In Orbiting The Giant Hairball, Gordon MacKenzie’s 1998 classic take on maintaining creativity in the workplace, the author discusses how creativity is being suppressed as early as grade 2 in schools. As an amateur metalwork sculptor, he is asked by a friend to talk to a class of grade 1 kids about art. He starts his lesson by posing the question “how many artists are in the room?”. All the grade 1 kids jump up with their hands raised. As he continues to give this same lesson to older kids, he finds to his dismay that there are fewer and fewer of them who consider themselves artists. By the time he gets to grade 6 only 1 or 2 kids are brave enough to raise their hands.

Jason Gingold at DDB in Seattle pointed me to a similar theme raised by Sir Ken Robinson at last year’s TED conference, where among all the amazing displays of new technology, he gave a simple, poignant speech about the wonder of creativity and how it is being taught out of our children. In his speech, Sir Ken suggests that kids start off life more creative because they are not afraid of being wrong - “kids will take a chance,” he says. He goes on to utter one of the most important truisms of innovation. “If you’re not prepared to be wrong, you’ll never come up with anything original”.

I have the privilege of working with some of the most innovative people in business, who create new products at the world’s biggest companies. Yet, the one thing that I consistenly see is an absolute fear of being wrong. Being wrong is not the same as being innovative, but being prepared to be wrong is the only path to breakthrough.

More thoughts on creativity and freedom…

I got a great note in response to Friday’s post: “I totally agree with your line of thought. I believe that creativity lies within everyone. I grew up in a rural area where people constantly innovate to meet their daily needs, fix things, and entertain themselves.

To me, design is a profession that has developed tools and methods to express and communicate ideas and innovations. The actual differences between disciplines are actually slight. Mostly, it’s the “tools” we use that are different. For example, industrial designers’ tools include materials and molding processes while a graphic person has imagery and fonts. A writer uses words. I found it kind of comical when I came to [my agency] that the only people considered “designers” are people with graphic design training.”

Along a similar vein, Bob Moore, chief creative officer at Publicis USA, is quoted in the 4.30.07 Ad Age as saying his agency doesn’t hire people without digital in their portfolio, the hoped-for net effect being not two classes of creative but one. The challenge is getting people to think about it as a blank slate, he said, and “the irony that creative people are the slowest to recognize this is grating on me. Terribly.”

The point - again - creativity isn’t the sole domain of anyone. We all need to be charged with being creative, innovative, and free to solve problems. These days, the “right” canvas (or the context) isn’t nearly as important as telling the right story - wherever and however it connects to people most effectively.

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!

http://select.nytimes.com/gst/tsc.html?URI=http://select.nytimes.com/2007/04/27/opinion/27friedman.html&OQ=_rQ3D1Q26thQ26emcQ3Dth&OP=70a39f43Q2Fx-pcxieQ7DzzixoQ23Q23axQ23vxoaxzkQ2FJQ2FzJxoaQ2AQ7DQ2FpQ51ZQ60JQ3E4iZR

Never underestimate the power of a little inspiration and a healthy dose of creativity. This is YaYa Chou’s “Chandelier” made gummi bears, beads, monifilament, plastic, metal and light bulbs — amazing, isn’t it? And supposedly, it’s good to eat for up to two years (although I’m not sure what that says about gummy bears and I’m very sure I won’t be feeding them to my kids anymore!!!).

Link (via Make!)