Creative inking Abilities • 41
• Perceiving (P) versus Judging (J): Perceiving people tend to be ex-
ible and open ended, adapting as circumstances warrant. People who
are judging are decisive and xed in their decisions, having a prefer-
ence to produce.
51
e result of these four categories of temperament is sixteen
personalities:
ISTJ ESTP ISFP ESFP
ISFJ ESFJ ISTJ ESTJ
INTP ENTP INTJ ENTJ
INFJ ENFJ INFP ENFP
All sixteen personalities can, of course, play an important role in the
creative process by contributing at specic points during the creative
process. SPs prefer action in an impulsive, independent manner. SJs
prefer duty, follow-through on obligations, and hard work. NTs seek
to understand, explain, and predict through competency. NFs are
exploratory in the pursuit of goals, especially personal ones, as a means
of self-actualization and providing integrity in their behavior and expres-
sions, becoming somewhat of a true believer until their enthusiasm wanes.
Based upon the description above, NFs can be used to motivate the
project team to exercise its creativity. SJs can ensure the creative work gets
done on their own and other’s dedication. NTs can help ensure that logic
and a systematic approach are adhered to. SPs can provide the spontane-
ous insight to develop dierent ideas and options, and the others will help
turn a creative thought into reality.
52
The Enneagram
e Enneagram is yet another psychological approach project managers
can use during the creative process. Unlike the previous models, being
reected in a quadrant, the Enneagram identies nine personality types
that are grouped into what are called triads: Feeling Triad, Doing Triad,
and Relation Triad. e Feeling Triad pertains to emotions, the Doing Triad
to the ability to act, and the Relation Triad to how one deals with the real
world.
53
ese triads determine a person’s positive or negative orientation.
54
Richard Rohr calls the triads by dierent names that are associated with
parts of the human anatomy; gut, head, and heart. egut deals with the
42 • Creative, Ecient, and Eective Project Management
sexual aspects of the human being, symbolized by the digestive system. e
head deals with the objectivity and introspection, symbolized by the brain.
e heart heals with relationships with others, symbolized by the heart
and circulatory system.
55
Using the triad model, each one consists of three
of nine personalities. ese personalities have a unique number, that is, 1
through 9, but author Don Riso gave them names that are referred to in this
book and help further visualize the nine personalities more meaningfully.
e Feeling Triad consists of the Helper, someone who cares for and
encourages others positively, but can be negative by being manipulative.
e Status Seeker is condent and ambitious, but from a negative
narcissistic perspective. e Artist is the third personality, and is posi-
tively creative but negatively can be depressive.
e Doing Triad consists of the inker, who is positively perceptive, ana-
lytical but eccentric, even simplistic. e Loyalist emphasizes duty but is
dependent and passive-aggressive. e Generalist is the third personality in
this triad, and is, in a positive sense, successful but seen as excessive at times.
e Relating Triad consists of the Leader, who is positively condent
but is negatively aggressive. e Peacemaker is reassuring and easygoing
but is complacent. e Reformer is the third personality in this triad, and
emphasizes rationality but is very much a perfectionist.
56
All three triads and the nine personalities are reected in a circle with
nine points placed around its circumference, all interconnected by arrays
to show their relationship to one another.
According to Riso, keep the following points in mind about the nine
personality types, which to a large degree relate to the other personality
tools discussed in this chapter. Each personality is universal, being inde-
pendent of race, religion, and so on. No personality is better than another.
Finally, it is very dicult for a personality to change his or her personal-
ity.
57
Each personality has a continuum that spans from positive orienta-
tion (referred to as integration) to negative (referred to as disintegration).
Hence, each personality can be reected on a continuum, ranging from
healthy (positive, integration) to unhealthy ( negative, disintegration).
58
Multiple Intelligences
Although not a personality prole, the work of Howard Gardner coined
the term multiple intelligence. He identied several intelligences, each one
being useful when applied during the creative process.
Creative inking Abilities • 43
Gardner refers to those intelligences as intellectual proclivities that
involve creative insights for a particular domain, such as disciplines or
cras. He notes that many independent “human intellectual competen-
cies” exist, which he refers as “frames of mind.”
59
He observes that, in
large part,damage to certain parts of the brain aect people’s exhibition
of these dierence intelligences. He also notes, as evidence, the use of sym-
bolic systems to create, for which no theories of explanation exist.
60
He
also adds that genetic factors play a role.
61
Just as importantly, which has
relevance to project managers, Gardner notes that the right environment
can also allow people with one or more proclivities toward specic intel-
ligences to grow.
62
By allowing these proclivities to grow, individual team
members can focus on solving problems and addressing diculties, or
reveal other problems.
63
e following is a description of each of the intelligences identied by
Howard Gardner:
• Musical Intelligence relates to perceiving and creating rhythms,
melodies, and so on. is intelligence is exhibited through play-
ing an instrument, composing, and other activities. It also involves
considerable analyzing, listening, and critiquing.
• Body-Kinesthetic Intelligence relates to exercise, such as running
or walking. is intelligence is exhibited by preparing, cleaning, and
so on. It also involves assembling and craing.
• Interpersonal Intelligence relates to communicating and empa-
thizing. Oen, this is exhibited through supervising, negotiating,
rewarding, and motivating. It also involves confronting and
collaborating.
• Linguistic Intelligence relates to telling, informing, and instruct-
ing. is intelligence is exhibited through teaching, writing, editing,
and other language-related activities. It also involves listening and
interpreting.
• Logical-Mathematical Intelligence relates to numbers and rea-
soning. Oen, this intelligence is exhibited through activities
like budgeting and estimating. It also involves systematizing and
classifying.
• Spatial Intelligence relates to visualizing and illustrating. is intel-
ligence is exhibited through activities like drawing, building maps,
and photography.
44 • Creative, Ecient, and Eective Project Management
• Intrapersonal Intelligence relates to self-awareness and making
decisions. is intelligence is exhibited through activities like setting
goals and objectives and planning to achieve them.
64
MODELS OF CREATIVE INDIVIDUALS
Creative Roles
Roger von Oech, author of several best sellers on creativity, essentially
describes the role of four creative types of people, which in many ways
reects the creative process. ese roles enable developing, and just as
importantly, implementing new ideas. e four roles are the Explorer,
the Artist, the Judge, and the Warrior. Loosely parallel to these four roles
and the creative process are the discovery of information, conversion of
information into an idea, evaluation of the idea, and implementation of
it, respectively.
Explorers are people who go on a journey of discovery. is journey can
uncover all sorts of data, information, concepts, techniques, and so on,
which are useful either to address a problem or issue or to dene one. is
requires paying attention to what is, and perhaps what is not, which are
available by taking macroscopic and microscopic perspectives. e key,
however, is to have an open mind that enables uncovering what is needed
through an inquisitive mind.
65
Artists are the people who take the infor-
mation gathered by the Explorers and develop a new idea to address the
issue or problem. Artists are like sculptors, taking the clay and molding
it into something meaningful. ey take a dierent perspective combined
with imagination and connect everything to come up with a new insight.
e Artist adds, deletes, connects, and compares the information to come
up with a new idea.
66
Judges are the people who determine the fate of the ideas from the
Artists. ey are the critics who ask the questions that any realist would
feel compelled to ask. ese questions oen center on the feasibility of
the idea, such as: How much will it cost? Will people see value in it? Is
there anything overlooked, such as the downsides? What are the rules?
Are the assumptions valid? What’s the likelihood of success? ese,
and many other questions, cause one to question the very premises of
an idea before the Warrior takes over.
67
Warriors are the people who
make it happen. ey are the people who take the idea and put it in
Creative inking Abilities • 45
the real world. ey strategize, plan, and “land on the beach,” so to
speak, with the idea. Character traits like being courageous, persistent,
and focused are essential for an idea to become a reality. Many times
an idea does well until it reaches the Warriors when most people nd
reality just hard to face and quit. With the spirit of the Warrior, an
idea has a chance to survive and even thrive if they succeed.
68
Again,
although von Oech describes the four categories as mindsets, they can
be sequencedin a logical order in a way that reects the creative pro-
cess that works quite well: discover information (Explorer), convert
information intoideas (Artist), evaluate the idea (Judge), and implement
it (Warrior).
Five Mental Skills of Creativity
Annette Moser-Wellman provides another approach that follows the
dierent types of creative people, but can also serve as a process for creativ-
ity. She identies ve mental skills that are quite useful for being creative
in business in general and projects in particular. ey are Seer, Observer,
Alchemist, Fool, and Sage. ese mental skills fall short of implementing
a creative idea, but still prove valuable in understanding what the process
of creativity entails.
Seers are the people who imagine. at is, they visualize the idea or
generate multiple ones. is visualization involves not some vague idea
initially, but the ability to do so in detail, to give it the breadth and depth
necessary to eventually turn the idea into reality. rough imagining, they
have the ability to manipulate the details to derive a variety of alternative
ideas. Some of these ideas may be construed by some people as unconven-
tional. Seers, however, can oen imagine without fear of criticism from
others or being restricted by certain assumptions deemed as truths. e
focus is on what could be and not be. In addition, Seers take the details
from the image and manipulate the relations among the details to come
up with alternatives.
69
Observers take a somewhat dierent approach when generating ideas.
Observers compile data and information and generate ideas from the
bottom up, so to speak. e smallest piece of data may rise, from the
Observer’s perspective, to a major idea. To the “normal” person, a datum
might seem of little value; to an Observer it may be something akin to
gold because it generates a valuable idea. e emphasis on detail is fueled
by an Observer’s acute curiosity about how the universe operates, to
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