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Think You’re Not Creative? That Could Cost You Your Job

August 2, 2006 by Liz Leave a Comment

Balderdash and Piffle

Creativity at Work

Creativity comes from the sum of one’s life experience. It pulls from knowledge, abilities, and skills. It uses neural pathways in the brain made by everything a person has learned and makes new ones as new connections form. It calls upon an ability to get beyond the ordinary, automatic response—to explore the inside and the outside of that darned proverbial box.

Still think you’re not creative? Maybe your definition of creative is too narrow. Some folks, who call themselves “creatives,” would have you believe that all creativity lies only in artistic endeavor. That brings me back to balderdash and piffle. Those folks aren’t creative in how they define creativity.

Ordinary folk have the power for creative thinking.

Creative thinking is essential to most every career on the planet. Businesses need creative thinkers to innovate, to manage risk, to meet ever-changing customer needs, to build efficient processes and solve complex problems.

If you argue for your lack of creativity, that could cost you your job.

Answers 2 to Infinity

People who say they’re not creative fulfill that expectation. When faced with a problem, they stop with the first right answer. They work on a hidden assumption that the first right answer is the only answer. It takes a hard problem to get them to push to find more answers. The companies they work for don’t get the value of having several options to choose from. Folks who discount their creativity just don’t look further automatically.

Problem-solving, challenging risks, and testing processes are not the same as finding the keys that you lost. When you find the keys, you stop looking. In problem solving situations, the first answer is an invitation to find even more. Folks who see themselves as creative note Answer 1 and look for Answers 2 to Infinity.

Pushing Past Answer 1

It’s not hard to acquire a taste for chasing down multiple answers. It’s a matter of mindset, not talent. The folks we think of as having creativity in the workplace have these qualities in common.

  • They like solving problems.
  • “Testing constantly testing,” tends to be their mindset.
  • Failure is just another risk that’s gone astray on the way to the elegant simple answer they seek.
  • These “creative types” don’t fear the bad idea, because they know it takes a lot of bad ideas to latch on to the one real diamond that you can polish to sparkle endlessly.

A strategic thinker told me yesterday that, for the longest time, she didn’t think of herself as creative. Then she realized that designing processes and solving problems is mostly creativity and flexible thinking. She says that’s exactly what she gets paid for.

Creative thinkers add value. Managers know that the more creative thinkers on a team: the more the burden for thinking is spread; the better chance for a solid solution; and the less burden on the team leader to do all of the thinking for the team. Writers, managers, entrepreneurs, students, human beings need to think beyond Answer 1 to navigate the world, to get from point A to point B, to have any time for fun.

Businesses who can’t push past the first answer won’t be able to compete much longer. Most folks get to the same first answer. It’s hard to be uniquely valuable and worth seeking out when your solutions are the same as the rest.

Luckily looking past the first answer is something everyone can do. Want proof? Have you ever kept looking for your keys after you’ve already found them?

–ME “Liz” Strauss

Related articles
10 Reasons Creative Folks Make Us Crazy
We’re All Creative 1: The Bunnies Prove It

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Comments

  1. Ruth Bird says

    August 2, 2006 at 10:56 AM

    Hi, This is a very needed article. Many of us seem to be frightened off by the word “creative”.

    It scares people. Creativity comes in so many different ways.

    Great article,
    Ruth

    Reply
  2. ME Strauss says

    August 2, 2006 at 11:04 AM

    Hi Ruth,
    Thanks for taking the time to say so.

    I think sometimes the word creative is used to scare people. Those of us who are a little different in our thinking are called it. We start to need to find a value in it. (We sort of secretly don’t want everyone to be creative. That would make us ordinary, when we just got used to being different.)

    Those who don’t want to be different don’t want to be called creative, because they remember how the different kids were treated.

    It’s all so . . . so. . .

    Reply
  3. Rick says

    August 2, 2006 at 12:52 PM

    This has turned into a great series, Liz. Now if we can just get schools and popular culture to not train our kids into conformity and herd-think their natural creativity won’t be so hard to re-awaken.

    Reply
  4. Shadows Edge says

    August 2, 2006 at 1:02 PM

    Hey Liz,

    I guess I was always one of those “different” kids. I always thought that the other kids were kind of boring and didn’t want to be like them!

    I find creative people far more interesting and entertaining than people who don’t consider themselves creative. On the other hand, I love helping people realize that they are creative, whether or not they are artistic!

    In some ways, even the active of defining creativity limits it in most people’s minds. I don’t know too many people who consider problem-solving in general to be a practice in creativity.

    Reply
  5. ME Strauss says

    August 2, 2006 at 1:09 PM

    Yeah, Rick,
    The problem is that lots of individuals are so much harder to manage than a group. There are advantages to the system as it’s set up or it wouldn’t be the way it is. 🙂

    Reply
  6. ME Strauss says

    August 2, 2006 at 1:10 PM

    Shadow,
    You deal from place of abundance. That’s wonderful. You’re full of wonder and ready to share it.

    My favorite song by Avril is “Anything but Ordinary.”

    Reply
  7. Shadows Edge says

    August 2, 2006 at 1:17 PM

    Share it? I want to give it away! 😉

    Every day I see so many people who are just marking time and slogging through a life that holds no wonder or excitement. They don’t believe they can do anything to make their lives better or more interesting.

    I want everyone to know that they have it within themselves to change their outlook – and it doesn’t take a gigantic shift to do it.

    Reply
  8. ME Strauss says

    August 2, 2006 at 2:05 PM

    Yeah!
    My world view doesn’t have to be your world view. Sometimes I find a quiet comfort in not having new ideas. 🙂

    Reply
  9. Scot Herrick says

    August 2, 2006 at 10:38 PM

    Hi Liz and everyone.

    This post came right at the right time for me and it adds on to the series I’m writing on Creativity and Innovation. The specific post is here:

    http://www.scotherrick.com/bizblog/2006/8/2/creativity-and-innovation-five-things-you-can-do.html

    Growing up, I liked solving puzzles. Today, I still solve problems – but creativity in problem solving is being associative and not dis-associative.

    I never got the saying “it’s like Apples and Oranges.” People meant the saying to say it is “different.” I thought Apples and Oranges are “Fruit” – associative – and never got the analogy.

    “It’s like Apples and Hubcaps.” Now there’s an analogy an associative person can sink their teeth into!

    Scot

    Reply
  10. ME Strauss says

    August 2, 2006 at 10:42 PM

    What a point, Scot. I’d never thought of that before. I used to say it’s like apples and cows. 🙂 I didn’t know why I said it though.

    Reply
  11. Bill Baren says

    August 23, 2006 at 9:43 PM

    * Creativity is something innate in all of us.
    * Creativity and spirituality are synonymous.
    * Creativity is what allows us to create.
    * Creativity is different for all of us.
    * Creativity is what allows us to be who we truly are.
    * Creativity is a not something we have, it’s a state of being.

    Liz,

    I love the dialogue you’ve started here.

    Bill Baren,
    Creativity Catalyst

    Reply
  12. ME Strauss says

    August 23, 2006 at 9:49 PM

    Bill,
    Thank you, I love this dialogue as well. Creativity is who I am, what I do. I cannot separate it from me.

    I love helping people relax to find the way into their own creative source in their subconscious. The very act of solving a problem is a creative act. I could add to your list all night.

    I’ll just point you to a post on my writing blog you might like. It’s one of so many , . .

    http://lettingmebe.blogspot.com/2006/08/favorite-colors.html

    Reply

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