Creative Types

Creativity is always a bit vague to me.  What does creativity really mean? What kind of person is truly creative?  Throughout the years, my answer to this question has changed often. When I was younger, I assumed a person with artistic abilities like painting and sculpting just had crazy vision and an ability to create something beautiful, and that made him or her creative.  A couple years later, when I was really into playing tennis and competing quite frequently, I would have said an athlete is creative.  Athletes are creative because they are always trying to think of new ways to perform better and win.  Before college, my views started to change as my exposure to media and different subjects began. When I thought of creative types, I immediately thought of advertising.  I imagined a bunch of people just sitting around talking about the next big campaign to sell more Doritos and what the slogan would be. As I had more experience, both in school and then eventually my full-time job, I realized I had no clue what it meant.  I decided to start my career in corporate finance, which I would say most people I talked to did not classify as creative.  At first, I would get pretty upset after hearing that.  I just never wanted to think of myself as not creative, and although I was stepping into a function that was not advertising, I thought I would be able to find a way to be creative.  After a couple years into it, I was convinced that I was becoming especially uncreative.  I had never felt like this before.  I do not want to speak badly of my company, because they treated me incredibly well, it was more just about what exactly I had chosen to do and how they fit into my feelings about creativity. I was not getting the feeling that I could really make a change or impact in the organization.  My tasks were process-oriented, relationship-based, and extremely numbers and system driven.  The issue I saw was it was not getting me to think in ways that were new and different.  Instead, I just felt as though I was following rules and not looking for solutions. At that point, I had no idea if I was not being creative because of the context I was in or whether I was just not a creative person.  Not a good feeling, and mainly the reason I came to business school.

Often in a business context, creativity is used synonymously with innovation, and organizations have programs dedicated to promoting innovation within its employees.  I have not been exposed to these programs personally, but have always wanted to be. In the finance organization in my previous company, we did not have formal programs for innovation, but would get together once or twice a year to discuss projects we would want to work on and why. This ended up being a session for people to talk about process improvements or ideas they wanted to bring to the table.  However, finance ideas were typically more to do with systems or metrics to look at it, and often the ideas just did not happen because a big fire drill would take over.  I had definitely wished there were programs that allowed people to brainstorm with each other, or for a portion of our time to be allocated to innovation projects, as I feel that would have created an environment that was motivating and powerful.  I speak mainly of the finance organization within my previous company, and while I was not feeling innovative in that career, I do believe it is possible.  Innovation is defined in the context you are in, and while I individually was not feeling creative in the finance context, many other people did and wanted an outlet to share and push forward their ideas.

As of today, my definition of creativity is the ability to continue to create something new and/or think differently.  I think I could be creative by myself, and have been creative in some way; however, I have to find a passion that drives me to feel creative.  I have to drive an idea that is new and exciting, and that impacts people.  Once I do that, and I know it will happen, it will change things. However, I think this question is alluding to the fact that in a business context, innovation and creativity is often times hard to execute based on company culture and politics, and thus, you need to practice a bit of advocacy (thanks John Daly), in order to get your ideas heard. In that sense, maybe I would not be able to execute an idea on my own, and would need a certain level of support to move forward.  In a group within an organization, innovation can often be stalled because there are just too many people fighting for their ideas. There has to be structure to innovation in an organization, as it can become a painful battle in some companies.   We keep learning here in business school how certain companies have structured innovation programs in different ways to allow their employees to generate and execute ideas. For example, there are companies who allow 15% of employee time to innovative ideas they want to work on, or really force an open environment so that employees will collaborate.  From an organizational point, I think the culture of that company and how it views innovation is incredibly key to whether a group can really excel and be creative in their thinking. I tend to imagine that if creativity is not just in the air, and even part of performance evaluations, employees might not be as motivated to be creative, or just unable to find that spark.

I find the Wall Street Journal article to be quite spot on. I have fallen in the trap of classifying people as creative type, when in reality, as the article describes, creativity is not a hereditary type of characteristic you either have or do not have. It is different. We all have the ability to be creative, and creativity can be sparked through different mechanisms.  I do agree with the author that different creative processes are necessary.   In my previous company, as I mentioned, creativity and innovation was centered on processes, metrics, and eliminating cost from our organization.  However, a team that focuses on new product ideas would not use the same thought process as me.  The article continues to describe how we have to push ourselves to be involved in different functions, fields, and hobbies so we can create that network that allows us to “connect the dots later.” I love this notion. I think too often people become pigeon-holed in their routine, and it can really inhibit the learning process.  We are always going to be learning when or how to apply a creative process we think we know, and with that uncertainty failure is inevitable.  Failure is not a bad thing; it is part of the creative process.  We should not have to trust ourselves, because we are going to be in situations where we just have to risk it.  

I look forward to my new definition of creativity, and hope that my next career experience pushes me to feel like a “creative type”.