Relearning creativity for business impact

Creativity is a word that often conjures up visions of artists furiously at work in a messy studio, a brush stroke bringing life to a blank canvas, or children happily moulding brightly coloured clay. It almost feels as if creativity belongs to these situations and these people. But, as teachers and practitioners of innovation, we believe that everyone is inherently creative. And, as Sir Ken Robinson said in his top-viewed TED talk, “We don’t grow into creativity, we grow out of it. Or rather, we get educated out of it.”

Indeed, Professor George Land’s 1968 study of creativity affirms that “non-creative behaviour is learned”. He found that creativity plunges from around 98% in four to five-year-olds to only 12% in 15-year-olds. More worryingly, by the time we enter the workforce, only 2% of us demonstrate the creativity of most five-year-olds. What happens? Why do our education, upbringing and environment squeeze this imagination out of us, and what can we do to reignite the creativity that lives in all of us?

The problem stems from requiring our brains to be both divergent and convergent at the same time. As we grow older, every time we use our imagination, our rational self immediately judges the wackiness it produces and challenges every creative impulse with the “I can’t”, “It won’t work”, “That’s stupid” reactions that too often dominate our thoughts.