Making Space for Creativity in 2026
In the midst of your busy calendar, what are you creating?
Not what you manage.
Not what you power through.
What are you creating?
At Creativity Partners, our work lives at the intersection of leadership, culture, and change. We spend our days helping organizations build trust, surface new possibilities, and move through uncertainty with more humanity.
Yet, alongside all of that work, each of us has made a deliberate choice to stay close to creativity, not as an afterthought, but as a practice. It’s a way of staying grounded in what we believe to be true: creativity is foundational to how people reconnect with themselves and rediscover what it feels like to be fully engaged in their work.
So, as we step into 2026, we wanted to share a glimpse into the creative practices that continue to shape us behind the scenes — the projects that keep us curious, inspired, and connected as we look to the year ahead.
Our hope is simple: that these stories prompt reflection on where creativity already lives in your life, and what might open up if you intentionally protect more space for it this year.
Creative Projects That Shape Us
Bringing Art Into Coaching
Jamie Woolf | Co-Founder & CEO, Creativity Partners
Jamie has been returning to one of her earliest creative languages: drawing. What began as a small experiment inside coaching conversations quickly revealed something powerful…drawing sparks deeper insights than talking alone.
When leaders sketched how a problem felt, used color to express emotion, or mapped an experience in shapes and symbols, something essential shifted. Defensiveness softened. Clarity emerged. Clients who had been stuck suddenly experienced the “aha” they’d been reaching for.
Coaches in our Arts-Based Coaching workshops echoed the same experience: when people draw, they access perspectives that remain hidden in words.
There is something profoundly human about making an idea visible. Art gives form to the intangible and permission to explore without rushing toward a solution.
As Jamie reflected, “There are so many ways art opens up how we see things.”
Built From Scratch
Dr. Christopher Bell | President, Creativity Partners
Dr. Bell has been bringing a long-held vision to life through Built From Scratch, an animated series exclusive on YouTube Kids that follows five boys as they travel around the world, learning about STE(A)M principles and friendship. It’s exciting because it’s a real attempt to try something new: prosocial awareness and skill building for boys ages 8-11 centered around activity (which is how boys build friendships).
What makes the series especially powerful is who it centers. Growing up, Dr. Bell rarely saw characters who looked like him at the heart of stories about curiosity, invention, or discovery. Now, through animation that centers Black and Brown boys as makers, explorers, and collaborators, he’s helping create the representation he once wished existed.
And the response has been astonishing. Children are connecting immediately with the characters. Parents are reaching out, eager to share the show with their kids. As Dr. Bell reflected, “Characters never looked like these in the things I watched as a kid, and the way we’re telling these stories through music, culture, and making — is something unique. People can’t wait to show this series to their children. Nothing could matter more.”
Improvisational Comedy
Mariah | Creative Practices Research Partner, Creativity Partners
For Mariah, creativity lives on stage. She has spent 15 years studying and performing long-form improvisational comedy, where a single audience suggestion becomes an entire show. No scripts. No safety net. Just deep listening, presence, and play.
Improv is a collaborative art form that requires deep listening, full presence, and a sense of play. It asks participants to accept what’s offered and build on it — the essence of “yes, and.” The result is something no one could have created alone.
Improvisation also teaches us how to let go of control, stay present in uncertainty, and co-create in real time. It also teaches humility. Whatever is created exists only once, for that audience, on that night.
There is beauty in that impermanence. And wisdom, too.
Follow Occasional Goblins on Instagram to keep up with their shows in the LA-area.
Storytelling Through Media and Community
Vanessa | Social Media and Marketing Partner, Creativity Partners
Vanessa’s creative work centers around one central question: How do we help people tell the stories that matter most to them? Much of her time has been spent supporting students and nonprofits as they shape videos, campaigns, and small but meaningful narratives that bring mission and identity to the surface.
Her projects often begin at the moment a story starts to take form—when someone recognizes they have something worth expressing, when a message finds its clarity, or when a community sees itself reflected on screen.
Through it all, she is continually reminded of a simple truth: storytelling is one of the most powerful tools we have for connection. And when creativity amplifies voices that might otherwise go unheard, it becomes a way of strengthening community.
Analog Leadership Institute
Matt | Leadership Development Partner, Creativity Partners
Matt has been developing the Analog Leadership Institute, a leadership development program that embraces the tradition of sailing to offer an experience-based program focused on self-reflection, intercultural communication, and personal growth.
Learn more here: https://www.bespoke-bay.com/
Why We’re Sharing This
Because these creative pursuits aren’t separate from leadership work, they inform it. Creativity sharpens curiosity, deepens listening, invites experimentation, and builds comfort with uncertainty.
Every organization we work with is filled with people who have ideas waiting to be sketched, tested, sung, written, prototyped, or made real. When leaders make room for creativity in themselves and in others, imagination expands. And when imagination expands, so does bold strategy, true inclusion, psychological safety, well being, connection, and innovation.
So as this new year begins, we offer a simple invitation:
What do you want to create in 2026?
What do you want to make time for?
And what might be possible if you protected a little more space for creativity this year?
TED’s Best 2025 Podcast List:
As we step into 2026, we’re thrilled to share that our TED Talk, “Why Good People Become Bad Bosses,” was named one of TED’s Best Podcasts of 2025 — alongside incredible thinkers and creators across the TED community.
Thank you to everyone who has watched, shared, and engaged with this work! Your curiosity and reflection are what give these conversations life.
Looking Ahead
As the year unfolds, our hope for you is simple. May you find time to make something that lights you up. May you bring that creativity into your leadership, your teams, and your communities. And may the year ahead invite you to imagine and build healthier workplaces where people don’t just perform, but truly belong.
If your organization is ready to do creative coaching, strategic planning and culture change work, let’s have a conversation!
[Schedule a consultation with us]
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Thank you for being part of this community. We’re grateful to be learning alongside you.
Happy New Year!
The Creativity Partners Team