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| Image credit: 愚木混株 Cdd20 Pixabay |
Do you know which is the most
viewed TED Talk? My guess is that many of you know this. For those who are
unaware, it’s Sir Ken Robinson’s 2006 talk, “Do School Kill Creativity?” with almost 75 million views and
counting on YouTube. (source statista.com)
This metric may be an
indicator of the enormous interest people have in the topic of Creativity. But, Why are people so interested in Creativity? In my opinion, the reasons could
be:
Intrigue - We are intrigued by the concept of creativity (many of us have a narrow understanding of it)
Regret - Sadly, most of us lost our creativity and imagination while growing up (schooling, eh!)
I Wish - We all wish we were more creative! (sounds familiar?)
Awe - We all admire and hold creative people in awe! (be it Messi’s pass to Julian Alvarez in the World Cup semifinal against Croatia, or AR Rahman’s music composition for the film Roja, or Jeethu Joseph’s screenplay and direction of Mohan Lal’s Drishyam, or even Yuval Noah Harari’s way of thinking and writing that is evident in Sapiens).
If we are asked the question What is Creativity?, we might have different versions of our understanding of
it. Many may view Creativity as an artistic ability, while others may view it
as a way of thinking. Some may view it as an attribute or manifestation of
artists. So, let’s get into the definition of Creativity from two perspectives:
one from the English Dictionary and the other from the APA (American
Psychological Association) Dictionary of Psychology.
Creativity is the ability to produce
original and unusual ideas, or to make something new or imaginative. –
Cambridge Dictionary
Creativity is the ability to make or otherwise bring into
existence something new, whether a new solution to a problem, a new method, or
device, or a new artistic object or form. – Britannica
Creativity is the ability to produce or develop original
work, theories, techniques, or thoughts. A creative individual typically
displays originality, imagination, and expensiveness. Creative thinking refers
to the mental processes leading to a new invention or solution to a problem.
Products of creative thinking include new machines, social ideas, scientific
theories, artistic works and more.
– APA Dictionary of Psychology.
The common keywords that
appear in these definitions are – "Original",
"Unusual", "New", "Imagination" and
"Solutions to a problem".
Another important theme which
arises from these definitions is: Creativity
is Field Agnostic. As it is a way of thinking and coming up with original
ideas, a creative person can belong to any field – be it Art, Business, Science
or Sports.
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| Image credit: Manfred Steger Pixabay |
Changing gears from
definition, let’s turn our focus towards any child around you, or you can
reflect back to the time when you were a child yourself. Do you see Imaginative
Play? Do you see Abundant Possibilities? Do you hear “I want to become an
Astronaut", "I want to be a bus-driver"? 😊 But what happened to us, now when we are
adults? Long serious faces, too practical, realistic and conservative in the
way we think. Somewhere during the journey of growing up, our Creativity got
lost in the way.
As Sir Ken Robinson
provocatively suggests in his TED Talk, did a standardized, formal
schooling/training and expectations of a way of life from our significant
adults made us trade iff Creativity with becoming straight-jacketed herds,
robot-like individuals who are part of the crowd, a cog in the wheel without
any stand-out attributes? Food for thought for all of us (rather a buffet of
thoughts).
We changed gears above and
rammed into gloominess. What do we do now? Put our cars in neutral gear, put
the hands on the brake and stay put with not being creative for the rest of our
adult life.
Or is there a creative solution
to come out of this gloominess and step into a brighter weather? Hmm… maybe, How about (re)-learning Creativity?
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Image credit: Lionness of Africa website
Contrary to the popular
belief that 'creativity is innate and cannot be learned’, Dr Tina Seelig, Professor of Practice in the Department of
Management Science and Engineering (MS&E) at Stanford University says, “Creativity can’t be learned is a myth”. She says the truth is that
everyone has creativity, and enhancing it only takes a bit of time and
practice.
Dr Tina Seelig has made
understanding Creativity and teaching it her life’s mission. She started off
her research as a Neurophysiologist, then moving to the world of business and
to Stanford to teach Creativity, entrepreneurship and innovation.
In her book, inGenius: A Crash Course on Creativity
(Harper Collins 2012), she points out that we look at creativity in a much too
narrow way and must look at it in a new light.
She uses an “Innovation Engine” model to explain how she thinks creativity works.
Image credit: Dr Tina Seelig
The Innovation Engine has two parts:
The Inside is You (internal) - Knowledge,
Imagination and Attitude.
The Outside is the External World – Resources,
Culture and Habitat.
Let’s do a dip-stick in each
of these six concepts:
- Imagination:
Most people start thinking about Creativity with Imagination. However, one of the sad thing is we don’t really teach people how to increase imagination in school.
For example, in kindergarten, a Maths problem is framed as 5+5 = ?. The answer is 10 and it’s the only one correct answer. Can we ask the question differently to generate more than one answer and unleash imagination? What if we asked children what two numbers add up to 10. ? + ? = 10. All of a sudden now, there is now infinite possible correct answers.
Therefore, Rethinking or Reframing the Question, leads to interesting answers. As a matter of fact, the Copernican Revolution, that redefined the model of the Solar System with the Sun in the center instead of the Earth, began with reframing the questions - What if the Sun was in the center?
Indulging oneself in Humour are fun ways of learning how to frame questions differently. After all, humor works only when the semantics unexpectedly switch in the middle of the joke. So, indulge in humor everyday to increase your imagination.
The second method to develop one's imagination is by the practice of Connecting and Combining unrelated ideas. She gives an example of Chindogu (a Japanese Art), in which the inventors create un-useless inventions. "Un-useless items" are objects that are neither useful nor useless at the same time. Chindogu is a fun way to improve your imaginative skills
The third method for developing your imagination is by Challenging Assumptions, via getting breakthrough ideas. By staying in the current set of assumptions, one limits themselves and turn a blind eye to other existing possibilities/opportunities.
- Knowledge:
Knowledge is the toolbox for
your imagination.
Think about it; in today’s
world, revolutionary ideas and breakthroughs are happening by combining the
knowledge of different domains, into one integrated interface. Examples include
Biomedical Engineering, Behavioural Economics etc.
Apart from the formal way of
gaining knowledge (schools and books), one should pay attention to the real-world events that occur in their
day-to-day life.
By not paying enough
attention and by going through each phase of life as it is, one misses out on
various opportunities for solving a problem as well as the solutions that are
lying in front of them, waiting to be discovered.
Dr Seelig advocates a method
of revisiting the places which we frequent on a routine basis and consciously
pay attention to the surroundings. Take in new perceptions, new perspectives,
use the mind-mapping method (draw/make notes) of the observations you make in
your surroundings.
- Attitude:
Attitude is the motivation,
mindset and drive for solving the problems. Unless one has the right attitude
and spark alive, they will not be able to go after these problems and solve
them.
Dr Seelig opines, most people
unfortunately have the attitude of ‘Puzzle
Solver’. The problem with this mindset is, if one or two pieces of the
puzzle set is missing, they are literally stuck and this lose the motivation to
complete the puzzle.
So she recommends developing
the attitude of the ‘Quilt Maker’,
because a quilt maker will make use of any available resources to complete
their goal (quilt). The attitude of the Quilt Maker makes for a true innovator
and entrepreneur.
- Habitat:
Habitat is the environment around you, which
influences one’s creativity. It includes the people we work with, the rules,
rewards, constraints, as well as incentives, among others.
Dr Seelig makes special
emphasis on the physical space and draws our attention to the idea of the
kindergarten for children. She points out that the kindergarten’s physical
space is vibrant, bright, colorful and hence stimulating to the child’s
playful, creative nature. Fast-forward it to university classrooms and office
cubicles, and the contrast becomes quite apparent. From the vibrant, colorful
kindergarten habitat to the monochromatic, cramped-up classrooms and office
spaces is so obvious. And ironically,, we wear t-shirts with doodles of the
phrase "Think Out of the Box" while we work monotonously in the same
cubicle).
One way of looking at the
physical space is by perceiving it as a stage on which we have to enact the
various phases of our life. A physical space which is playful fosters one’s
imagination and creativity. No wonder why innovative companies like Google and
Pixar have one thing in common – a playful physical space (i.e. the office
environment).
- Resources:
Dr Seelig points out, most people restrain their thinking by equating
resources with only money. The idea here is to broaden our aperture and look at
resources which encompass not only money, but also people, skills, natural
resources and culture.
At the end of the
day, it always boils down to how we can make sense of the resources we
currently have as opposed to the resources we don’t have.
- Culture:
“Culture is the background
music of any community, of any organization, of every team and of every
family.” – Dr Tina Seelig.
A culture that supports an imaginative, multidisciplinary
approach, which allows mistakes to be made, which encourages experimentation,
which encourages challenging the established norms, eventually ignites creativity. Creativity, therefore, can thrive only when
the culture is conducive enough for an individual to question, react and
respond to the different phenomena that exists around and within
us.
If we look at the Innovation Engine model closely, we would see that it is a Mobius Strip.
This depicts, none of these 6
factors can be looked at in isolation. The Inside (You) and the External
(Outside World) is woven together.
Imagination and Habitat are parallel to each
other. The Habitat we build is the
manifestation of our imagination. After all, our Habitat is capable of creating
an impact on our imagination.
Knowledge and Resources are parallel to each
other. Knowledge unlocks the resources;
the more we know, the more resources we can unlock. In turn, the more resources
we unlock, the more knowledge we produce.
Culture and Attitude are parallel to each other. Culture is the collective attitude of the
community. Also, the culture shapes our attitude.
The Mobius Strip model also
enables us to start our creativity journey from anywhere in these 6 elements.
As an individual, one can start with developing knowledge or one can start with
building an attitude etc.
Most importantly, everyone has the key to their Innovation Engine. It is upon us to put the key in, start our Innovation Engine and rekindle our dormant Creativity!
You can watch Dr Tina Seelig’s TEDx Talk on Creativity @ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gyM6rx69iqg
Link to Sir Ken Robinson’s TED Talk on Does School Kill Creativity? on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iG9CE55wbtY
For detailed reading you can look up for Dr Tina Seelig’s book inGenius – A Crash Course on Creativity.
