Posts by Valerie Patrick
Strategic Thinking and Creativity
I remember being invited to participate in a company’s senior leadership development program over 20 years ago. The program involved extensive assessment like a detailed survey that had to be filled out ahead of time by a prescribed mixture of direct reports, internal customers, external customers, direct boss, and senior executives. The program also involved…
Read MoreHow Workplace Environment Impacts Creativity
Workplace environment impacts creativity from my experience and from creativity research. Dr. Teresa Amabile set out to create a social psychology of creativity as a PhD candidate at Stanford University in 1972 and continuing in her role as professor at Harvard Business School. She was the first to study the impact of workplace environment on…
Read MoreHow to Unleash Creativity at Work
Creativity can be unleashed at work through different triggers such as being assigned a project that requires new thinking, investing in learning to catalyze new and useful ideas, and pursuing projects for which you have intrinsic interest. There are other ways to unleash creativity at work that are thought to be in the purview of…
Read MoreAn Outstanding Worker is a Resilient One
An outstanding worker is a resilient one because resilience is needed to navigate change and the frequency of change in the workplace has been increasing. For example, a person sees more life-changing innovations over the course of a lifetime now because we are living longer and the rate of technological change has been accelerating. Back…
Read MoreEscape the Allure of Negativity with the Pursuit of Fulfillment
Many in our modern society need to escape the allure of negativity with the pursuit of fulfillment because social media causes us to lean into our negativity bias while fulfillment seeks the positive. Negativity bias is the tendency to pay more attention to negative information than positive information. Our brains have evolved to pay more…
Read MoreHow Emotional Intelligence is More Powerful than Position
“Emotional intelligence is a powerful discernment tool to do your best work and live your best life.” Valerie Patrick, PhD
Read MoreHow to Elevate Self-Development on a Budget
I thought about how to elevate self-development on a budget because I am currently in the market for a mother-of-the-groom dress for my only son. I want to elevate my style for the wedding but I cannot afford designer prices. Sadly, I no longer fit in the gowns I own so recycle is not an…
Read MoreThe Science of How to Find Fulfillment
Fulfillment is a wiser goal than happiness because happiness is short-lived and dependent on circumstances beyond your control while fulfillment can be assessed and improved over time.
Read MoreHow to Optimize Learning
I am interested in how to optimize learning because now that I have passed my sixth decade of life, I realize how much there is to learn given the rapid pace of intellectual advancement. The more I learn, the more I can help others through my work. My ability to help others as a leadership…
Read MoreIdea Selection Illustrates the Diversity of Thinking Needed for Innovation
I was surprised to discover that idea selection illustrates the diversity of thinking needed for innovation. I was taught that idea generation takes divergent thinking while idea selection takes convergent thinking. We use divergent thinking when faced with an open-ended task that has many responses such as the following: how might we use our summer…
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