Yes, YOU ARE Creative!

By Shlomo Maital      

 da Vinci & his masterpiece

   I meet a lot of managers all over the world. I always ask them, how creative are you? Say, 1 to 10, where 10 is da Vinci.  Very few admit to an 8, 9 or 10.  Most say, well, I once was creative, but after years in the corporate world, it was extinguished. 

  Now, comes corroborative evidence, from the Harvard Business Review website, and a piece called “Crush the ‘I’m Not Creative’ Barrier” .*  They “regularly ask groups of 100 to 1,000 managers and executives, ‘are you creative?’, and with clockword consistency at best half the hands in an audience slowly rise.”  Most managers, say the researchers, don’t define themselves as creative, or as innovative. 

    The bad news, they say, is that if you think you’re not creative, you aren’t..because you won’t bother to generate ideas.  The good news is, this mindset can be changed.  If you think you’re creative, you will become so, provided you take action.

   Here is a diagnostic test the scholars propose.   If you say ‘no’ to three questions or more, you need some creativity exercises. 

   I creatively solve challenging problems by drawing on diverse ideas or knowledge

 

  I often ask questions that challenge others’ fundamental assumptions.

 

  I get innovative ideas by directly observing how people interact with products and services.

 

   I regularly talk with a diverse set of people (e.g. from different functions, industries, geographies) to find and refine new business ideas.

 

  I frequently experiment to create new ways of doing things.

 

Spend time on this.  Actively hunt for things to change.  If you think you’re not creative, you won’t be. So think positively. Watch how, when you DEFINE yourself as creative, you become so. 

 

* by Jeff Dyer, Hal Gregersen, and Clayton Christensen.