Anatomy of Creative Leadership by Russ Schoen

In this month’s, Psychology Today, on page 30, there is a page of suggestions from readers on the type of advisors that should be on a Presidential Council of Psychological Advisors. One of the contributors, Art Markman submitted a suggestion that I think is worth repeating. Here’s Art’s suggestion, "The President needs an adviser in cognitive science who can advise him on harnessing innovation. At the heart of innovation are two ideas that draw on cognitive science: How can we spur the creation of new ideas? How can we create systems within organizations to ensure those ideas are implemented?"

I would add one additional thought. This advisor should also be able to help re-FRAME the challenges, or help redefine the actual questions we should be solving that we, as a country, face. For example, we hear all the time, we need to fix education! How to fix education? Maybe we need an advisor who helps challenge this question and reframe it to How might we get students excited about learning? or What might be all the ways we can get high school students to want to come to school? or some other novel and intriguing question?

New questions, yield new types of ideas, which then need to be implemented…  

Wouldn’t it be great if the White House had a director of innovative thinking? Ahh, now that’s a job, I’d be happy to serve!

your thoughts?