Creativity and innovation are currently enjoying great popularity as the trend of the moment we are urged to be more creative because this will create economic prosperity and competitive advantage. All this talk of creativity and innovation sounds great, “Yes I want some of that” we think. Only to find we are presented with meaningless academic waffle and unhelpful theories requiring considerable additional research to turn into useful tools. It is the intension in this series of articles to present a few basic ideas that can be used to help us access higher levels of personal and organisational creativity.
Creative types as designers are as well as others in the arts like film, theatre, music are often thought by the general population as inhabiting the heart of creativity and it is to those individuals that we turn when looking for creativity. Creative individuals frequently play upon this through dress and behaviour and leave others feeling that they are not creative. This self belief in either being creative or not creative is one important key to accessing individual creativity. This assumption is incorrect because every person is creative to a greater or lesser degree irrespective of their occupation or personality. The history of mankind abounds with examples of creativity whether in science, business or the arts. As it is through the universal desire to create that we have arrived in the 21st century with the economics, cities, technology and leisure activities we all enjoy.
Humanist psychologists agree creativity is a response to basic inner needs in people under a broader hierarchy. They maintain that people create in order to grow and fulfill themselves, as well as to solve conflicts and answer the cravings of the ID. This is explained by Carl Rogers, “The mainspring of creativity appears to be …man’s tendency to actualise himself, to become his potentialities… the urge to expand, extend, develop, mature… The tendency to express and activate all the capacities of the organism, to the extent that such activation enhances the organism or the self. This tendency may become deeply buried under layer after layer of encrusted psychological defenses. It may be hidden behind elaborate facades, which deny its existence. It is my belief, however, based upon my experience, that it exists in every individual and awaits only the proper conditions to be released and expressed”.
The following conclusions can be drawn about the basis of creativity:
Man creates for reasons of inner drive, whether it is for purposes of conflict resolution, self-fulfilment or both. He can of course create for other reasons such as money, status.
Some elements of creativity occur in a part of the mind, below the conscious level.
Although creativity and neuroses may stem from the same source, creativity tends to flow best in the absence of neuroses.
The conscious mind or ego is a control valve on creativity.
Creativity can create anxieties”.
If we take a step back from the notions of creativity in popular culture we will soon see that the essential creativity of human beings runs throughout history and culture. Something about our human nature is such that creativity lies at the heart of what we are all about. A creative urge motivate most of our lives. Whether this is through a child’s first painting or an adults desire to decorate both ourselves or our homes. At a basic level we recognise that there is something creative in meeting any challenge presented to us through relationships or a new path, these activities cause us to grow and create something within us. When these desires are not me we invent new challenges like sport and games. They are all a seep need to be creative.
Important scientific developments in the last few decades show that some of the creativity we associate with ourselves extends, in an elementary way to all life. Through an order that extends from routine to chaos. The creativity of living systems arises from their ability to create the kind of order that gives rise to systems that are greater than the sum of their parts. It is the capacity of all living systems to spontaneously make ordered, relational wholes the basis of all creativity.
When a designer begins their project energy is pumped into the brain and alters its quantum state. As the brains wave state changes both ideas and beauty emerge from the myriad of options stored gained from life experience. The whole process is one of free decisions made in dialogue with the environment, combined with the creative discovery of the potential person within the designer; self-awareness, the environment and connections. Through the process of creation the person can discover something of themselves. These ideas are core to art, music and drama therapy. Human creativity comes from a living system that is highly complex and has the capacity for rational analysis and self reflection. It is the joint capacity to bring our world and ourselves into being through a shared creative response combined with creative self reflection that gives us the elaborate creativity which accounts for the human world.
These ideas give us a very good indication of some very important elements in developing ourselves as creative individuals, these being.
- The necessity to become self reflective and understand what makes us tick. developing the ability to identify why certain ideas have or have not worked and what we can do to improve these successes or failures. Through becoming self reflective we develop our consciousness and realise the extent to which we are blind to so many different things.
- Adopting the concepts of the quantum self, this involves what many consider to be the key to creativity. “Connecting things”, by finding a common theme, analogy, metaphor or combination between two separate ideas a new idea is created.
- Using the environment both as a conscious form of stimulation and also arranging the physical environment to stimulate both the senses and the subconscious.