Recording of the Week

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Creativity and Problem Solving in the Workplace
– Kirk Vallis, Google

We were delighted to be joined by Kirk Vallis of Google in October 2021, just as we were emerging from the various Covid lockdowns. The topic of creativity and problem solving skills had risen up the agenda then, given the need for even more flexible thinking, as well as for what and how we use our workplaces.

Today a creative approach and the ability to solve problems successfully is even more widely recognised as a vital skill in the workplace and at work generally.

Kirk Vallis, Google

Kirk helps leaders, teams and organisations use creativity to solve problems. At Google, he does this in two ways – by partnering on projects where the team recognises they need to disrupt their thinking to develop new options, and also by training Googlers on the techniques and approaches that help us be even more creative on demand, when it’s needed most.

Kirk Built Google’s Magic Academy, a revered program to help make creativity as valued a part of Googlers’ toolkit as knowledge and technical based skills.

Where time permits, Kirk acts as an advisor, mentor and public speaker. He partners with organisations non-conflicting to Google, to help them develop creative capability at all levels in their organisations. This currently includes adidas, Intuit and EY.

He also leads a module on creative problem solving for both the English Football Association UEFA Pro coaching licence and their Technical Director program as well as being an ambassador for Moving Ahead, a social enterprise focussed on helping drive greater diversity in business all over the world.

Kirk has been a mentor to The Hope Fund for Cancer Research, helping some of the world’s most respected biologists, geneticists and Nobel prize winners, to disrupt traditional thinking. He has also led workshops at Wharton business school and Stanford, to help senior executives unlock even more creativity in themselves and their teams.