The benefits of creative thinking are widely promoted and seemingly well understood.  Creativity drives progress, shapes our lives and is part of what makes us human and individuals. Organisations are advised that all they need to do is develop the right environment, culture, incentives, organisation structure, strategy and processes and then sit back and wait for creativity to flourish.  But what is creativity?  Where does it come from?

The word “creative” can be referred to a person, a process or activity, or a product, which should be both new and be of value.  As a society we tend to respect and admire highly creative individuals less for who they are and more for what they produce, e.g Sir James Dyson, and so our focus is on the output.  Creativity is not yet seen as a human virtue or characteristic, maybe because it is, by definition, hard to measure.

Creativity drives progress, shapes our lives and is part of what makes us human and individuals. Is an idea creative if it is just new to the person who thought of it or is it creative if they are the first person to have that idea? The answer is both, but the really interesting question is how did that person come up with the idea?

The product should be new.  Is it creative if it is just new to the person who thought of it or is it creative if they are the first person to have that idea?  The answer is both, but the really interesting question is how did that person come up with the idea?

Creativity is often perceived to be somewhat mystical, from divine inspiration or from an external source, such as a muse or illicit drugs.  The reason being that creativity is seen as coming from the subconscious, so by surrendering conscious control the creative unconscious is liberated.  Not surprisingly (and for many no doubt disappointingly), there is another school of thought that believe that the conscious mind is required to edit and integrate these new ideas into an actual product.

To be creative, the individual needs to have some specialist knowledge in their chosen field, but how much would be difficult to determine. Creativity does not come from nothing.  It comes from joining unrelated things or combining old ideas with new ones. The individual also needs to have an interest in general knowledge unrelated to their field, so they benefit from some perspective/distance and can assess their ideas through different lenses.  The ability to explore the margins of disciplines and cross boundaries to combine ideas and thinking helps develop creativity.

Is creativity a skill?  If so, can it be learned? To a certain extent, yes, but it needs more than creative thinking classes.  Think about the office mavericks or fanatics, who probably don’t fit particularly well in your office culture, but they are nevertheless driven by passion, optimism and commitment. They may well hold the next creative piece of genius for your organisation.

Everyone one of us creative, to a degree.  We just need to heighten our abstract thinking, break down intellectual barriers and experiment with new combinations of ideas.