Creativity and Innovation

1.  What are your personal experiences with individual creativity?  Have you had times when you felt especially creative or, even, especially uncreative?

2.  What are your personal experiences with organizational creativity?  Have you worked at companies that felt or behaved in ways that made them more creative or, even, especially uncreative?

3.  Do you think you, as an individual, are even capable of being creative by yourself?  And, better yet, do you think a group within an organization is capable of being creative?  

Despite having worked in several creative industries, luxury goods public relations, event planning, and publishing, I rarely considered myself to be particularly creative. Instead, I consider myself to be much more practical and logical, which is part of the reason I thought I would do well in business school. Ironically, several of my business school applications included questions about my personal creativity, either requesting me to submit a piece of artwork I’d created specifically for the application or to write an essay talking about how I have come up with creative solutions or ideas in my previous jobs. This process forced me to think differently about my own creativity and realize that perhaps part of my success

Before coming to business school, I worked for HarperCollins Publishers, developing the first in-house speakers bureau for the industry. The fact that there was no model for our business made everything I did seem creative in a way. From developing marketing and promotions for our authors to coming up with creative ways to convince authors and customers to do business with us, my job required a lot of innovative thinking.

I think the pressure on the publishing industry forced the company as a whole to encourage creativity. The speakers bureau that I worked in, was a result of an initiative started by the then CEO. She reached out to every employee in the company to suggest ways to innovate the traditional publishing model and come up with new ways to bring in revenue. I think this open door policy and encouragement supported creativity in the organization.

Just before I left the company, they started to remodel the workspace one floor at a time to encourage creativity, collaboration, and transparency. Based on the Google model, they removed all cubicles and offices so that employees, including department heads, were working side by side without walls.  All meeting and conference rooms were designed with glass doors and walls. The idea was that transparency and the ability share ideas immediately, promote creativity. Many of my co-workers feared having to work in that kind of environment. My floor was temporarily re-located to an area without cubicles and everyone shut down, most people turned solely to email communication and rarely picked up the phone to have a direct conversation. So, I think that that sort of openness only works in certain situations and sometimes that kind of environment can be distracting.

I do think that people can be creative individually, but personally, I find the sounding board of a team to be helpful. I think that everyone works differently. As I mentioned in my previous work experience, sometimes too much collaboration can be stifling and too many voices are sometimes distracting when you are trying to form your own thoughts to contribute.

4.  What do you think about this article and the way this author describes different creative types of problems and, thus, different creative processes?  Should we trust ourselves just to know or sense when we need one type of approach versus another?

I think the article, How To Be Creative, makes some good points about creativity in different situations. For someone that doesn’t think she’s naturally very creative, it’s comforting to know that there are things I can do to foster creativity. One thing I agree with is the idea that seeking diverse experiences aids in creativity. Prior to business school, I worked in two different industries, fashion and publishing, and am now moving into technology. Part of my pitch or elevator speech, has been that my ability to adapt to these diverse industries and experiences is an advantage. Perhaps part of that advantage is the influence on my creative abilities.

I also think that I was more creative as a child than I am now, that maybe my logical thinking gets in the way of my creativity now. So, it makes complete sense to me that thinking like a child would help with creative thinking.  

One creativity hack that I might add is the pressure of a time constraint. I find that I am more creative when I am under time pressure or working under a short deadline. One hindrance for me with creativity is that I tend to over-think things, but with a time constraint, I don’t have time to waste on over-analyzing every thought and this allows more free-flow of ideas.

The one thing I do not necessarily agree with is the over-simplification of the processes. The article assumes that most people are exceptionally self-aware and can judge whether they need to take a step back or keep pushing and idea forward. I also think that in business situations, you don’t always have time to take a break so that is not always a viable solution.