Page 230 - THE DO-IT-YOURSELF LOBOTOMY Open Your Mind to Greater Creative Thinking

Barrier #5: Success 221

BARRIER #4: ATTACHMENT

Another great block to creativity is attachment. Attachment to the old,
resistance to change, and reluctance to even explore what might be a
better way of doing things. A big part of attachment is unconscious.
People don’t say, “I’m not going to come up with a new idea; I’m going
to attach myself to the old.” On the contrary. They don’t even consider
that there might be a better way of doing things.
Of course, all of this is interrelated. In my work with companies, I
often find greater attachment the deeper I go into the organization.
You might ask why leaders emerge as leaders. Is it because they’re not
attached and they have new ideas? In most cases, I believe this is so.
Those who are deep in the organization, under many layers of man-
agement, may not always be the people we’re looking to for ideas and
the vision to take a company forward, but their attachment to the old
can be a barrier. I have seen organization after organization in which
the leadership has new ideas and tries to implement them, but runs into
the roadblock of attachment when the rank and file are not receptive.
At the same time, please know that attachment is not the exclusive
domain of the rank and file; many leaders are horribly attached.

BARRIER #5: SUCCESS

Perhaps the greatest irony surrounding creativity is that one of the
major barriers to creative success is success itself—an attachment of
the highest order. Time and again, I see people and companies holding
onto ideas, processes, products, all manner of things that contributed
to success at one time or another in their history. These things have
long outlived their usefulness, but are retained simply because they
were part of the success formula at one point in time.
In areas (e.g., graphic design, advertising and architecture) where
personal style often defines an individual or company, this is particu-

Timeline of a great idea (continued)

Timeline of a lousy idea (continued)
"How could they give the
promotion to that idiot?"