Being open, curious, original, playful, mindful and optimistic are at the core of what it means to be creative. They form the mindset and heart set skills of the Being Creative Operating System, a framework that will help you develop skills in yourself to take on the task of solving problems more creatively and discovering innovative solutions.
This deep-dive course uses video, text-based lessons, hands-on exercises, a moderated discussion forum to introduce and pragmatically explore how to leverage each skill in your work and personal life.
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Highlight Reel
The course unfolds over six (6) weeks, starting with an introductory module that sets the context for being creative and the skill Being Open. Then, over the next 5 weeks, you'll dive into each of the other 5 Being Creative skills, with one skill being released every week.
Being Creative is an asynchronous online course that launches with an introductory module to set the context for creativity in your work and personal life. It serves to answer these common questions:
- What is creativity?
- Why does creativity matter?
- What does it mean to be creative?
- What does it take to get creative?
You'll be introduced to creative thinking guidelines and shown how the simple habit of separating your thinking will help you immediately produce more effective results when working on your own and with others.
Each of the six skill lessons facilitates a deep and meaningful exploration of what it means to be creative as seen through the lens of each of three core mindset skills and three heart set (affective skills).
Collectively these skills help you enhance your growth mindset and develop the confidence, agility and resilience to navigate an evolving world.
Get Mindset Skills
You'll first be introduced to three essential mindset skills:
- Being Curious
- Being Open
- Being Original
These skills equip you with the ability to suspend judgment, develop a genuine desire to explore and actively seek novelty, so you can harness the power of using deliberately creative processes.
And Heart Set Skills
You'll then be introduced to three heart set skills:
- Being Mindful
- Being Playful
- Being Optimistic
These affective skills represent the attitude with which a creative individual engages with the world around them. When you augment your core mindset skills with the attitudinal power of humour, awareness and hopefulness, you develop inner resilience, which allows you to foster a sustainable effort for change.
Using Micro-lessons that Build Micro-habits
The six Being Creative skill lessons are designed to quickly, pragmatically and relevantly immerse you in the skill and provide the hands-on, interactive practice you can engage in on your own and with others. Each lesson is organized like this:
- Become acquainted with the skill, its benefits and possibilities for use in your life
- Start with a warm-up exercise to get ready to embrace the skill.
- Practice using the skill by yourself
- Practice using the skill in your interactions with others (Application in a work team, group, or at home context)
- Practice using the skill in a way that is designed to invite others also to use the skill (Application in a leadership context)
As a skill is released to you every two weeks, it will take you less than 30 minutes to be introduced to the skill and complete warm-up activities to help you embrace using it.
Practical hands-on activities can then be completed at your convenience and are easily integrated into your day-to-day work and personal life.
A reflection activity follows each hands-on exercise via the discussion forum. This encourages everyone to complete the learning cycle after each exercise and helps the learning to stick.
The discussion forum is moderated by a trained course facilitator who can offer encouragement, highlight the insights and offer builds that create a rich learning opportunity. You get the benefit of experiencing how others are learning and the guidance of a trained course facilitator.
For each skill, you'll receive:
- PDF: Practice by Yourself
- PDF: Practice with Others
- PDF: Practice to Invite Others to Use the Skill