The decisive moment.

I like to think that ability to 'see' and be aware of the situation determines our creative capacity.For it is impossible to contribute creatively to a problem we haven't perceived or considered in total. Composing a photo is an apt metaphor for this process. There must be foresight. You must anticipate how the elements of the photo come together. You must be ready and appreciative in the moment. You must retain your freshness for the unexpected; yet you must bring your experience, knowledge and well rehearsed routines to the fore. You must look beyond the concrete and explore the situation in all its dynamism, potential and meaning.

The title of this blog is proudly lifted from the writings of the photojournalist and artist, Henri Cartier-Bresson. There is tension in the decisive moment- you can never really capture the present, but it's all we've got. In photography, Cartier-Bresson explored the moment in its true depth of meaning.

"There is a creative fraction of a second when you are taking a picture. Your eye must see a composition or an expression that life itself offers you, and you must know with intuition when to click the camera. That is the moment the photographer is creative...Oop! The Moment! Once you miss it, it is gone forever."

You have two eyes, two hands and one fish.

Albert Einstein famously quipped that we can never solve problems using the same kind of thinking we used to create them. This has become a persistent refrain in my creativity research. Whilst business is said to be solution orientated, creative people spend time defining the problem. You could say that they love the problem. The learn to 'see' things differently. They see more than others, and they see it before others see it. Seeing, not just with the eyes, but will all the senses is critical to understanding the problem.

With this in mind, consider the following story recounted by Karl Weick.

Jean Louis Rodolphe Agessiz (1807-73) was a Swiss-born Americal zoologist and geologist who taught at Harvard. Imagine that you went to Louis Agassiz's laboratory as a student. Agassiz would place a small metal pan in front of you with a small fish and utter the stern requirement that you "should study it, but on no account talk to anyone concerning it, nor read anything related to fishes". As one student asked, what should I do? he said in effect, "Find out what you can without damaging the speciman; when I think you have done the work, I will question you". Students kept on telling Agissez what they had found and Agassiz kept saying "That is not right." This went on for 100 or more hours with the same now 'loathesome' fish. Agassiz would keep asking "What is it like?," "Do you see it yet?" and saying "You have not looked carefully" and "You have two eyes, two hands and one fish". Gradually, things would begin to change. One student replied to the professors query as to whether he had seen one of the most conspicuous features of the fish, the symmetrical sides with paired organs, "No, I have not seen it yet, but I see how little I saw before." Another student reported the following experience: "I pushed my finger down its throat to feel how sharp the teeth were. I began to count the scales in the different rows, until I was convinced that it was nonsense. At last a happy thought struck me - I would draw the fish; and now with great surprise I began to discover new features in that creature." Just then the professor returned. "That is right" he said. "A pencil is one of the best eyes".

Source: Karl Weick (2007). The Generative Properties of Richness. Academy of Management Journal. v50, n1, pp 14-19.