An Illustrated Walkthrough of Updrafting
In the simplest case, we simply do something. We bake a cake. We answer a question. We write a chapter. Sometimes we are in touch with our process to such a degree that no outside structure is required. The full-blown creative act arises spontaneously and implicitly. Many of our basic creations come into being in this way.
We call the processes represented in the diagram ovals the modes of the creative activity. A mode is a way of relating to the creative process with specific things to do that generate specific results. Let’s decompose this mode to learn more about the practice.
As we understand more about our own creative process, we may see many of the creative modes come into play internally even if we are not engaged with them explicitly. We may use the modes invisibly as they best fit our current activity.
The first level of decomposition of the simple act of creating something is to:
- Choose what you are going to create
- Take the actions that are necessary
We call this Taking Aim and Taking Action. Taking Aim includes all the ways in which we determine what we are creating and the development of our path to the goal. We call the path the trajectory. Think of it as aiming an arrow on the optimal trajectory to hit the target. Taking Action is doing what it takes to move us closer to our goal along the trajectory.
As our tasks get more complex, or we want a greater degree of control, or we want to create with a team, we may want to further break down our modes of engagement with the creative process.
Taking Aim breaks down into two sub-modes: Discovery and Design.
- Discovery is learning about the creative environment:
- Looking outward to see what exists that could participate in or influence your creative endeavor
- Looking inward to see what ideas, intuitions, and potentials you have to inspire the ideas that are evolving.
- Design is combining your knowledge and your inspirations into a broad vision and building the mental and physical components you need to do the work at hand.
Discovery decomposes into two modes: Survey and Sense & Engage.
- To Survey we study what exists in the world that affects our creative process and feed what we learn back into the definition of what can be created.
- To Sense & Engage is to discover your creative intuitions, the future possibilities, and the potentials that can define and refine your goal, while helping to leverage it into reality.
Design has three sub-modes:
- Envision - Create an illuminated vision of the goal and its meaning
- Align - Create alignment, or congruence in beliefs, intents, and actions
- Embody - Create the capacity to physically and organizationally do the work required
Taking Action decomposes into two modes:
- Map - Make plans
- Maneuver - Execute your plans
The updrafting key here is that you define very specific planning horizons for your maneuvers and know that you will re-plan often to meet the new requirements of the evolving environment in which you are creating.
Now we can see the whole practice—moving through the modes as they are needed to create whatever your want. Remember, sometimes these things will be explicit; other times they will just happen naturally. But these shifts in awareness and engagement are always part of the process. Of course, there is a lot more detail to come in later discussions.
How Do You Actually Get Started?
So now you have a brief introduction to all the modes of the creative lifecycle, but how does an innovation cycle, or the process of a new creation actually begin?
The story goes something like this.
- You (or someone on a creative team) gets an intuition or an idea of what might be possible. Some idea intrigues you and your mind begins to fiddle with it.
- You use your intuition, and possibly the intuition of others on the team, to explore the possibilities.
- In your mind, or on a doodle, you describe what it might look like.
- You then survey the world for more information about the creation, its possibilities, and anything else that might affect the creative process.
- And then intuition plays with it again; the process will loop around in a idea form until it develops enough momentum to come into the world as a creative project.
