150: Dr. Amy Climer: Transforming Work and Life Through Deliberate Creativity

Overview

We kicked off 2025 with an invitation to rethink, explore new approaches, and be innovative.

I am continuing this theme in today’s episode because if we want our experience of work and life to be different, we have to be willing to find new solutions and do things differently. We have to be able to innovate and evolve.

It’s a process no different than when we’re asked to problem-solve within our organizations, or for clients, or in the development of new products.

I am joined by Dr. Amy Climer to discuss how we can apply that kind of creative thinking and problem solving to designing our work and life. We talk about how we might design work and life in a way that will make it more personally satisfying, successful, and sustainable with deliberate creativity. Creativity is a tool and a resource, if we cultivate it. We need to be deliberate if we want to support teams in finding innovative solutions.

More About Our Guest

Dr. Amy Climer is a thought leader in innovation, team development, and experiential learning. She teaches research-based practices, tools, and techniques to forward-thinking organizations such as the Mayo Clinic, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, and the University of Wisconsin.

Amy holds a Ph.D. in Leadership and Change from Antioch University. Her research led to the Deliberate Creative Team Scale, designed to measure the three critical dimensions of team creativity. Her TEDx talk The Power of Deliberate Creative Teams explains her research and philosophies on innovation and her book Deliberate Creative Teams: How to Lead for Innovative Results will be out in February 2025.

Listen to the full episode to hear:

  • How inspiration and innovation are best supported by a system of deliberate creativity

  • Three key elements of a successful creative team

  • The connection between innovation and sustainability

  • Working through a creative problem solving process, from ideation to implementation

  • How understanding creativity and innovation helps us weather hard times

Learn more about Dr. Amy Climer:

Resources Mentioned

Thanks for Listening!

  • Send me ideas for what you’d like to hear on the podcast, or a question that might be read and answered here on the show! Email me at podcast@SustainableAmbition.com

  • Get my curated bi-weekly Sustainable Ambition Forum newsletter. Sign up here

Previous
Previous

151: Merideth Mehlberg on Simplification, Imperfect Action, and Evolution for a Sustainable Year

Next
Next

149. Anne-Laure Le Cunff: Cultivating Curiosity and an Experimental Life