Tag: MBA

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Why is creativity important to me?

I have two degrees, an undergraduate degree in Accounting, and an MBA in Information Technology. Nice degrees, years and years of studying, useful, but ultimately very analytical, logical, process oriented, and rational. I spent most of the first 30 +/- years of my life being very process driven, analytical, rational, and results-driven.

When I finished I didn’t know what to do with myself.

I started to ask questions, try things out: going to the symphony, drawing, photography, painting…

I started to have fun.

I was more relaxed, less stressed, more curious, more confident, more resilient.

My personal and professional lives were more interesting, and satisfying. 

I wanted to share my experience with others, and help them have these same benefits, and hopefully, reduce their learning curve, or at least move them along it, so now I am!

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My path to creativity

In my introduction, last week, when I spoke at the Future Females: Berlin creativity event.  I made a joke about being an accountant and a IT professional and that I was going to talk to them about creativity. I said, “I know what you’re thinking, what is and accountant and IT person going to tell us about creativity?” and really, how does someone who studied accounting and IT come to be doing creativity?!? I mean, really???!!!

You’re going to have to trust me that it is all connected, I don’t want to bore you to death with all the details, but the short answer is, that after having the creativity, figuratively, if not literally, beaten out of me of during years of education, I came to realise how important it is.

I was exhausted and burnt out and a bit bored because I had finished my MBA and didn’t have any hobbies, after-all who has time for hobbies when there is school work to be done. So, I started trying things out: drawing (oooh, this is math, I can do math), photography (oooh, nice to be outside, what happens when I do this with the shutter speed?), rock climbing (hated it, never again), going to the symphony (loved it), painting (ooooooh this is amazing, this one REALLY stuck). As I tried out all these things some of them stuck, and some of them didn’t, but I slowly started to figure out who I was, other than a student. Who I was, when I wasn’t trying to do a “should” or a “supposed to” and it was fantastic. Having these creative outlets helped me be more balanced, to be better at my career, because I thought more critically, and I was more resilient.

I decided a week ago to leave the knowledge management consulting that I had been doing for 15 years behind, and to step fully into the creativity and innovation work that I had been developing over the last 6 years and it feels like, this is it, this is what I am here for, this is what this long, circuitous journey has been about: getting me ready to use all the skills and knowledge I have accumulated along the way to help organisations and people to be more balanced, to use both sides of their brains, to look at things differently if they want different outcomes; to apply artistic practices and principles to all kinds of problems to arrive at better, more balanced, more useful solutions.

I am so excited to be here!

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Just watch me!

This is the evolution of me. I’m taking all of my experience and history and creating a new layer.

My undergrad in accounting, my time working in finance and accounting, my MBA in information technology, my time working in technology and then as an independent knowledge management consultant, and my development as an artist, have all led to this moment, this realisation of potential: entelechy.