Building Safe Spaces for Creativity Might Just Save the World

When was the last time you were invited to be creative?

After more than 30 years in journalism, flourishing under the edict to afflict the

comfortable and comfort the afflicted, the squeeze on the Fourth Estate posed by internet advertising and news content platforms reduced the staffing at most newspapers to skeleton crews struggling to adhere to uncompromising daily deadlines. Planning suffered, content providers were instructed in afternoon meetings to scramble to plug holes in the next day’s paper, hoping the next day would be more fruitful; a mission played on repeat. Needless to say, creativity suffered.

Currently immersed in a doctoral program, however, I find creativity is encouraged (which might also be reflective of the specific university) in every class. While I am grateful for the open minded stance of my professors, I am motivated to advocate for creating meaningful safe spaces elsewhere in social structures to promote individual knowledge generation, perception inquiry, and collaborative co-creation of new, inclusive systems paradigms. In support of this journey, several luminaries in human development theory offer insight and suggest a pathway towards a better collective future through honoring the human spirit and respecting the sometimes messy creative process. Sprinkled through this article I am adding some of the memes and shadow boxes I generated for action research and human development in leadership classes. The shadow boxes are made with objects found in the desert along paths carved by refugees and migrants, and the memes were made with mixed media in response to the lack of leadership on climate related issues.

Constructive developmental theory

The majority of early developmental theory focused on the cognitive and psychosocial evolution of humans from birth through adolescence. Later theorists moved on to consider what happens in the hearts and minds of adults individually and as participating members of social systems. These latter theories offer multiple strategies for designing healthy organizational systems wherein the goal is to produce material profits and establish nurturing environments for its employees. More recently, constructivist developmental theorists like Robert Kegan, Meg Wheatley, and Otto Scharmer, among others, have espoused the creative potential of the self- authoring, self-managing individual for creating not only positive future sociocultural and intraorganizational outcomes, but also for honoring the human spirit through reflexivity and creativity. The intersection of ideas presented by these constructive developmental theorists present auspicious implications for life on this planet.

Constructivist developmental theory (CDT) refers to the manner in which human beings construct meaning from their experiences, and how those meanings develop over time, growing more complex and elaborate (Kegan, 1980). The theory assumes deeper understanding of the world and one’s self as an eventuality in the process of meaning-making. Susanne Cook-Greter (2014) emphasizes that CDT distinguished between structure and content. Structure representing what is in a person’s awareness and how they frame their response to life using that awareness. Content refers to the specific concepts individuals choose to incorporate into those structures. McCauley, et al, (2006) examined the growing body of research literature regarding CDT in hopes of correlating this developmental stage theory with a greater understanding of management, leadership, and change in organizations. While the foundation of CDT is attributed to Jean Piaget’s research on cognitive development stages in children, the theory evolved in the hands of neo-Piagetists to include adult psychological and emotional development processes. This broadening of scope opened the doors for not only looking inward, but also becoming more inclusive of how we interpret adult social systems. Constructivist development theory, therefore, provides a framework for harnessing the intersection of personal

understanding and our desire to build a more meaningful collective.

understanding and our desire to build a more meaningful collective

Safe spaces for the self-authoring mind

Kegan (1994) identifies the individual’s “immunity to change” as the fear of letting go of one's tightly-held beliefs in order to investigate new possibilities. He recommends seeking out a holding environment (Kegan, 1994; Winnicott, 1960) wherein we can safely examine our old assumptions. This safe space doesn’t necessarily imply a physical space, or social unit of like- minded individuals. However Wenger & Snyder (2000) suggest communities of practice — social networks that connect for the purpose of creating shared knowledge, developing individual capabilities, and problem solving — could be one such supportive shared space. Kegan (1994) regards a holding environment as a welcoming acknowledgement of who a person is at a given moment. He likewise argues that transformation happens in safe spaces during collaborative activities that involve critical questioning of assumptions about beliefs, identity, values, perceptions and system structures. Whether among members of a community of practice or within an organization seeking new ideas, CDT suggests three key factors for success: 1. support for individuals’ process of understanding themselves and the world, 2. a safe psychological and/ or physical space where that process can evolve, and 3. the collaboration of individuals working on mutually understood problems and goals.

Julia Cameron (2016) begins her seminal book, The Artist’s Way with a chapter on recovering a sense of safety. She refers less to a physical safe space than to an environment of emotional encouragement from peers or loved ones. Encouragement means allowing for a commitment to chaos; suggesting that ambiguity equals opportunity for new ideas. The creative mind operates across genres inventing, strategizing, theorizing, revolutionizing in every human enterprise (Abraham, 2018). There is little doubt, Abraham writes, “that creativity and innovation are central to cultural transformation and evolution (p. 21).” Indeed, creating safe physical and psychological spaces wherein people can enter into chaos and ambiguity both independently and collaboratively, with permission to make mistakes and break through existing models, can do more than expand our worldviews. Supporting creativity transforms models of prediction and control into broader systems thinking models while developing paths to deeper inner personal knowledge (Richards & Goslin-Jones, 2018).

 

Letting go: Supporting transformation

Meg Wheatley points out that “The real real world demands that we learn to cope with chaos.” During a 2014 lecture Let Go and Lead she warned that leaders tend to default to command and control, a move that disengages those who might not be in “leadership” positions, but who actually do the work of running the organization. This move ultimately leads to more chaos. Citing the example of Hurricane Katrina, Wheatley wrote, “Paralyzed by formal operating procedures, it takes courage to forego these (government) controls and do what you think might help.... These radically different behaviors require that we free official leaders to act wisely and that they trust people to self-organize effective responses.” 

As she advocates for letting go of structure, Wheatley also reminds us to interrogate our self- authored work: to look for new paths to managing complex problems, and to make sure our efforts derive from a personal passion. Wheatley cites research as far back as the 1960s showing that self-managed teams are 30% more productive than those simply told what to do. When people feel they are doing work from a deep personal place of commitment to serving others, and they are supported in the processes that generate that work, it creates not only positive outcomes but “honors the human spirit" (2014).

Wheatley’s application of CDT is directed at organizations, suggesting they trust the creative potential within individuals rather than putting their faith in rigid structural models. Otto Scharmer directs his understanding of CDT toward individual development. Scharmer likewise admonishes us to “let go,” in this case of our ego and self, and to “let come” our highest future possibility: our Self, thereby establishing a connection to a deeper source of knowing. This is the essence of ‘presencing,’ a primary component of his Theory U Leadership capacities. Scharmer contends that the place where we are best suited to release the ego is at the bottom of the U in his model, once we have shed our connectedness to outside influences and everything that is not essential. At this third stage we will have already been through the co-initiating stage where we build common intent, and the co-sensing stage where we immerse ourselves in observation with open hearts and minds. In the presencing stage we connect to a source of inspiration and will. We go to a safe space of silence where inner knowledge is allowed to emerge. At this stage we should feel welcome to not only acknowledge our true selves but feel comfortable reflecting on our assumptions, beliefs, perceptions and worldviews: letting go our ego, and letting come our full potential Self. Scharmer notes that once in the presencing stage, we develop the capacity to feel this emerging future developing, as if it were “wanting to be born.” Working up the other side of the U in Scharmer’s model, we begin to collaborate on new prototypes for the future in the co-creating stage, and finally co-evolving where we facilitate seeing and acting on embodying the new prototypes we have designed for healthier ecosystems (Scharmer, 2007).

Saving the future through open heart, open mind

Kegan’s own theoretical considerations have evolved, moving from an emphasis on “cultures of embeddedness” and “evolutionary truces” to focus on self-reflective inquiry, mapping our immunity to change, and transforming the language we use to reflect a more deliberate and self-realizing vocabulary. The three processes within these cultures of embededness evoke a similar personal journey to that of the Self moving through Scharmer’s U. Holding on, letting go, and staying put for regeneration suggest the same release of old assumptions and material connectedness, opening one’s self to new possibilities, and the co- creation of new paradigms fo the collective good. By acknowledging our limitations, being vulnerable with the learning process, and honoring our difficulties, we create spaces in ourselves for using chaos and ambiguity as a means for transforming our consciousness. “Developmental theory tells us the transforming mind is a potential way of handling the most lethal features of being a human; these sovereignties of mind and state,” he said in a 2017 interview.

Being invited to apply personal creativity can be daunting. Not many people are prepared to “create” on command. Establishing safe spaces for this process to unfold, however, can provide not only the freedom to develop ideas at one’s own pace, and according to experiential knowledge, but to reinforce the psychological support so necessary for self-authoring the process. Constructivist developmental theory, as described by Wheatley, Kegan and Scharmer, provides a framework by which individual meaning making can be introduced into the collective. CDT also assumes the development process is likewise evolving, that meaning-making systems naturally unfold in personal responses to our knowledge and environmental influences (McCauley et al, 2016). Integrating collaboration reflective of open heart and open mind into a sharing experience in safe spaces can generate new models of both personal understanding and collective operating systems in a more fulfilling, inclusive way for the benefit of all.