Creativity: Nature or Nurture?

John Richter, an instructor at Miami University and a consultant for Kaivac Cleaning Systems, speaks on the innate ability to be creative. He also speaks on the importance of leadership and creativity in industry.

Host:Welcome to Listen For Insight. I’m your host Logan Raukar. We have for you John Richter, an instructor in the manufacturing and mechanical engineering department at Miami University, and his insights on the innate ability to create and lead and the importance of this in industry. I send you now to our interviewer Sebastian Diaz-Rodriguez.

Sebastian: Alright well thank you John for coming to Listen4Insight’s Podcast and I’m going to start off with a question: what experiences led you to realize the necessity for innovation and creativity in the workplace.

Richter: Now that’s a good question it really began, coming out of industry for the last 20 years into the educational system I’ve seen the power of creativity and innovation at work immensely in those 20 years and really I saw the great power of it when I joined Kaivac in 2005. It’s a small company that specializes in developing high performance cleaning equipment and it was there that I saw this culture of creativity and innovation and the power of it and CEO Bob Robinson Senior it’s one of his fundamental beliefs that we are created innately to create and to have a creative mindset in every aspect of business whether that be sales, marketing, research and development, product development, things like that, so I saw that culture of innovation and the power of it and it actually, that was the fundamental belief that really drove that company and caused that company to be so successful it was in working in that environment that I really began to value creativity and innovation in the workplace.

Sebastian: do you find it extremely important that students work on their leadership skills as soon as possible before they get into the workplace?

Richter: Absolutely I think you know I said that we’re created and we’re innately made to be creative but we need to develop that gift, you know we need to develop that talent even though all of us have it in us, it's sometimes just sitting there dormant and its like you know hey we have this craft or skill you know I come from a sports environment you know and I might be innately a good shooter but I want to become a great shooter by shooting you know, many, many shots over and over again so that repetition is the key to developing that skill and that craft and so I think that it’s important that we do the same thing at the educational level that we help students develop that gift of creativity that’s there it’s innately in them but sometimes just laying dormant in their in their lives and so it’s it’s important we draw it out and give them opportunities to really shine and show forth that creative gift.

Sebastian: Do you have a set method for innovation or do you think it just comes spontaneously organic process?

Richter: I think it’s both it's not an and or an or. what I mean by that is I think you need to create a culture of that’s what I saw at Kaivac is there was a culture of innovation that was developed there and started from the top level where the top management believed in it you know what I mean, they took steps to really developing and promoting the creative, creativity in people and drawing that out of people I think that you can also develop a methodology that inherently pulls creativity into the process, does that make sense? So we can train it in and we can develop processes that really help us to be, to stimulate creativity but also it needs to be, because everyone knows that if you talk to any painter at work you know you can kind of force and make it happen but you know sometimes just when it when it’s going the creative juices are flowing, you just need to run with it so when you create an environment where hey man we’re in a creative mode right now let’s just stick with it we got it we got to chase this rabbit down and we’re just going to stick to it because there’s something flowing, there’s something good here and we don’t want to stop this and so everyone kind of recognizes that has to be an environment where we recognize that created the creative juices are flowing and we're just going to stick with it because something great is going to come from it.

Host: John elaborated on the type of environment that allows creativity to flourish.

Richter:I think a good example of that. I think of Google, I’ve heard some interesting things and I’m not trying to exalt any business or anything like that but I’ve been amazed of some of the things that I’ve heard, I haven’t been firsthand but I know that they do things like for example they will allow certain people to have a certain amount of time of their week just dedicated to doing innovative and to stimulate creativity, where they you know an hour or something a week or something where all their tasks is to do is chase after some of those creative thoughts that they’ve had and that’s creating an environment that’s instilling that environment and the culture of creativity and the more we do that the better we’re going to be at it.

Sebastian: Are creativity and innovation necessary to lead people?


Richter: Let me say it this way every leader, if you’re called to be a leader and I think of the leadership this is should be a part of who we are that everyone has an arena for leadership, let me say it that way. But as a leader you’re going to come across problems you’re going to come across challenges right, and how are you going to get across that. The way that we crossed challenges, the way that we bridge that gap is through innovation and creativity. It is the key right. I mean you look at the world and you go man we’ve got all of these problems, well creativity is what takes that problem or that challenge and turns it into an opportunity and I mean so developing that, I mean to be an effective leader we have to be creative in terms of our processes, in terms of our practices, in terms of how we approach people and you know if we’re just going to do it the systematic way it’s not going to work moving forward, we need to develop new techniques, new ideas, new concepts for doing things in our leadership.

Sebastian: What do you think is the key for someone to learn how to innovate in any industry?

Richter: To learn to innovate I think you’ve got to get in there for one you’ve got to practice. You’ve got to get in there and practice and you’ve got to allow your person to chase after some of those creative ideas that you have so you know a lot of times we get into an environment and we just shut down, we just shut down, we just shut down ideas we shut down and maybe it's because we’re in an environment that doesn’t foster ideas. But you as an individual if you’re going to be successful and to really come into your fullness of what you’ve been destined for and created for. You need to foster that creativity in some way shape or form. And allow yourself to chase after some of those dreams or some of those things that you have going on inside of you. And everywhere I’ve been I’ve tried to do that, you know what I mean? I have my everyday work assignments, I have my things that I’m chasing but those things that there’s ideas on I’m just a thinker I just allow myself to do that and you know and if that means I have to chase after those things outside of that normal forty hour workweek or whatever then I do that, you know what I mean I mean to allow myself to just have the freedom to really think outside the box and to chase after some of those dreams or those creative thoughts that I’ve been having.

Richter: And it’s that mindset, creativity is that mindset of continuous improvement that we hear talked about a lot, I mean we can’t just say it, we’ve got to actually live it out a lot, we’ve got to create that freedom to actually chase after some of those improvement ideas that we have.

Sebastian: How do you create an environment for your students that gives them the chance to think on their own?

Richter: Right um that’s a good question and come talk to me in about five years I’ll probably have a better answer oh I’m still developing I’m still allowing myself to think outside the box because when I first came into the educational system .I was just kind of like this is how we do things I’m trying to function inside that and I think that’s healthy and I don’t have all the answers I don’t want to just explode the whole thing and change it all up but I’m slowly, you know, one of things I try to do is to create open-ended problems. A lot of times and I’m not trying to criticize anybody but I think it is just normal that we tend to create close-ended systems okay so I do this math is 2+2 is four it’s not five, it’s not four point one, its four right so this is the closed ended problem and so I try to create problems that are really open-ended meaning that you might solve it one way you might solve another you might come to a different answer than this other person has over here right and believe me students freak out they’re like what’s the answer I don’t have an answer you come up with the answer . If you tell me what you think is the best, give me your logic behind that. It’s creating an ambiguous environment that doesn’t have a set solution or a set path to get to that solution and the more I put students in an environment of that okay which is really creating the problem okay it’s an ambiguous problem allowing them the freedom to solve it the way they want to, I think that’s what I’m trying to do right now and that’s the little things I’ve been trying to do to create an environment that stimulates creativity and stimulates that innovative thought.

Sebastian: Yeah I know when I am testing-wise if it’s just a close ended problem, I mean I’ve probably gotten thousands of those questions over the years like my whole high school, like my whole school career. But the test questions that are really open ended where you have to think for yourself, you actually feel like you accomplished something when you answer, instead of just spitting out whatever my calculator says.

Richter: And that’s real world. That’s one of the things that was my shocker when I left education you know finished my degree and got into the business world everything’s open ended there is no close solutions you know what I mean. It’s like here, solve this problem, how are you going to do that? No one tells me what to do, no one tells me where to go, doesn’t even tell me the next step. And you’re like you get a little of that overwhelmed feeling and so I find that it’s important to let students to go, hey we’re in a controlled environment, I’m going to help you through this but feel the overwhelming feeling, you know, get overwhelmed now because when you get out there and you get overwhelmed and your job depends on it, then you’re going to freak out and freeze and that’s when bad things can happen so let’s work through that overwhelming feeling now and that ambiguity and you stimulate your creative thought allow your innovation, your innovative thinking let’s tap into that portion of your brain to really solve the problem at hand.


Host: John was a scholarship athlete basketball player at the University of Dayton so we asked him how that influenced his beliefs on leadership.

Sebastian: So do you think the sports background really helped build onto where your beliefs are now about leadership, innovation, and creativity.

Richter: Absolutely I think in every sector of life creativity can be infused into it . In fact creativity is the doorway to break through. It really is I mean if you take sports how do I become a better shooter well let's develop a creative methodology, let’s create something that’s going to help you work on your form, hey you need to work on this. Creativity is the mechanism that really helps us to enter into the breakthrough or to perpetuate us in whatever aspect of life that we’re in so I learned that in sports and I take that and apply that into the business sector and then in family and in relationships, you know, I mean in every aspect of your life you can infuse that creative mindset.

Host: As a final thought, John gave us one more insight.

Richter: like I said Kaivac was, I just had so much fun. I mean Schneider Electric was a large corporate organization and I experienced a lot of creativity there, and innovation and ideas, and that was good but it was really interesting coming out of that large business into more of a smaller business with Kaivac , you know we’re going from you know, $100 million companies down to a $10-12 million company. We’ve got thousands of employees down to like forty. And so it’s a little different environment and it was really neat to experience both of those and especially what a privilege it was to come into a company like you were talking about that really fosters creativity. I mean it’s built on creativity. I mean the whole foundation of the whole company was that we are a creative company, you know what I mean, innovation is who we are. And the one thing I was going to say is that as soon as a company quits or stops creating and innovating, that’s the beginning of the end. I mean really you’re receding and you’re not advancing so the key to advancement is the constant nurturing and fostering of creativity and innovation. And that’s how we’re going to solve the problems. I mean manufacturing needs to be creative in terms of how we function and do manufacturing. Sales needs to be creative in terms of our strategies in how we approach people and to sell product or whatever that is, marketing needs to be coming up with new ideas and creating different ways of marketing products and things like that. We need to become more innovative in how we parent our kids right in this technology age. So creativity and innovation applies to every aspect of our lives and it’s who we are as people. To be human is to be creative. Every person, I believe that. My name’s John Richter, I’m an instructor at Miami University in the Manufacturing and Mechanical Engineering Department, I’m a consultant at the Kaivac Corporation, Thank you for Listening to Insight.

Download