January 2025

Hey Wonder-ers!

Exciting news: the evolution of the Ever Wonder…? Newsletter! Each month I'll share 3 Things you need to know to catalyze creativity in your life and your work. PLUS look out for my Premium Version- The WonderRigor™ Catalyst coming soon!

3 Things

In an era where AI can optimize old ideas with stunning efficiency, organizations increasingly need human creativity to conceive of possible solutions for tomorrow. The World Economic Forum predicted this shift, elevating creativity from the third to second most important job skill for 2027 and beyond. What's fascinating is that critical thinking and complex problem-solving - ranked #1 and #3 - are actually core components of creative thinking.

When I lived in Colombo, Sri Lanka, working in global fashion sourcing for The Limited Brands and Victoria's Secret, I witnessed something remarkable. Our biggest creative breakthroughs in bra design didn't always come from studying competitors – they came from engineers and designers working together, combining technical rigor with imaginative wonder. This taught me a vital lesson about creativity in business: the most innovative solutions emerge when we integrate different ways of thinking.

Three Actionable Insights:

1. Amplify What Makes Us Human: As technofuturist Galit Ariel emphasized in The Creativity Leap, we should stop asking "How do we make AI more creative?" and start asking "How do we combine AI's calculating power with human creative capacity?"
2. Design for Wonder and Rigor: PlatoScience president Balder Onarheim found that innovation happens not by making AI creative, but by linking humans' innate creativity with AI's capabilities.
3. Lead with Questions, Not Answers: At SEB Bank's Innovation Lab, leaders found that the most powerful AI implementations started with human-centered questions rather than technology-first solutions.

In today's business landscape, where 52% of Fortune 500 companies since 2000 have gone bankrupt, been acquired, or ceased to exist according to Capgemini, survival depends on mastering both wonder (creative dreaming) and rigor (practical execution). Leaders must balance these complementary forces - as wonder without rigor leads to unrealized ideas, while rigor without wonder results in stagnation - to drive sustainable innovation and breakthrough results.

What questions do you have about bringing more creativity into your organization? Reply to this email - I read every response!

With wonder & rigor,

Based on concepts from The Creativity Leap: Unleash Curiosity, Improvisation, and Intuition at Work (Berrett-Koehler, 2020)

CHECK THIS OUT

📖 READ: This is Strategy - Make Better Plans by Seth Godin - This is a must-read for anyone interested in insights on how to make better plans and create change in a complex world. The book encourages readers to think strategically and embrace adaptability and intentionality in their decision-making.

🎧 LISTEN: Creativity and Data Work, with Natalie Nixon, PhD - I thoroughly enjoyed speaking on Barton Poulson's LinkedIn Live show last week!

New! The WonderRigor™ Ideas Lab Bootcamp

The WonderRigor™ Ideas Lab Bootcamp will help you to develop practical skills to integrate creativity into everyday tasks and work environments.

Free Webinar!

Learn more about the WonderRigor™ Ideas Lab Bootcamp in this free 30-minute webinar on Wednesday, January 29, 2025, at 12 PM ET. Get valuable insights into how wonder and rigor can transform your team. I also have a great group exercise to share!