A powerful experience. It was a privilege to be there. This was the real thing, not only because of the beautiful, accomplished, original, passionate music which came out of the performance, but also what because what had gone into it: years of training, hard work, discipline, immense skill, and, most of all, a joyous creativity expressed through the music, in the obvious bond between the members of the trio and in the stunned admiration of their modest audience.

To witness such creativity is surely also to stop and wonder about oneself and one’s own world, about the place of artistic creation in a life spent in offices

To anyone who believes in creativity, in the liberating mission of art, the experience was also bitter-sweet. In the first place, for all their talent, for all their hard work, for all the outstanding beauty of their music, who knows whether the trio will ever gain the recognition it deserves, whether these individuals will be able to spread their life-enhancing joy beyond obscure front rooms in Brussels? But also, more personally, to witness such creativity is surely also to stop and wonder about oneself and one’s own world, about the place of artistic creation in a life spent in offices, working for institutions, which, however important and genuinely ideal-founded, live a daily routine of office politics, meetings, hierarchies, procedures and rules. Some instinct says that such a world is antithetical to artistic expression and should only offer a bleak desert of bureaucratic conformity. Such indeed is the common perception of this EU world held by many on the outside.

By Mr Fish, found in Harper's Magazine http://www.harpers.org/subjects/MrFish

But it ain’t necessarily so. Though the pangs of longing for “pure” artistic creativity provoked in this eurocrat’s heart by the musicians are unlikely to be assuaged by daily life in the European Parliament, this is an environment including genuine creative talent, and the potential to give a dimension to working life beyond the routines and procedures.

Of course, creative people are everywhere – a colleague who has just completed his second novel, another whose jazz “saves his sanity”, a third whose paintings you unexpectedly see at exhibitions, and even – that rarest of birds – someone who leaves the job to test her considerable singing talent in the big wide world.

But that, thankfully, is human nature – what about creativity on the job? Can creativity survive professionally, thrive even, in this euro-institutional environment?

A moment perhaps to define terms: what do I mean by creativity? The word “creative” is one of those words beloved of modern management theorists. It is known to be a Good Thing, and is therefore appropriated willy-nilly to cover all sorts of ability, such as the ability to find an inventive solution to a problem, to think laterally, to introduce useful changes . These are all admirable qualities, but my interest is really in an older, more classical notion of creativity: the capacity to produce something new, unexpected and original, something vested with emotional power, some artistic product whose qualities exceed pure function.

It is these people who contribute disproportionately, though often invisibly and with comparatively little credit, to the best things to come out of DG Communication

If such creativity counts for anything in a large institution such as the Parliament, it is inevitably in the field of communication, where the key to success is so often to engage with people emotionally, to surprise and challenge them. Isn’t that what art does? And sure enough, one of the greatest pleasures of working in DG Communication over the last nearly four years has been the discovery of colleagues whose deepest motivation and greatest abilities lie not in the conventional ambit of the fonctionnaire, but in the field of “art”, broadly defined. In many ways, they resemble alpine flowers in a hostile environment, with so much of the surroundings set against them: the rows of identical, isolating offices, the institutional-grey decor, the culture of meetings and consensus, the myriad rules and limitations, the restricted range of tools at their disposal and unconducive employment practices… And yet, it is these same people who contribute disproportionately, though often invisibly and with comparatively little credit, to the best things to come out of DG Communication. But they do more; they can infect those they work with, help develop a local sub-culture of creativity, help others realise their own potential, a potential often left un-nurtured and un-encouraged by the broader collective culture.

Any conclusion from all of this, other than to let people know that this is not the bureaucratic desert evoked earlier?

Not really. Just to say thanks to all the creative people around me. You know who you are. Long may you prosper. Or at least survive.

Tree of knowledge

Here are some tips I took with me from a recent 2-day training called “Problem solving and creativity”. For many of you they might seem as old as the hills or even obsolete but some might use them as a crutch for getting out of the many culs-de-sac we face in our professional and private lives.

1. Define your problem properly before solving it

What is your problem exactly? What is your goal? What exactly should happen? Or what shouldn’t? This might seem obvious but bad definitions of a problem often lead to misunderstandings. People offer seemingly illogical solutions for a problem just because they see the problem differently. A fellow participant suddenly realized where that “strange” proposal expressed by her husband for the renovation of their house came from – he probably just had a slightly different objective in mind…

2. Dig for the causes

Don’t rush to find the solution immediately but first try to gather more information and find out what the cause was/is, go back to the roots (well, maybe not if your problem is spinach in your teeth and you just want to remove it quickly….).  Ask why it happened/ happens and when you’ve got the answer ask “why” again. Go back little by little and make sure you have enough facts and don’t assume anything. Now, of course, the mother of a murderer is not guilty for the murder… use common sense. One of the tools you can grab for help is this fishermen’s friend — Ishikawa diagrams.

 3. Map the mind

A mind map resembles a tree – take a sheet  of paper (the bigger, the better), write the problem, concept, keyword etc. in the middle and then start drawing branches, following your associations – the merrier, the better, so use colours, symbols etc. The add smaller branches to the bigger ones. Your brain will understand this better than linear notes. The good thing about this is that a tree can always grow, new branches are spreading, but you still see a tree – the whole picture.

You can draw them manually or use appropriate software. Or even an iPhone app.

By the way, when drawing mind-maps, the 5W+H method used by many journalists can be helpful. Just ask these questions: What? Why? When? Where? Who? How?

4. Buy 6 hats

 You don’t really have to wear them…

The principle is to look at a thing from different perspectives but systematically and subsequently. In the end everybody knows how the cow looks from all sides – it’s not only horns or a tail.

The white hat is responsible for gathering the facts, the red – for measuring emotions/gut reactions, the yellow – for identifying the benefits of a solution, the black (should be always used after the yellow) — for the negative points, the green one – for creativity, the blue one is worn by the moderator.

 By the way, Boeing Toronto avoided a strike thanks to the use of the method during the negotiations.

5. Use random objects/words to find new ideas

Imagine your task is to improve a flower pot or a garbage bin, for instance. And you are stuck, don’t know where to start. One of the options to get your ideas flowing is to choose a random object or word and use it as a creativity vehicle. So, you take, for example, butterfly. Now – write down 3 characteristics of a butterfly or associations you have with it. Got it? Now see how you can draw parallels and do something differently, inspired by what you just wrote down.

Good luck!

As a student of Journalism and afterwards as a student of Political Science, I could pretty much write whatever I wanted. I could choose my own subject; sometimes “play” with it a bit and often include my own opinion in it… Working for an EU institution requires much more prudence.

Basically here’s how it works. Every article published by the editors should be non-biased, well-balanced and especially not include any non-relevant opinion whatsoever. Isn’t this boring and non-challenging work? Especially for someone who has worked as a “real” journalist?

“You cannot ask someone to be creative on command” a friend once told me

It’s true that I have even written some columns back in the School of Journalism as an editor-in-chief of the local newspaper. I was also involved in setting up a sports website and wrote some columns for them as well. Creative writing is pleasant; however it can be quite complicated as well. Being creative namely is something that sometimes is not so obvious.

A friend of mine is a year older than me but still studying. Yes, some call him the eternal student. Out of the three (!) studies he didn’t finish – he’s supposed to finally finish another one soon – one includes engineering. When I asked him at the time why he quit this study, he told me “you cannot ask someone to be creative on command”. A rather philosophical phrase indeed, but it has plenty of valour I’d say.

Being creative can be difficult, especially when it has been a long time since you’ve written something creative. Basically this is what I noticed when I was asked to write this piece (yes, I’m also the guy who still hasn’t written an own description of himself under “The team”).

So did they deprive me from all my creativity in writing ever since I took up this job? No, fortunately not. We can be creative in our own way. The way we construct our articles requires choices, choices which demand your creativity. So we should definitely not complain, especially since this team consists of plenty of creative minds. It sometimes makes you wonder: how do they do it?