Business environments and cultures can encourage or stifle creative thinking – just like our own creative minds.

Tom Kelley, general manager of award-winning industrial design firm, IDEO, writes about a common form of response to creative ideas in a “pivotal meeting where you push forward a new idea or proposal you’re passionate about.

“A fast-paced discussion leads to an upwelling of support that seems about to reach critical mass. And then, in one disastrous moment, your hopes are dashed when someone weighs in with those fateful words: ‘Let me just play Devil’s Advocate for a minute . . .’

Kelley notes the speaker “now feels entirely free to take potshots at your idea, and does so with complete impunity. Because they’re not really your harshest critic.

“They are essentially saying, ‘The Devil made me do it.’ They’re removing themselves from the equation and side­stepping individual responsibility for the verbal attack. But before they’re done, they’ve torched your fledgling concept.”

“Only one set of skills can ensure this generation’s economic future – the capacity for innovation.”

That quote comes from the website of the new book “Creating Innovators: The Making of Young People That Will Change The World” by Tony Wagner, which declares that nurturing creative thinking is crucial and that “only one set of skills can ensure this generation’s economic future: the capacity for innovation.”

The book asks, “What do the best schools and colleges do to teach the skills of innovation? What are some of the most forward-looking employers doing to create a culture of innovation?”

In his review article, Jonathan Wai, Ph.D. notes he shares author Wagner’s interest “in what constitutes a meaningful science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education.”

Wai writes that the book profiles five STEM innovators and three social innovators, and that “These stories are worth learning from and developing hypotheses from,” but warns “it is important to remember that the plural of anecdote is not data.”

He continues, “In addition, the STEM innovators he profiles are very much entrepreneurs.

Executive Director for the Stanford Technology Ventures Program, Tina Seelig, PhD also teaches courses on creativity, innovation, and entrepreneurship.

In her post Seeing Your World in TechniColor in her blog CreativityRulz, she writes about one way to enhance creativity: Paying more careful attention to our environment, which, she notes, “actually takes some effort.”

“Most people see the world in black and white, missing most of the opportunities in their midst.

“They travel down the same routes day after day. The path is so familiar that they can practically navigate it in their sleep.

“But, there are some people who see the world in Technicolor.

“There is a myth, common in American culture, that work and play are entirely separate activities. I believe they are more entwined than ever before.”

Laura Seargeant Richardson, a principal designer at global innovation firm frog design, continues: “A playful mind thrives on ambiguity, complexity, and improvisation—the very things needed to innovate and come up with creative solutions to the massive global challenges in economics, the environment, education, and more.”

From my post Creative Development: Actively Caress Wonder. Play.

Creative endeavors often start small.

One of a number of articles about him notes that “Nine-year-old Caine Monroy spent last summer creating an elaborate cardboard arcade in his dad’s used auto parts store in east Los Angeles, armed with little more than packaging tape and whatever materials he could find.

“I have never been a fan of learning in a classroom. Inside a laboratory or a garage, I always wanted to know more, but never inside a classroom.”

Caltech physicist Caolionn O’Connell, PhD.

“It is often said that education and training are the keys to the future. They are, but a key can be turned in two directions.”

Ken Robinson continues, “Turn it one way and you lock resources away, even from those they belong to. Turn it the other way and you release resources and give people back to themselves.

“To realize our true creative potential—in our organizations, in our schools and in our communities—we need to think differently about ourselves and to act differently towards each other. We must learn to be creative.” [From his book "Out of Our Minds."]

“I started out as a painter, and then painting led to cinema… Then cinema led to so many different areas…” David Lynch

In her book, Mary-Elaine Jacobsen quotes some insightful comments by Annemarie Roeper (founder of the Roeper School and The Roeper Review, a professional journal on the gifted) about the intense inner pressure to create as a characteristic of high ability people:

“Gifted adults may be overwhelmed by the pressure of their own creativity. The gifted derive enormous satisfaction from the creative process.

“Much has been written about this process: how it works, the pressure of the inner agenda, the different phases it involves, the excitement and anxiety that comes with it, and the role played by the unconscious.”

She adds, “I believe the whole process is accompanied by a feeling of aliveness, of power, of capability, of enormous relief and of transcendence of the limits of our own body and soul. The ‘unique self’ flows into the world outside. It is like giving birth.

“I love breaking the myth of the starving artist. That is such a lie that people tell artists from the day they are born, and it’s so sad that so many artists psych themselves out with this myth.”

Musician Magdalen Hsu-Li continues, “There is always a way to make a great living from music or any art form if you are willing to use your creativity to the business aspect.

“People think that creativity should only be in art and the business should be in business. But the most successful business people use their intuition and creativity to problem solve and figure out how to make things work.”

How do you think about being creative versus the business aspects of success, like marketing? Do you see them as separate, even mutually exclusive?

Do you think of creative expression as something more “spiritual” or “pure” than sales or business?

The photo – “Artist at work” by Balaji Dutt – reflects how many creative people typically work: engrossed, and happily solitary.

We may see and read about many examples of successful – even extravagantly successful – artists, but they are usually celebrities, and mostly not solitary creative workers.

There is not much media attention on the millions of creative people with careers in film production, book cover illustration, fashion design, video game creation and so many other creative occupations – many of them often working as entrepreneurs, responsible for their own achievement and success.

Many creators probably don’t think much about the value of marketing to get their ideas and creations out to a wider audience, to have more impact and success.

Links to a variety of sites with articles on creativity research by multiple authors, plus programs & books for developing creativity and innovation.

Sites / Blogs
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Creativity at Work: Developing creativity and innovation in organizations

Founder: Linda Naiman – a creativity and innovation consultant. “Our focus is on leadership and team development, creativity, collaboration, and cultivating environments that foster innovation.”

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And All That Jazz – “A creativity researcher’s take on the highs and lows of pop culture and the arts.”

By James C. Kaufman, Ph.D., a creativity researcher and Associate Professor of Psychology at California State University, San Bernardino.

“An artist must actively caress wonder: for fascination, like the desire to play, can be eradicated by the rigors of living.” Eric Maisel

“There is a myth, common in American culture, that work and play are entirely separate activities.”

That is a quote by Laura Seargeant Richardson, a principal designer at frog design, who “specializes in the emotional, social, participatory and future design of products and environments.”

She writes: “There is a myth, common in American culture, that work and play are entirely separate activities. I believe they are more entwined than ever before.

“As the Swiss psychologist Jean Piaget once said, “Play is the answer to how anything new comes about.” A playful mind thrives on ambiguity, complexity, and improvisation—the very things needed to innovate and come up with creative solutions to the massive global challenges in economics, the environment, education, and more.”

Continued: Creative Development: Actively Caress Wonder. Play.

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