Business Breakfast with Paul Bourne
Paul Bourne presented the Creative Thinking and Creative Doing techniques
On September 30, 2019 at the Ambassador hotel the Stockholm School of Economics in Russia, jointly with the Professional HR-Club "How to do it" held the meeting with Paul Bourne, an expert on transformational leadership.
Vsevolod Krylov, director of EMBA programs at the Stockholm School of Economics in Russia praised Paul highly: "Paul Bourne has been working with the Stockholm School of Economics in Russia for many years. He has everything that is characteristic to the spirit of the School – innovation, energy, openness to new things and most importantly the desire to share his experience and knowledge".
Paul Bourne teaches at a business school in Cambridge and works with the Executive Education courses at the Stockholm School of Economics. He is also the Artistic Director of Menagerie, a Cambridge-based theatre company. This time round Paul Bourne gave an exclusive presentation of his vision of Creative Thinking and Creative Doing techniques. Paul explained how and why one should use creative processes in business and shared his actual experience using real life examples.
“Don’t be afraid of greatness. Some people are born great, some people achieve greatness. And some people have greatness thrust upon them. It's important to challenge your current way of thinking”, the business coach believes. His session typically includes a training session, a lecture, some active dialogue and a persuasive monologue.
According to the results of the Cambridge University survey, the majority of successful entrepreneurs strongly support cooperation and are extremely curious about the world around them. Paul is sure that there are three most important components in the creative thinking process: to get to know your teammates, to ask the right questions such as "What if...?" and "What does it give us?" and focus on finding new, unexpected combinations designed to observe the world from a point of view fundamentally different from an average person’s.
“The great creative idea is the one that will keep your attention, the one what you will continue to explore, what you will think about and talk about. This is the idea that will become a powerful dynamic driving force of the creative process”, Paul argues.
According to the expert, one should remember that any incredible process must also be effective (incredible process -> credible process), and any incredible idea must lead us to the successful result (incredible idea -> credible idea). Moreover, the creative thinking process should always result in action: it is necessary to perform tasks with the help of creative solutions, anticipating problems that may arise in the future.
Additionally Paul mentioned creative cultures and creative organizations, stressing the importance of interaction, improvisation, openness to all ideas and encouragement of those who are not afraid to disagree and go against the flow.
In the final part, Paul, being a theatrical director, offered his audience to participate in the improvisation. The participants were given a chance to find the unexpected solutions to everyday situations, changing the plot and adding new meaning. The audience showed genuine interest and maximum creativity performing and exploring the task at hand.
