#HR #RRHH Making love and making personal #branding #leadership

Yesterday I walked into my home office and examined the space from a fresh perspective. It hasn't had a facelift in about ten years and I've hardly noticed its dingy appearance. Don't get me wrong, I love my office but it's simply out of date and no longer reflects my personality. It's time for a change.

Approaching the challenge like any diligent, problem-solving coach, I did my research. What does science say about an office space that boosts energy, creativity, and productivity, all while projecting a safe, calm feeling for clients? Yes, it's possible, and you can do it all on your own. Here's what I've learned.

Color psychology studies (and there are many) reveal changes in the body and brain when people view certain colors. These changes influence productivity, creativity, health, stress levels, focus, communication, and emotions. That's some powerful influence!

Color psychologist Angela Wright explains the phenomenon this way: "Color travels to us on wavelengths of photons from the sun. Those are converted into electrical impulses that pass to the part of the brain known as the hypothalamus, which governs our endocrine system and hormones, and much of our activity."

First decide what's most important about how color affects you, your employees, and your visitors. In an interview with Chris Bailey, Wright offered this simple breakdown of the effects of color on the mind: "The four psychological primaries are: red, blue, yellow, and green. And they affect the body (red), the mind (blue), the emotions, the ego, and self-confidence (yellow), and the essential balance between the mind, the body, and the emotions (green)." But it's not that simple. Bailey nicely breaks down the process of choosing just the right color in this article.

Scientific research has already uncovered some surprising facts about how creativity works. And this time of year especially, there's ample advice out there for those looking to adopt new and better habits and keep their New Year's resolutions going strong. The trouble is that much of that advice rests on carefully established routines—daily practices that some people just aren't wired (or simply aren't inclined) to stick with.

When it comes to creativity, though, a little less structure and predictability may actually work in your favor. Here's a look at five habits to improve your creative chops, backed by scientific research, that don't require committing to a specific daily practice.

Creativity is undoubtedly an asset in the workplace, not only just for individuals but also for organizations. It's positively correlated with job performance, leadership potential, career satisfaction, and well-being. In fact, creative people, on average, have even been found to get a leg up in the dating pool.

Still, no human quality is universally beneficial, and even a trait as appealing as creativity can have its downsides, particularly in certain work contexts. Here are a few reasons why being lesscreative at work might sometimes be a smart move.

Taking the afternoon off isn’t usually an option, but some companies have found some fun and effective hacks for tackling the afternoon slump.

 1. DANCE PARTIES

Employees at the mortgage lender United Shore look forward to 10-minute dance parties held every Thursday afternoon at 3 p.m. The idea began as a small gathering of five or six people and became so popular that the company installed a dance floor on the second floor to accommodate a crowd of more than 100.

"We have a lot of team members at United Shore who work from their desks and are focused on hitting their daily goals," says CEO Mat Ishbia. "The dance parties give them a little break to get up, reenergize themselves and get back to their day. That energy helps us stay focused."

Tributes to the work of Prince continue to appear, more than a week after the legendary songwriter and performer passed away at age 57.

A recent story showcased Prince's strengths in the realms of creativity and talent development--and revealed how his passion for music was the key to his prolific career. Here are five highlights: 

1. Prince had a work ethic born of passion. Even after he was a famous and rich superstar, Prince's work ethic never waned. "He'd come to rehearsal, work us, go work his band, then he'd go to his studio all night and record," is what James "Jimmy Jam" Harris, Prince's high school classmate and producer, tells EW. "Then the next night he'd come to rehearsal with a tape in his hand and he'd say, 'This is what I did last night.' And it'd be something like '1999,' and you're just like, 'Who does this?'"

2. Prince was a molder of young talent--a superboss. His proteges included Scottish singer Sheena Easton, dancer Carmen Electra, and his former drummer, Sheila E. "He loved working with women and helping them and encouraging them and saying, 'Hey, I think this would be a good song for you,'" Sheila E. tells EW. Like Miles Davis and other "superboss" artists, Prince prided himself on being the foundation of a talent tree, and watching his branches find their own paths. 

For decades, the dominant view among psychologists was that constraints served as a barrier to creativity. Anybody who spends a short time working under a confining bureaucracy, dealing with a micromanaging boss, or sitting in a classroom that teaches to the test can grasp the appeal of this argument. But it isn’t the whole story.

Patricia Stokes is a Columbia University psychologist and an expert in the science of creativity. In one experiment she conducted back in 1993, rodents were forced to press a bar with only their right paws. Eventually, they not only learned to adapt to that constraint, but they figured out how to press the bar in more ways than a group that had free use of their limbs. This has come to be called "little ‘c’ creativity"—a form of creativity not focused on producing creative works but rather on solving practical problems through new uses and applications of resources. And it’s this form of creativity that tends to get short shrift.

Consider this: Dave Myers, an employee working for Gore-Tex fabric innovator W.L. Gore, was tinkering with some new ideas one workday—taking advantage of the company’s 10 percent daily allotment of creative time—when he wondered if one of their products, normally used to coat push-pull cables, could also be used to make guitar strings more comfortable.

While the coated guitar strings were only slightly easier on the fingertips, they did manage to keep their clear tone longer than guitar strings already on the market. Realizing this, Gore quickly launched its own brand of guitar strings. ELIXIR Strings are now the No. 1 selling acoustic guitar string currently on the market. It was because of the innovative mind of Mr. Myers, and that approved creativity time in his workday, that Gore was able to expand into an entirely new product market.

What could your company do with a little extra creative genius? By establishing a creativity-friendly work culture, the possibilities could be immeasurable. Here are four ways to encourage the best creativity from your employees.

Even if you don't think you're the "creative type," don't assume you can ignore this skillset, or that you can't become creative too.

60% of CEOs polled by IBM agreed that creativity was the most important skill to possess in a leadership role, because can help us solve problems and respond to challenges.

The seeds of creativity live in everyone, but our daily habits can either nurture or constrain them. Here are 7 daily habits that will ignite your imagination and encourage your mind to think outside the box:

Even creative people need a schedule
It's a gigantic misconception that creative people need to live wild and unstructured lives.

That might work for a one-in-a-million rock star, but most creative minds schedule their days quite thoroughly. Stephen King, for instance, has attributed his 350 million+ in book sales to his intense writing routine.

Psychologist William James described the impact of a rigorous schedule on creativity by saying that this can "free our minds to advance to really interesting fields of action."

I'm not saying that you should hole up in your office the entire day, but you do need to pencil in the time for creativity daily. For starters, consider setting your own innovation schedule by spending 20 minutes daily on creative thinking.

Maybe you've heard, being constantly busy is bad for your brain. "Many important mental processes seem to require what we call downtime and other forms of rest during the day," claims a Scientific American article rounding up the research on the subject. Doing nothing now and then is required to replenish motivation and attention, and to form stable memories, science shows.

It's also required for maximum creativity, according to new research.

The study comes out of Bar-Ilan University in Israel, where researchers Shira Baror and Moshe Bar asked a group of volunteers to complete a creativity-gauging word association task. For instance, if the researchers said "white," the participants were asked to name whatever related word first popped into their heads.

Now here's the twist. The participants had to do this while carrying various mental "loads." Some were simultaneously asked to remember a string of seven digits, while others had to commit only two to memory. How did their performance differ?