Do we really want people to be more creative?
“I was having so much fun, I forgot what I was doing this for.” This response to a recent Creatomica workshop couldn’t be more perfect. Creativity is fun and as the famous British comedian John Cleese once said, “If you want more creative workers, give them time to play.”
So, do we want more creative workers? Absolutely! Creativity is the key ingredient of innovation and innovation is where the value lies. It then raises the question why organisations aren’t focusing more on creativity training as part of their innovation programs?
By and large organisations are pulling out all stops to provide an environment and culture that drives and celebrates innovation. Workspaces have been modified, cross-functional teams work together to solve tricky problems, and design thinking has been embraced as an approach to foster innovation and all of these are great. But in all scenarios, the people within it are still required to come to the table at their creative best and it seems that there’s an opportunity being missed by not looking more closely at individual creativity and how it can be improved.
Creativity is a process that can be learned. That is indisputable. Accountants, lawyers, business analysts, procurement specialists, engineers, software developers. People of all professions can improve their creativity and it has little to do with IQ. This is not to say that with enough training, a person will become the next Picasso. Creative genius is like all genius. But for the rest of it, with consistent practice and training, there is enormous opportunity to improve individual creativity.
Perhaps the challenge then, is the perception of creativity training and its effectiveness, format and the awkward squirm when someone mentions creativity.
Effectiveness. There are many variations of creativity training and the benefits will vary from person to person. The contributing factors to success are relatable when we compare it to physical exercise like a person’s internal motivation, how supportive the environment is, the types of exercises selected and the frequency and intensity of the exercise. Success in creativity training has been demonstrated across a diverse array of industry and role types. Even small improvements in creativity can have individual and organisational benefits.
Format When considering general creativity training versus training that is business or role specific training, there is evidence that supports domain-general creativity as being beneficial in domain-specific or workplace innovation. A combination of short bursts of general creativity training creates easy opportunities to bring creativity training into organisations without generating a large time burden or requiring myriad programs tailored to each domain.
Perception The final hurdle to overcome is the awkwardness many people feel when creativity training is proposed. Creatomica workshop participants often include in their introduction something along the lines of “My name is x, my role is y and I am not creative.” Along with building cultures that support and embrace innovation in organisations, there is a place for tweaking how we define creativity and shifting it away from being artistic and towards being able to generate something novel and useful. If we use the latter definition, self-identifying with creativity becomes much easier.
Creatomica’s workshops are an intensive 50 minutes of short creative activities that can be replicated and accomplished in less than 10 minutes per day, on a solo basis. They are general, challenging and always fun. If innovation is your goal, consider creativity as a critical skill to get there. Innovation happens when creativity succeeds.
References
Jolly, E., & Chen, H. (2019). Enhancing Diagnostic Accuracy and Efficiency Through Divergent Thinking: A Randomized Controlled Trial. Medical Education, 53(10), 1008-1017.
Baer, M., Oldham, G. R., & Cummings, A. (2019). General creativity and innovation at work: A domain-specific approach. Journal of Creative Behavior, 53(4), 455-471.
Shalley, C. E., & Zhou, J. (2016). The effects of personal and contextual characteristics on creativity: Where should we go from here? Journal of Business and Psychology, 31(1), 11-35.
Shin, S. J., & Zhou, J. (2017). When is general creativity beneficial for team innovation? The role of creative style diversity. Journal of Applied Psychology, 102(8), 1202-1211.