HOW TO BUILD YOUR CREATIVE CONFIDENCE: DAVID KELLEY

David Kelley gives an example from childhood to illustrate how creativity is killed early on in life

Criticism was a big reason why one of his school friends stopped pursuing creativity in his work

People are often uncomfortable around creativity

However,it is not a domain of a chosen few

Kelley set out to counter the belief that creativity is not for everyone

Albert Bandura, a Stanford psychologist was his first stop

Bandura developed a step by step process to help people overcome their phobia of snakes

Finding of this medical journey?

OVERCOMING FEAR IN ONE DOMAIN SUBSEQUENTLY GAVE PEOPLE CONFIDENCE IN OTHER AREAS OF THEIR

LIVES, TOO

This is termed as “self-efficacy” by Bandura

This

Kelley concluded that much of the design process is involved with turning fear into familiarity

At the D.School at Stanford, Kelley says he sees people from all disciplines entering the program and learning a singularly useful lesson: to consider themselves as creative.

Finally David Kelley narrates two stories to show that everyone and anyone can be creative

• The first story is of a friend and colleague, Doug Dietz, a designer at General Electric who creates complex medical imaging equipment

• One day, Dietz saw a little girl crying, scared of the treatment she was about to receive

• And whereas he’d once been proud of the lives he’d helped save, now he was disappointed to realize the fear the machine caused

• So he turned the machine into an adventure. The results were dramatic: From 80% of kids who had previously needed to be sedated, now only 10% required anaesthetic

• Repeating a story that has by now entered GE lore, Kelley recounts Dietz waiting with a mother for her child to come out of a scan. The little girl ran up: “mommy? Can we go again tomorrow?”

The second story is more personal to Kelley

• He tells us the story of his own recent dealings with hospitals, diagnosed with cancer, he was given a less than 40% chance of survival

• He started asking himself many questions like -‘am I going to survive? What will my daughter’s life be like without me?’ But also other things: ‘what’s my calling?’ ‘What was I put on earth to do?'”

• And it dawned on him. “The thing he most wanted to do was help people regain the creative confidence they lost along the way. If he survived, that’s what he wanted to do. And he survived

Takeaways from David Kelley

Don’t divide the world into “creative” and “non-creative,”

Let people realize they are naturally creative.

“When people regain that confidence,

magic happens.

Let their ideas fly; let them achieve

what Bandura calls self-efficacy

Recap:

• People have a misconception that creativity is for a few people

• If discouraged it puts people out of their comfort zone when trying to pursue creativity

• Overcoming fears can help one become creative

• Everyone can be creative irrespective of their profession

• Regaining such confidence can help create magic

THANK

YOU

http://www.ted.com/talks/david_kelley_how_to_build_your_creative_confidence?language=en

These slides were created by Mehandi Goel,IIMLucknow,as a part of the MBA course “Personal Branding”

(www.MBASkills.IN) taught by Prof. Sameer Mathur

Prof. Sameer MathurPh.D. (Carnegie Mellon University)Marketing Professor (IIM Lucknow)

Mehandi GoelIIM LucknowBatch of 2016