Creative Thinking from Boredom #2

I am loving the fact that there are increasing appeals to embrace boredom. I blogged on this topic a little while back, extolling the central importance of building moments of peaceful reflection and boredom in to your day.  I rarely do manage to do so however.  I tend to prefer the option of switching off or zoning out of my busy day via distraction – reading, music or more recently playing Draw Something incessantly.  It is not the best way forward I concede. It is far better to switch off and let some of the busy thinking flow out and allow myself the chance to create some more positive ideas.

The interesting point that Martin Lindstrom adds in his blog is the effect that various technologies of distraction, but specifically computers, have on kids and how dramatically it reduces their creativity.  Which is true to a degree, but what he fails to then consider is how interactive gaming or other forms of computer based learning could be used to enhance their creativity.  It tends to be the reaction of most parents to view computers games as wholly a bad thing for young kids, but I think that there are benefits to exposing kids to interactive computing/gaming at an early age. I have for example found that my Wii playing son is more Technologically astute in general than my Daughter (who has very little interest in the Wii) – the familiarity of interacting with a screen via a controller seems to have made him more instinctively comfortable with a computer keyboard and mouse too.  He also learnt to read basic instructions from a screen at a very young age.  So much of my kids school based learning is IT based, including their homework from the age of 4.5 years old!  So computer skills need to be encouraged whether we like it or not – the fact that they will need well developed IT skills later in life goes without saying.   The challenge is how to force boredom and creative play on to our kids when they have so many competing pressures and or requirements.  I guess the best we can do as parents is provide as many and varied platforms as possible and allow times that are open and unstructured too.

One answer I believe lays with the Raspberry Pi – a chance to move our kids away from software and interaction to manipulation and development which requires far more creative thinking.  I have heard the difference being described as knowing how to drive a car compared to being able to repair a car.  The level of understanding required is entirely different.  But a full exploration of Pi requires more blogging another time.

Pret's Recruitment Policy

Pret are growing and as a result on a big recruitment drive right now: http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2012/apr/03/pret-a-manger-creates-500-jobs. Their recruitment policy is quite different to others in that they adopt a highly democratic interviewing process, all potential recruits have to work in store as a test run (even the head office / senior Directors) and they have a policy of actively encouraging the recruitment of foreign nations. The last policy has been heavily criticised by some - but their arguments for my taste have simply been faintly xenophobic. My thoughts / critique of their recruitment policies stem from a reply I offered my friend Ajai Ranawat in his blog on the topic:

“For what Pret needs – a high volume of staff that are motivated and willing to accept low wages and few long term career prospects – it seems to me like a good model. Due to this it obviously does not leave everyone happy: http://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/Employee-Review-Pret-A-Manger-RVW1005888.htm while we cannot accept one persons comment to be reflective of an entire experience it is hardly surprising when you expect the average tenure to be 2 years max and they recruit accordingly. By keeping turnover high you can also keep wages low.

The democratic method is also a good one but works only if all parties are fully aware of all the long term goals and challenges that the business is facing. Not everyone is assessing the same person on the same merits and in a privatively owned company the owners stand to lose a lot more if an important hire fails. In my opinion everyone’s view should be considered but not all views are equal!

Culture fit is, indeed, the most important thing. Assuming you have been recommended to the best candidate, screened them well, collected good references and they have demonstrable success you would expect them to have the skills. Culture fit is best achieved by recruiting via people who know you and or have taken time to get to know you first – asking for recommendations from your personal network 1st works well, or using a search company who are able to target people on culture and style and not just skill (plus they will have met a lot of people face to face 1st before recommending a shortlist for you to meet and so should have weeded out the badly fitting people before you need to). A good analytical test also helps – like Hogan – as does meeting offsite and in more social settings towards the close of the deal.

My advice is to hire professionals who’s minds are attuned to this. Companies tend to shy away from spend on recruitment however. They recognise the need to hire professional accountants, lawyers or marketing consultants but when it comes to recruitment companies they always go it alone first. Then after much pain, distraction and cost of resources turn to professionals after failure (if at all)”