Incubating the Creative Process

The article I found is a review and discussion of a book called Imagine: How Creativity Works. The author, Jonah Lehrer says that fostering creativity in the workplace is about fostering an atmosphere where employees are in a good mood and are relaxed. I thought this was interesting because it seems like some of the research we discussed in class seemed to suggest that having a time constraint (like when you have a hard deadline for a paper) can also foster creativity. These two findings seemed contradictory and thus made me wonder if the two articles were maybe talking about different types of creativity, or whether there simply is conflicting and non-conclusive research on what role deadlines and time-stress play in the creative process.

Lehrer also focuses on the idea that creativity usually happens “when you least expect it.” So, for example, rather than sitting at your desk and trying to think of the solution to a problem, you should walk away from the problem, change scenery, start thinking about something else. By doing so, you will be more likely to realize a solution to the problem you were originally thinking about. In an application of this idea, Lehrer says that one way that companies can foster creativity is by sending employees a message that they trust them and their work, and that they believe in their intelligence and creativity. He talks about 3M, who allows employees one hour a day to work on anything at all that they are interested in. The only condition is that the employees have to present the work to their bosses when the project is done. The idea is that by instilling confidence in employees, and allowing employees autonomy, a relaxed environment, and a bit of time away from their regular work, they will draw out their creative strengths.

Lehrer says, and I agree with this, that creativity is not all about the “aha!” moment, or brilliant flashes of genius, or brilliant connections that no one else sees. Often, Lehrer says, that is just the beginning of the creative process, and the people who have most success in creative fields-he uses the example of Picasso-are the ones who stick with the idea through the numerous iterations it must go through after the “aha!” moment until it becomes something useful, practical or marketable.

Finally, and I think one of the more interesting insights in this article, is that studies have shown a correlation between depression as well as bipolar disorder and creativity. Especially in writers, there is an unusually high rate of depression. This insight caused me to think about my personal experiences with creativity, since indeed, I think I have been at my most creative at the points in my life when I felt the saddest. Whenever I am extremely unhappy, or feel some sort of void in my life, I find myself compelled to write. I journal, write stories, and also tend to read a lot more creative fiction in these times. Obviously sadness-induced creativity is a difficult process to cultivate at work. However, I think realizing that the times when I feel things the most powerfully are the times when I become most creative is an interesting insight. This would certainly suggest that people without a passion for their job, or who are uninterested or unemotional on some level about their work , are going to be the least creative people in the office. Thus, maybe HR should start thinking about people who can prove a passion for the work that they do, and an emotional attachment to the work as a requirement for hiring employees.

Another thing I have noticed throughout my life is that I become especially creative when I get really caught up in interesting reading that usually centers on exciting work that other people are doing. Usually this happens when I am reading the news and find several good articles on the New York Times, or one really great long article in the New Yorker. Especially if the content is about a creative solution to a problem, or a new school of thought that is being applied, my creative juices really begin to flow. I’ll think of how this new school of thought could be expanded or applied to another field that I am interested in, or I’ll connect it back to some ideas and theories that I studied in college. This seems like an obvious one, but the notion that creativity breeds creativity I think is actually really powerful. If organizations and business can find ways to keep employees inspired by and exposed to new ideas on a regular basis I think employees will become more creative. I think a huge part of this is storytelling, and not only learning exciting new ideas, but having them be presented in such a way as to make them really gripping. Storytelling is a universally important skill in business, and so if companies can teach employees how to tell good stories (and thus do things like make interesting presentations), I think this will also help foster a creative environment in the workplace.

I think the times in my life when I have felt the least creative is when I am generally happy with my life, and I am left to my own devices without any structure at all for long periods of time. For example, spring break of this year (the last two weeks), were probably the creative low point of my life. I had almost no work to do over spring break for school, and I had nothing really going on in my life that was difficult or challenging, or particularly stimulating. I had a job, I had great friends, great family, a great boyfriend, and I generally felt content. In this environment, for sometimes up to two straight days in a row, I would almost shut my brain off completely. I would re-watch television shows I had already seen, g-chat with friends, and really do nothing mentally stimulating at all. I hardly read any new books or watched any new films, and I certainly didn’t come up with any interesting ideas, or create anything new like a short story. At one point I did go out and take some photographs in town, but honestly many of the ideas for the photographs had come to me at other points in time, and I felt like I was just executing an “aha!” moment that I had already had. One thought I had about this was similar to the one that was discussed in the article: do I need some sort of difficulty, sadness or struggle in my life in order to be creative? Is it possible to be creative in an environment that is purely positive? Is happiness just not creatively inspiring? I would be interested to see if my classmates, or if people in general share my insights about the types of things that have brought about creativity in me, to see if there are truly thing that universally inspire creativity. I think it’s also possible however, that creativity can come to different people for different reasons, and so the things that have inspired creativity in me, might not do so in someone else.

http://www.npr.org/2012/03/21/148607182/fostering-creativity-and-imagination-in-the-workplace