on creativity

Over the years I've been lucky enough to have known and worked with several exceptionally creative people and a couple of creative organizations.   There seem to be a few components that enable it.  Perhaps the best news is it doesn't seem to be a talent someone is born with.  A few themes emerge:   play, being unafraid to fail (confidence and play perhaps), the opportunity and ability to focus on a single task without interruption, isolation at some times and the right forms of communications at others, and letting the problem become a background task at times seem to be centrally important. ¹

 

This morning I was going through email and an old client wanted a bit on the subject for his organization.²  As an introduction I sent him links to two excellent John Cleese videos.  It seems appropriate to share them, so rather than writing much in this post (no recipe corner today - I need to get to my mini-sabbatical - a critical piece of my own journey to being a bit more creative), here are the videos:

 

from 1991

 

 

 

and from a few years ago ...

 

 

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¹ Many of these are connected and simple to state, but many are very difficult to achieve in a conventional workplace and many of us find critical pieces difficult to implement.

² In the past decade I've been asked to help a few organizations enhance and grow the creativity of the organization as well as that of its members.  There have been some successes, but this can be a non-trivial task with many dependencies.  

 

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Comments

[Jheri]

You are far too modest Steve. You are as creative as anyone I've met and I'm in a creative industry:)