Creativty & Freedom
A few thoughts hit me as I read Thomas Friedman’s Op-Ed piece on Einstein and China in today’s NYT (see link below).
First, the link between freedom and creativity is undeniable. We need to create and zealously maintain room in our lives (and in our employees’ lives and our childrens’ lives) for imagination. In today’s multi-tasking, always-on, productivity-first environment, it’s a difficult task. We aren’t allowed (or don’t allow ourselves) the grace to take a different path, seek out alternative inspiration, look for insights in the non-traditional places, and explore approaches that may turn into dead ends, but maybe just maybe will create something exquisite. Creativity is limited to so-called ideation sessions that are overly-structured, underly-inspiring and far too linear. Quick, in the next :05, give me 10 innovative answers.
Creativity requires freedom.
The other thing I was struck by was Einstein’s ability to visualize mathematical concepts. It’s such a stunning example of creativity in support of what we (in the U.S.) tend to think of as a non-creative realm. Once I worked in a design firm where we were constantly told that Designers are right-brained and therefore creative and everyone else - by default - must be left-brained and non-creative. Everyone without a design background was marginalized. It would have been laughable, had the work not suffered from the same narrowmindedness.
Everyone can be creative. And creativity can take place in all disciplines.
Creativity requires freedom. And respect. Live it.
One last unrelated note: A shout-out to Brachstar, who begins her innovation adventure today. She’s on the road to greatness. Shine, goddess!
May 4th, 2007 at 7:37 pm
I would say creativity also requires structure. Einstein for example worked on his theories of relativity over a long period of time in a structured and disciplined fashion. Freedom by itself is not enough for creativity, some constraints in the form of, if you like, design choices or setting parameters around the work are necessary to focus the effort. Thomas Edison is an example of an innovator with an extremely structured, systematic approach.
So I would say while there is link between freedom and creativity, creativity also requires a structured context. The greatest breakthrough ‘aha’ experiences occur after focusing on a difficult but well defined problem over a long period of time.
As an aside, I don’t know too much about TRIZ, but wasn’t TRIZ an example of a creativity methodology that came out of Communist Russia? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TRIZ
May 4th, 2007 at 7:43 pm
BTW, if you are interested in visualisation in physics, you might find Richard Feynman’s autobiography ‘Surely You’re Joking Mr. Feynman’ interesting. e.g. see ‘A different box of tools’ on http://www.zag.si/~jank/public/misc/joking_feynman.txt
Regards
Lauchlan Mackinnon
May 6th, 2007 at 3:01 pm
I think TRIZ is the ultimate example of structured creativity. TRIZ is approaches creativity from a quantitative, almost scientific perspective. “If situation looks like “A”, apply “A” solution.” It would be interesting to study whether certain creative approaches are culturally derived, based on the type of freedoms (or lack thereof) that exist in the home country.
Thank you for your comments!