‘Staying fresh is difficult.’

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These were the words that Manikandan Narasimhan started our conversation with. Manikandan is a global technology and transformation executive with more than two decades of leadership experience in the financial services and technology sectors. He is currently associated with Franklin Templeton India, where he leads large-scale global technology and digital transformation initiatives. We met in Chennai, India to speak about how to handle change.

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One of his responsibilities is to help the employees of Franklin Templeton at the Corporate Centre in India become more innovative. With his decades long experience in developing innovation, I asked him for a concrete thing they had done to help keep an organisation flexible and nimble.

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He told me about a project called ‘Fresh Eyes’ where the innovation team would get employee details who had recently joined and worked for between 6 to 12 months in their new role.

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Long enough to understand how things work, but short enough to still have ideas about things that really could improve.

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By surveys and interviews they query these employees about processes, procedures and habits that they think should be changed, improved or exchanged for something better.

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But Manikandan also told me that it works both ways.

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By interviewing them about what they thought was not working, they could also identify things that the new employees had not yet understood about the way their new organisation works.

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‘Fresh Eyes’ was both about getting new perspectives on the workplace – but also about getting the new hires to look at their new job with fresh eyes.

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Every organisation and every person will at some point get stuck and plateau in their ability to grow and develop. Manikandan calls this “mental cocooning”

Now cocooning can be a good thing – if it means you focus on self-development in order to transform to something better.

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But it can also be a bad thing, if you close yourself up from the rest of the world.

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When you – your organisation or yourself – feel stuck, ask yourself: “Am I getting ready to transform, or am I just stuck?”

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The answer will define what you need to do next.

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If you are stuck you might need a fresh pair of eyes to help you see things from a new perspective.

The post The Creativity Suite. Episode 167: Fresh Eyes and the need to transform. first appeared on The Creativity Explorer.

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Today I spoke at a ‘soil company’ (Hasselfors Garden) – they literally make soil. And I spoke for their partners on the factory floor.
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Why was it a perfect fit?
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I started the session by telling the audience of the etymology of the word ‘creativity’.
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The core of the word is ker meaning ‘to grow’!

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And what is soil, if not the material that makes things grow?
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I ended my speech with the question: ‘What grows inside of you?’ as in, ‘What ideas are planted inside of you that you can bring to life?’

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That is also my question to you today.
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Ps. After a 6.5 week speaking tour across 8 countries, it was also refreshing to speak at a soil factory just a couple of hours drive away from home. After all, it’s important to not lose connection to one’s roots as one branches out into the world.

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The post Creativity and Soil. (Episode 286) first appeared on The Creativity Explorer.

From now on, I am going to call it ‘In person Travel’.

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As I explore The World of Creativity (8 countries in just the last month, 75 in total) it has become too clear to me that my journey is – at its core – about meeting people.

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About meeting creative people all over the world to learn from them.

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Today I did an interview in Coimbatore – India, and was surprised by them gifting me a birthday cake (they had somehow found out that today is my birthday!) 🙂
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Meetings like these, where I learn from creatives all over the world is what it means to be The Creativity Explorer. The human connections that these meetings create feed my curiosity and makes me feel alive.

Best birthday present I could ever ask for.

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Why do YOU travel?
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On another note, here’s a little bit about a game I like to play – I call it the ‘CHECK-IN CHICKEN’.

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I got a high score as I checked in at Oberoi Hotels & Resorts in Delhi last week.

Let me explain:

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I love traveling, but I hate how long it takes to check-in at some hotels, so I turned it into a game.
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When I arrive at the check-in desk, I start a timer and then I count how many ‘clicks’ on the mouse the person who checks me in needs to check me in.
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I am horrified by the amount of clicks some hotels need for the simple process of checking in a guest.
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(After all, they already know my name, when I am coming, which room I will get etc and yet some booking systems ask the poor person to do endless clicks.)
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Some of the worst performers this year are:

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Hyatt Seoul 94 clicks! (4:25 minutes)
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Or Hyatt Chennai, a few days ago who needed 54 clicks – and 6:06 minutes – just to find out that my room was not ready for check-in yet.

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And then we have the ‘winners’:

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Radisson Red in Oslo: less than ten clicks and 0:50 minutes.

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And

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Thon Hotel in Brussels: 11 clicks.

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But last week, I had the best experience since I began playing this game, at Oberoi Hotels & Resorts Delhi: 28 seconds!

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After less than half a minute we were on the way to my room (where the rest of the check-in happened with things like scanning the passport (required in India).
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The total check-in process was less than two minutes but because I was in my room so quickly, it felt so much shorter.

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My first reflection is: How can hotels, like Hyatt, have check-in processes that require close to 100 (!) clicks on a mouse?!

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My second reflection: What other boring part of my life could I turn into a game? 😉
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What is your record at ‘Check-in Chicken’? What is your worst experience?

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Would love to know your thoughts, please post a comment on LinkedIn where it got over 100,000+ views! Clearly, this one struck a nerve. Thank you for reading, sharing, and adding to the conversation: https://lnkd.in/p/gQ8G_EjW 

The post Travel Tales. (Episode 285) first appeared on The Creativity Explorer.

Five years ago, Kiruba Shankar posted that he would like for someone for his birthday to gift saplings to his farm that he had just started to develop.

I said I would love to gift a whole bunch of saplings.
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It ended with me gifting him enough saplings to do a little forest, and Kiruba gracefully decided to name that “The Haren Forest”.

Yesterday I visited his wonderful farm (Viksana Farmstay) for the first time and saw a full-grown forest with bamboo, mango trees, banana plants and so many other diverse plants.
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I have spent two days here and it’s been a wonderful experience, picking mangoes from the tree, lying under a canopy of bamboo, being in nature, feeding the animals.
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What Kiruba has created here is nothing short of a paradise and I’m so happy to have seen what he has built and to see The Haren Forest with my own eyes.
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A simple idea of gifting a few saplings turned into a full-grown forest, full of fruits, birds and other animals.
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What seedling of an idea is nesting within you, that with a little help from your friends can blossom into a beautiful reality?
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Thank you, Kiruba for an unforgettable few days.

The post When ideas bear fruit. (Episode 284) first appeared on The Creativity Explorer.

In the last few months, I have been invited to speak around the world, including: Belgium, South Korea, Sweden, Singapore, Norway, the UK, the Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, India and Australia.

And the next couple of months will take me to: Finland, Switzerland, Croatia, Serbia, the UK, India, Vietnam, Romania, Singapore, Argentina, Norway, and Sweden.

2026 is looking like a great year for exploring the world of creativity.

Shifting medium from books to video

After 30 years of primarily identifying as “an author” when it comes to content creation, I have decided that my latest book “The World of Creativity” was also my last book.

I have now started to dive into the world of video and will soon start sharing more creativity content though the medium of video instead.

Keep a look out as I will soon start sharing them with you.

It is my hope that video will better communicate the essence of what it means to be The Creativity Explorer.

Interviewing creatives around the world.

The last few months have been some of the most inspiring times for me, as I have met with so many creative people around the world. Just in Nepal I interviewed everything from a heart surgeon, a painter, a photographer, a female mountain climber, a film maker, an entrepreneur, a tourist guide, a hotelier, and many more.

I also got to interview the founders of Kazi Studios, a board game developer in Kathmandu.

From them I learned about the technique of “playing the problem” – i.e, to look at any problem as a game that you need to solve.

I have already started to think of my problems as “games” – it’s a much more fun way of approaching life’s problems 🙂

What problem do you need to play?

Never stop exploring and always aim to take your creativity to the next level.

And live a creative life.

Fredrik Haren – The Creativity Explorer 

Ps. If you hear of anyone looking for a speaker on creativity, innovation and/or change, please do let them know about me. Word of mouth is how I tend to get almost all my speaking business so thank you in advance. 🙂

The post Never stop exploring! (Episode 283) first appeared on The Creativity Explorer.

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That was one of the messages I delivered to the Global Innovation Network on a virtual talk recently.
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That is one of the many powerful effects of curiosity. It kills the ego and when the ego is dead, then true creativity and influence can thrive.

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So feed your curiosity and your creativity will blossom.

The post Stay Curious. Stay Creative. (Episode 282) first appeared on The Creativity Explorer.

What does, at its core, a professional association do?

Why do they exist?

I am talking about marketing associations, professional speakers’ associations, HR associations, and similar organizations.

It’s easy to say: “to provide networking opportunities for peers”, “to facilitate knowledge exchanges”, “to provide inspiration”, or “to share industry trends that help its members grow.”

All of this is, of course, correct. But if you could only use one description, which one would you use?

The ability to put a word on what you really do is crucial.

When you find the perfect description, you get clarity.

With the exact right description, you get the right perspective on yourself.

And when you have clarity of thought, creativity and action can thrive.

If the description is just slightly off, you risk derailing your direction and your focus.

Just being a bit off can make you very lost.

The problem is that putting the right description on what you do is harder than most people understand.

I recently got the chance to discuss this topic with Even Bolstad, the Managing Director of HR Norge, Norway’s leading professional association for human resources and people management professionals.

In an intense conversation, I pushed him to describe what HR Norge does in just a couple of words.

He replied: “We are takeaway scouts.”

And with those few words, he nailed the reason for being a professional association.

The members of HR Norge come to the association’s events because they want to learn new things, pick up best practices, and get inspired to develop themselves and/or their organizations.

And to give value to its membership, HR Norge needs to deliver that at just the right level.

People come to their conferences to get valuable takeaways – something of value that they can take home and use in their lives, profession, or organization.

Yes, HR Norge also provides networks, courses, and webinars. They also provide insights through reports and surveys and have a clear voice in the public debate. But conferences have been their flagship products. And through all of the different offerings, the aim is to scout out takeaways.

Even, who has been at the helm of HR Norge since its start 24 years ago, has grown the association to the third largest HR association in Europe – impressive, since Norway is quite a small country. And the events at HR Norge are widely considered to be some of the best, if not the best, HR conferences in Europe.

Clearly, Even and his team are onto something.

If you run a professional association, are you looking at yourself as takeaway scouts?

What would change if you did?

And if you are in another profession, how would you describe in a couple of words what you do in a way that gives total clarity?

The post The Creativity Suite. Episode 166: Creativity is clarity of thought first appeared on The Creativity Explorer.

A few days ago I was in Norway and learnt about the Norwegian word “Nyvinning”.

It is the Norwegian word that covers the intersection between innovation, novelty, breakthrough, advance, and new development.

The Norwegian word has a profound meaning that these English words lack.

“Nyvinning” is made up of the word “ny” meaning “new”, and the word “vinning” meaning “winning”.

So, in Norwegian, when you innovate something you are “winning something new”!

A poetic interpretation of the word “Nyvinning” could be: “When the future wins over the past.”

NewWinning – which really should be the English word for “innovation” – is a better word for what innovation is, since it highlights that by doing something new we benefit and we win by doing that.

Nyvinning shows that an idea has beaten the old ways of doing something.

I learnt about this positive word in a discussion with Erling Moen Synnes, Chief Information Officer at DNO, one of Norway’s oldest and most internationally active oil and gas companies.

Erling is passionate about human growth, both for himself and for the people who work with him. At DNO he has worked in extreme situations – like oil fields in Northern Iraq or the rough seas of the North Atlantic. Regardless where he has worked, his mission has been to make other people reach their potential.

He said to me: “If you (as a leader) are responsible for other people, then it is your responsibility to move them to a new place. A better place. If someone who works for me says ‘I now dare to do things I did not dare to do before’, then I am happy”.

Erling is worried that we are losing our potential as people are too focused on just following procedures and processes. Not that procedures and processes are not important – they are, perhaps especially in the oil and gas industry – but we need people to think beyond that.

We need people to look for new ways to do things. Better ways of doing things.

We need the future to beat the present.

We need NewWinnings.

The post NewWinnings – The Norwegian word for innovation. (Episode 281) first appeared on The Creativity Explorer.

One of the things I love about exploring human creativity across the globe is how slight differences in how different languages describe the creative process can gift you with new insights into how creativity works.

A few days ago I was in Norway and learnt about the Norwegian word “Nyvinning”.

It is the Norwegian word that covers the intersection between innovation, novelty, breakthrough, advance, and new development.

The Norwegian word has a profound meaning that these English words lack.

“Nyvinning” is made up of the word “ny” meaning “new”, and the word “vinning” meaning “winning”.

So, in Norwegian, when you innovate something you are “winning something new”!

A poetic interpretation of the word “Nyvinning” could be: “When the future wins over the past.”

NewWinning – which really should be the English word for “innovation” – is a better word for what innovation is, since it highlights that by doing something new we benefit and we win by doing that.

Nyvinning shows that an idea has beaten the old ways of doing something.

I learnt about this positive word in a discussion with Erling Moen Synnes, Chief Information Officer at DNO, one of Norway’s oldest and most internationally active oil and gas companies.

Erling is passionate about human growth, both for himself and for the people who work with him. At DNO he has worked in extreme situations – like oil fields in Northern Iraq or the rough seas of the North Atlantic. Regardless where he has worked, his mission has been to make other people reach their potential.

He said to me: “If you (as a leader) are responsible for other people, then it is your responsibility to move them to a new place. A better place. If someone who works for me says ‘I now dare to do things I did not dare to do before’, then I am happy”.

Erling is worried that we are losing our potential as people are too focused on just following procedures and processes. Not that procedures and processes are not important – they are, perhaps especially in the oil and gas industry – but we need people to think beyond that.

We need people to look for new ways to do things. Better ways of doing things.

We need the future to beat the present.

We need NewWinnings.

The post The Creativity Suite. Episode 165: NewWinnings first appeared on The Creativity Explorer.

Interview with Alvanson So, Regional People Lead – South East Asia at Canva.

Sometimes we can learn so much about a word by looking at its etymology.

The post The Creativity Suite. Episode 164: Harnessing Creative Energy. first appeared on The Creativity Explorer.