Are you a creative? Do people usually express how they enjoy hanging around you because of the excitement of creativity you give off? Let’s think creativity for a moment. What does it mean to be creative but most importantly being a creative bridge? Interesting, right? How often do you think of ourselves as being creative bridges?

Like fear, creativity is transferable throughout social groups. Social contagion can occur with courageous creativity as well. As I began to develop and share my creative thinking skills and ideas, it inevitably began to inspire others to start contemplating the possibilities of their own creative potential.

Research has shown the creative behavior of a parent, teacher, or team leader highly influences the creative development of those in their charge.

This made me very cognizant about how I was modeling creativity and calculated risk-taking, in front of my child, students, and CAFFE team members. If I want their curiosity to develop, I have to show my curiosity in an open and vulnerable way.

If I want them to take a risk into the unknown in order to grow, I must be explicit in my own risk-taking. If I want them to make connections with people unlike themselves, they have to watch me do the same. If I want them to extend past the limiting boundaries that society places around us, then I have to venture out myself.

Modeling Intercultural Creativity is more powerful than we realize. It affects everyone in view of us.

Why? You can’t be what you can’t see.

Build. Build. Build. Those were the words on the cover of a Filipino newspaper given to me on a warm spring day. I kept staring out those words.

Build. Build. Build.

We are supposed to be people who build people. Whether building takes place in our homes, our classrooms, our workplaces, or our boardrooms, the end result of our work is not only monetary profits but the building of people.

In order to build well, we need to build the 7 Gems of Intercultural Creativity® within ourselves and hopefully this will encourage others to develop it as well.

We need to see and understand our own cultural lens and the ways it is embedded in organizational policies and practices. Organizations that care about diversity and inclusion may even be aware of recruiting for difference, but they tend to hire for fit and onboard for assimilation rather than for alternative, yet complimentary ideas.

As the need for creative development becomes more apparent, the organizations that build teams with Intercultural Creativity will rise to the top.

Can you think of any opportunities of how you could build with someone? Could you build in the office, at home, at school, or maybe even in line at the store? Today, let’s be on the lookout for and open to all the wonderful possibilities for building creatively.