Dr. Val FarmerDr.Val
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Rural Mental Health & Family Relationships

You Don't Manage Creativity, You Manage For Creativity

October 20, 2008

Fathers, remember the days when you lived on the edge, innovated because you had to, and took risks that catapulted you into the successful position you are in today. Nobody stood in your way. You enjoyed learning new things - and no doubt you still do - in response to the challenges in front of you.

By definition, you had to create something that was novel and yet appropriate. It was essential to your entrepreneurship and the creation of a farming operation that grew with the pressures of competitive agriculture. You had that elusive something that enabled you to believe in yourself, the courage to launch into the unknown and the persistence to watch your efforts unfold in the way you imagined.

Now that you are relatively secure, how much of a risk do you take with your own children that they, too, can experience their need for challenge, growth and creativity? The challenges for success in tomorrow’s agriculture will not be the same ones you’ve had to conquer.

Your challenge now is to manage what you have put together and to shift toward more personal goals and purposes for yourself while giving an opportunity for creativity to develop in the next generation. One doesn’t manage creativity; one manages for creativity.

Your ventures have enjoyed success. Your success can be sustained by the next generation if it doesn’t depend on your genius which brought the farm into its current strong position.

This doesn’t mean your experience and wisdom isn’t valuable. It is. What is does mean is that your children need to experience the detail of science, the thrill of improvement and innovation, the power from integration of systems, the satisfaction of building for the future, and the joy of creating something better. Just as you did.

They’ve seen creativity, risk-taking and resourcefulness modeled. They carry your genes. They are itching for that same thrill you experienced.

Here are six ideas on how to give your children the reins in your operation.

1. Support their desire to be independent. Your job now is to recede into the background, be less vocal, get out of the way, and become comfortable in the consultant or advisor role. Your role now is to facilitate your children’s success.

When their ideas are not your own, be glad they have a mind of their own and are willing to be inquisitive despite the apparent security of what is all ready working well.

They are more motivated by intellectual challenge and independence. They need to work on some projects of their own choosing. They need to discover their own radical innovations, find their own vision and be given the opportunity to implement new ideas.

2. Be an appreciative audience for their ideas. The way you ask questions can be motivating and

supportive or it can be critical and demoralizing. Ask questions that help them dig a little deeper. Be receptive and encourage their ideas.

The greatest innovations are probably done to impress you. Sincere words of recognition and appreciation can motivate their foray into creative ventures. Parents and their farming children share excitement when they conceive something innovative, bring it to fruition and enjoy its success.

3. Encourage diverse experiences, exposure to new ways of doing things and collaboration with other professionals. Give respect to others’ ideas and minimize your own role as the lone ranger who did it all by himself. Encourage travel, conferences, seminars and attendance to cutting edge presentations that expand horizons.

Support use of time, resources and local experimentation to try out new innovations before implementing them farm-wide.

4. Create psychological safety to maximize learning from failure. Your reactions to failure will be the greatest cue as to your children’s willingness to be creative. As a powerful and successful father, you must decrease fear of failure and encourage experimentation as a part of the process of learning and filtering ideas.

Treat new ideas, questions, concerns or mistakes with compassion, respect and as a learning experience. Don’t view them as a challenge to your way of doing things.

Don’t let your own fear of failure or your own failure experiences inhibit your perspective. More than likely, your own success was built on learning from mistakes.

Don’t expect immediate commercial applications during the learning or experimental phases of creativity. When something has proven itself, clear the path so that it can be implemented on a large scale.

5. Give appropriate recognition. Join with others in publicizing and sharing the success of your children’s innovations. Take a back seat. Others will assume you are the driving force.

Acknowledge your children’s inspiration, vision and implementation. Take pride in their accomplishments and help them see their work as noble and as advancing agriculture.

6. Be a team. The rising generation sees new possibilities and needs the support of their parents in trusting their ideas. They need the sacrifices parents make as parents to get out of their financial comfort zone and to provide opportunities for independence, innovation and expansion.

The parenting generation requires the courage and motivation to be supportive even when it is tempting to sit back and not push so hard. The next generation requires the courage to be different, different from their peers and even different from Mom and Dad. They benefit from past experiences and wisdom but are not afraid to plunge ahead into new and uncharted territories.