Creativity can be taught. But sadly, it’s more often untaught.

In 1968, 1,600 children aged from three-to-five years old took part in a research study to test their creativity. The test was conducted by scientist, George Land, using the creativity test he’d successfully devised for NASA to help select innovative engineers and scientists. The same children were then re-tested at 10 years of age, and again at 15 years of age. The results were remarkable. 

Test results amongst 5-year-olds: 98%
Test results amongst 10-year-olds: 30%
Test results amongst 15-year-olds: 12%
Same test given to 280,000 adults: 2%

“What we have concluded,” wrote Land, “is that non-creative behaviour is learned.” *

So, why aren’t adults as creative as children? In most cases, creativity has been lost to rules and regulations, societal pressure to fit-in, working environments, and most damaging of all, education. Our educational system was designed during the Industrial Revolution over 200 years ago, to train us to work in factories and mills and obediently follow instructions, not to innovate or challenge convention. This is why it is so important, especially during the periods of childhood where the brain is rapidly growing and absorbing its surroundings, to encourage creative thinking.

Fortunately, though, as creativity can be unlearned, so it can also be learned. Not from sitting in lectures, but by learning and applying creative thinking processes. The type of processes that I’ve previously detailed in The Creative Nudge**

Creativity is often mistakenly seen as a gift bestowed on a mercurial few, for the purposes of artistic expression, not a skill that can be developed. True, abilities do vary, much like sporting or musical abilities, but anyone can reignite their innate creative capabilities to power up their careers and add colour to their lives. And you don’t have to work in the creative industries to benefit from it. The influence of creativity stretches far and wide.

“It’s essential to view creativity not just as artistic talent or wild imagination but also as inventiveness and problem-solving skills. You may not think of yourself as innately creative, but you likely have examples of times you’ve made business decisions that solved problematic workplace or life dilemmas” Explains Tina Seelig, faculty director of the Stanford Technology Ventures Program, at the Stanford University School of Engineering. “Creativity is easily defined — it is the process of generating new ideas.”  This endorsement of creativity in a wider context given by Tina is still not the complete explanation, (more articles to come on that one!) but it’s the one that we’ll go with for the purpose of this article.

It is now commonplace to see ‘creativity’ listed by employers as one of the most valuable skills that job applicants can have, and tech developments will make this even more pronounced. As AI systems become increasingly able to complete functional tasks with incredible degrees of efficiency and accuracy, creativity will be what separates man from machine.

In 1956, Louis R. Mobley realized that IBM’s success depended on teaching executives to think creatively rather than teaching them how to better understand finance reports.  As a result, the IBM Executive School was built around these six insights:

1.     Traditional teaching methodologies like reading, lecturing, testing, and memorising are actually counter-productive. Most education focuses on providing answers in a linear way. Mobley realized that a non-linear approach is the key to creativity.

2.     Becoming creative is an unlearning rather than a learning process. The goal of the IBM Executive School was not to add more assumptions but to upend existing assumptions. Designed as a “mind-blowing experience,” IBM executives were forced out of their orthodoxy comfort zones often in frustrating, infuriating ways.

3.     Mobley realized that we don’t learn to be creative. We must become creative people.  A soldier doesn’t learn to be a soldier from a manual. He becomes a soldier by undergoing boot camp.  Mobley’s Executive School was a twelve-week experiential boot camp. Classes, lectures, and books were exchanged for questions, simulations, and challenges.

4.     The fastest way to become creative is to be around creative people. An early experiment in controlled chaos, The IBM Executive School was an unsystematic, unstructured environment where most of the benefits accrued through peer-to-peer interaction, much of it informal.

5.     Creativity is highly correlated with self-knowledge.  It is impossible to overcome biases if we don’t know they are there, and Mobley’s school was designed to be one big mirror.

6.     Finally, and perhaps most importantly, Mobley gave his students permission to be wrong.  Because the single biggest reason why most of us never achieve our creative potential is the fear of making a fool out of ourselves. 

 In business everyone knows they should “think outside the box” but very few do it.  It’s far easier and more comfortable to think in a known linear way. The trouble is, that innovative breakthroughs only come by thinking in a creative, non-linear way. And in today’s fast-changing marketplace most products don’t fail because they’re too slow to update. They fail because they are blindsided by a product that emerges from a completely unanticipated direction. They fail from a lack of creative leadership.

While few people will ever experience a program like the IBM Executive School, it is possible to simulate it. 

Surround yourself with unreasonable people. They may infuriate you, but they will open your eyes to challenging the status quo and finding new and better ways to approach tasks. And learn to be comfortable with being unreasonable yourself. It’s tough to go against the group, but progress depends on it.

If you know what you’re doing, stop doing it. You’re just repeating patterns. You’re doing nothing new or interesting. Try doing familiar things in unfamiliar ways to get to new outcomes.

Enjoy failure. Looking for original answers will take you into uncharted territory. Google won’t be there to bail you out. You’ll be on your own. Failure is inevitable, repeated failure highly likely. Be pleased. Every failure is another marker on the map of where not to go, helping you to understand better where to look for success.

Most importantly, never quit. The most creative thinkers in the world are often the ones who are able to keep looking for longer than anyone else. Transformation is always a painful process. But anyone who has gone through it successfully will never go back.

Finally, if you still need convincing that you are indeed bursting with suppressed creativity, remember that creativity is not heritable and is not dependent on genetics. *** At most, twin studies suggest that only around 22% of creative ability relates to genetics. **** The greater majority, is nurture. So, no matter what age you are, if nurture is more important than nature for creativity, then the genes we are born with do not determine our creative ability. And we can continue to nurture and develop our creativity if we’re willing and motivated to work at it. And, of course, find the right Creative Coach to guide, encourage, and quite possibly, infuriate you.

*  George Land and Beth Jarman, Breaking Point and Beyond. San Francisco: HarperBusiness, 1993

**  Mick Mahoney and Kevin Chesters. https://www.amazon.co.uk/Creative-Nudge-Simple-Steps-Differently/dp/1786279002 Lawrence King 2022.
***  https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2019-28506-007

**** https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1207/s15327965pli0403_18?journalCode=hpli20