The four elements of creative balance
Learning through action, freedom, tension and validation
I am slowly building out the “Create or Die” Creative work metamodel through iterations. Well, I could have exposed this before, but I have to muddle through various internal iterations with myself in answering various questions on the utility of this model, first and foremost to myself. These internal iterations have been going on for perhaps a year or more, but sometimes it has to be put to pasture out there. And perhaps, the second reason is the fear of putting out there…
My model is like a lens or a collection of lenses like the night vision goggles depicted here. In a particular situational context, these phosphorus glasses offered enhanced night vision in difficult terrain - a metaphor for complex organizations, and these lenses can be collectively utilized to create some new perspectives in order to create utility in organizational change design.
There was a question about one of my previous posts on whether I am trying to use just a few elements to model a complex environment that has a multitude of elements. And my answer is this, yes. All models are reductionist and these are what I believe are the key drivers that can influence or subsume the other elements. Therefore this is a reductionist metamodel for that reason - I believe this has utility in the context of the change work that I help do. The other question was around is it directly in the linear balance as shown here and whether the interactions would orthogonal rather than how it is represented. The linearity too is intentional. We, humans, struggle with 3-dimensional models, so flattening it two dimensions certainly make the conversations more dumbed down and easier to establish boundaries around such conversations.
My two earlier posts on this concept include Modeling creative balance on Jan 30 and Exploring creative balance on Feb 3 set some context to today’s post. Here is the updated model:
I am expanding the elements that in balance to 4, from the original two. They include Creative learning and action and Creative freedom on the left, balanced by Creative tension and creative validation on the right in order to produce a dynamic product or service offering.
Extending this concept of balance further, it is like a constant push-pull tug of war between the creative teams on the left who “do” the work and the orchestration which is either organizational hierarchy-driven or market-driven. An example of the push-pull will be as below:
Or if we use the metaphor of the night vision goggles, then the same picture depicted above could be represented as below:
What again is the utility of this metamodel? I shall discuss this with several examples in future posts.
My only request to you is to hang in there and put up with the nonsense I am putting out. Perhaps, it might make more sense as I muddle through. That’s why the byline of my newsletter right on the subscription page is “Making sense from nonsense” - everything is nonsense until we make some sense of it and derive some utility from it, real or perceived.
Today, I have put an alpha release out here and that is a start. Phew!