Creativity Is…

In my last column, I discussed some aspects of creativity using an adaptation of Kim Casali’s comic strip, “Love is…”, which featured a couple explaining love using simple messages. As promised, here are eight more things that “Creativity is…”.

Creativity is… courageous enough to fail

“An essential aspect of creativity is not being afraid to fail,” said the American inventor and founder of Polaroid, Edwin H. Land. Other inventors like James Dyson (“The key to success is failure… Success is made of 99 percent failure”), Charles F. Kettering (“It is not a disgrace to fail. Failing is one of the greatest arts in the world”) and Thomas A. Edison (“I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work”) have said how important temporary setbacks and failures are to the creative process. As Joseph Chilton Pearce said, “To live a creative life, we must lose our fear of being wrong.”

Questions: When was the last time you failed? What did you learn from your failure? What will you do differently the next time? How does your company see failure? Do you dare to be wrong?

Creativity is… both creative and destructive

“The difficulty lies not so much in developing new ideas as in escaping from old ones,” said the British economist John Maynard Keynes. The link between creativity and creation is obvious. What’s less obvious is that creativity often starts with destroying something — a rule, a way of thought, or a sacred cow (something once cherished and highly successful that is now outdated) — to make space for the new creation. So listen to the American composer John Cage, who said, “I can’t understand why people are frightened of new ideas. I’m frightened of the old ones.” When you create, be ready to also destroy. Even Pablo Picasso said, “Every act of creation is first an act of destruction.”

Questions: What is an “old idea” that frightens you? What should be destroyed to make space for your new, better creation?

Creativity is… perfectly imperfect

“Perfectionism is the enemy of creation,” said the writer John Updike. And he is not alone. “Artists who seek perfection in everything are those who cannot attain it in anything,” said the French artist Eugene Delacroix. Likewise, the Spanish artist Salvador Dalí said, “Have no fear of perfection — you’ll never reach it.” Truly excellent creative concepts often verge on perfection, yet are really in a state of “perfect imperfection,” which is what Vince Lombardi was talking about when he said, “Perfection is not attainable, but if we chase perfection we can catch excellence.”

Questions: How much of a perfectionist are you? How does the quest for perfection limit you as a creator?

Creativity is… passionate

“Creativity is the quality that you bring to the activity that you are doing. It is an attitude, an inner approach — how you look at things… Whatsoever you do, if you do it joyfully, if you do it lovingly, if your act of doing is not purely economical, then it is creative,” said the spiritual teacher Osho. It’s passion for their work and joy in resolving creative challenges — not money — that drives creative people. “People will be most creative when they feel motivated primarily by the interest, satisfaction, and challenge of the work itself — and not by external pressures,” said the American psychologist Teresa Amabile about her research into the motivation behind creativity.

Questions: How passionate are you about your work? Is it money that drives you? Or do you do what you do because you love it?

Creativity is… alive to opportunity

“Creativity is… seeing something that doesn’t exist already. You need to find out how you can bring it into being and that way be a playmate with God,” said Michele Shea. Noticing problems is central to creativity, as is the ability to turn that problem into an opportunity. “Anyone can look for fashion in a boutique or history in a museum. The creative explorer looks for history in a hardware store and fashion in an airport,” said Robert Wieder. Seeing a problem is only a starting point; what you do with it is what makes you creative. As the American poet James Russell Lowell said, “Creativity is not the finding of a thing, but the making something out of it after it is found.”

Questions: How likely are you to notice problems? When was the last time that you turned a problem into an opportunity, and used that opportunity to create new value?

Creativity is… playful with constraints

“Creativity arises out of the tension between spontaneity and limitations, the latter (like the riverbanks) forcing the spontaneity into the various forms which are essential to the work of art or poem,” said Rollo May. Paradoxically, creativity often flourishes when constrained. For example, asking “What if you had to double your revenues within a year? Or within a month?” imposes a time constraint. It can also be useful to remove constraints. The question “What if senior management tripled the project budget?” removes a monetary constraint. In both cases, playing with constraints is likely to spark the imagination.

Questions: What constraints could you remove to free your imagination? What constraints could you impose to force you out of your comfort zone?

Creativity is… free

The Russian artist Wassily Kandinsky said, “There is no must in art because art is free.” Institutions or societies that limit access to information, and monitor its use; that discourage questions — they also limit and discourage creativity. How can people living under those conditions be free to think and create? “Creativity is the greatest expression of liberty,” said the American author Bryant H. McGill. Creativity flourishes in free environments and societies. The US economist Brian S. Wesbury said, “When freedom prevails, the ingenuity and inventiveness of people creates incredible wealth. This is the source of the natural improvement of the human condition.”

Questions: How free is the environment in your company?

Creativity is… you

“There is a genius in all of us,” said Albert Einstein. You might think he’s wrong in your case, but there is a creative genius in every person. Every young child is very creative, including the child you once were, so you don’t have to become creative; you only have to remember how to be creative.

Questions: How creative are you now? How creative were you as a child? How can you reconnect to that creativity? How can you live a more creative life?

“Creativity is inventing, experimenting, growing, taking risks, breaking rules, making mistakes, and having fun,” said the American author Mary Lou Cook. Besides the sixteen aspects of creativity I’ve listed, what others have you noticed? Please add them to mine, and define what “Creativity is…” for you.

Creativity is… (Part 2)