium on “Creativity” via Garr Reynold’s Presentation Zen Blog.

I guess many people associate “creativity” as something that artistic types have (or need). But it’s not restricted to the arts. We all need to be creative from time to time, whether it’s producing a painting, writing a poem, working out a scientific theory, designing a bridge or something more mundane such as pulling together a presentation or writing a report.

In his talk, John Cleese stresses a number of key points:

• “sleeping on a problem” can help to solve it
• leaving something for a while after it’s finished and going back to review or revise it can often allow you to improve the original – this ties in with my own experience. When working on a report I try to leave it for a day or two, and then reread before I issue it. I usually find there are things that I can improve.
• the key to creativity is to avoid interruptions -
• “we don’t get our ideas from our laptop” – ideas come from the unconscious – to be creative we need to “get off the grid”

His main conclusion is that in order to be creative you need to create a “tortoise enclosure,” with “boundaries of space and time” to provide an atmosphere that is safe and free from the threat of interruption. Again I can relate to this. When working on a problem, trying to think how to approach a report or some course notes, or problems associated with running a business, it can be difficult to think straight when working in the office. I find that things often become clearer if I get outdoors and go for a walk out on the moors or in the woods away from everything. I guess that’s my way of creating a “tortoise enclosure”.  There’s probably also an additional benefit. 

According to John Medina, the author of “Brain Rules”,  exercise boosts brain power. So although disappearing for a few hours out into the countryside may seem like “skiving off”. In fact it can be quite the opposite – a way of enhancing creativity and productivity. Workaholics who anchor themselves to the desk are probably fooling themselves that they’re achieving more.

Making training stick

“Made to stick” by Chip and Dan Heath – a book widely recommended on various blogs on presentation and management. Its about how to get ideas to “stick”, and the principles outlined can be applied in various contexts, but the one I’m interested in is teaching and training.The core idea in the book is that to make ideas stick the message need to have a number of attributes, summed up by the acronym SUCCES. They should be

• Simple
• Unexpected
•  Concrete
• Credible
• Emotional
• use Stories

The last of these is particularly important as stories usually involve concrete examples, can get to the core of the idea and can be framed to include unexpected and emotional aspects. The Heath’s practice what they preach with stories (lots of examples) forming the basis for the book.The occupational hygiene profession is not very good at making things “sticky” – the very name we use for our discipline is perhaps a good example of this!

Although we often can work out what our core ideas and principles are, we are not always very good at using the other aspects discussed by the Heath’s to put them across to an uninterested audience we are trying to influence, whether management, workers or regulators. For example, I was discussing the COSHH principles of good control practice with a colleague a few days ago, and we both agreed that while the principles are good and sensible, they are anything but “sticky” and its perhaps not surprising that very few people, including many general safety practitioners, have not really heard of them. From a training and teaching perspective, making ideas “sticky” is important if the learners are to remember what you’ve tried to get across, and the SUCCES principles can be applied to make the instruction more memorable.

Making things “simple” doesn’t mean “dumbing down” but making sure ideas, however complex, are put across in a way that can be understood by learners new to the principle. Things that seem obvious to an expert need to be carefully explained. This can be made easier if the ideas are illustrated by concrete examples. Every good trainer will have “war stories” that can be used to illustrate application and implementation of the principles. Case studies too are types of stories and can be based on concrete examples and are a good way of getting the learners to think through the principles. The stories and case studies clearly need to be credible if they are to be seen as relevant by the learners.

The idea of using emotion might seem a bit airy fairy but is really about making the ideas relevant to the learners by showing them that what they are learning is relevant to them, either as individuals or as part of a group. Unexpectedness is probably the most difficult principle to apply – I think that it can only be used sparingly – you can’t make everything unexpected. However its a good way of waking up the audience and grabbing attention and can be particularly useful during awareness type training, particularly where the audience might be uninterested, and can help to get the emotional “buy in” you are trying to achieve.

One thing isn’t covered in the book, which is particularly important in making training and teaching “sticky”. The book focuses on getting a message across and making it stick by presenting people with information i.e. by presenting the information verbally or in writing. Learning isn’t just about listening and reading- quite the contrary. People learn best by doing – sometimes finding things out for themselves or reinforcing the points put across in presentations and written material. Perhaps some of the ideas in the book could be applied to practical exercises. As I’ve already mentioned above, they can be applied to designing effective case studies.

So all in all, a useful book. The ideas it contains have certainly stuck with me!

Information overload in presentations

Like most professionals I attend meetings and conferences to keep myself up to date with the latest research, ideas and approaches in my field. Inevitably the presenters use Powerpoint for their presentations and, in most cases, use slides crammed with information – far too much to cover in the short time slots they're allocated. This normally results in them moving through the slides too quickly (so the audience didn’t have time to finish reading the individual slides) or  skipping and missing a number of slides.

Why do they do this?

I think that one of the reasons is that speakers at conferences usually have a limited time slot, but have a lot of information they want to communicate. By cramming information onto slides you reduce the total number and fool yourself into thinking that the amount of material you are trying to get across is manageable in the time available. It’s a little like burying your head in the sand. The problem of too much material disappears – until you try to present it!

Slides should support the presentation – they’re not a substitute for it. However, where they are used they need to be well designed if they are to perform their function effectively. I think that most presenters don’t put too much thought into that aspect of their presentation. They tend to default to using the standard Powerpoint template that focuses on using words, structured as bullets and sub-bullets.

Research has shown that its better to minimise the number of words on a slide and to use pictures or other visuals where possible. I don’t intend to go into it here, but there is a good explanation of the theory in a post on Olivia’s Mitchell’s blog“Speaking about Presentation” which includes a summary of some recent work byChris Atherton, a cognitive psychologist from the University of Central Lancashire.

Some good advice on slide design is available also available  in a number of books such as Beyond Bullet Points by Cliff Atkinson, Presentation Zen by Garr Reynolds and Slideology by Nancy Duarte.