In his farewell address in 1950, the outgoing president of the American Psychological Association, Professor J. P. Guilford, admonished his colleagues for their lack of attention to the processes involved with creativity: ?The neglect of this subject by psychologists is appalling.?
The admonishment was taken to heart. Since then, scientists, educators and deep thinkers have been studying, describing, and dissecting creativity in the hopes of understanding, and improving, our ability to create new and useful things. Search for ?creativity? on Amazon.com?s book section and you?ll get over 15,000 hits. And that doesn?t even scratch the surface of what is available in the academic world.
Have we become more creative as a result of this effort? Creativity is notoriously difficult to define, much less measure. That makes answering this question in any objective manner difficult, if not impossible. So let?s be subjective, and let?s ask the question at two levels.
1. Have all the studies, books and workshops led to a more creative society
2. Have they led to more creative individuals?
To answer these questions, think of creativity as a muscle. Everyone has the muscle, and everyone can improve it to some degree. The more you work it out, the stronger it gets. Self-help books, like those by Michael Michalko, contain exercises designed to stretch the muscle. I have taught classes at Bentley University and at the Rotterdam School of Management that I hope made my students more creative. Indeed, after (imperfectly) measuring students? creativity before and after the class, I found that it had increased. So, at the individual level, if nothing else, classes, books, and workshops stretch the muscle. Perhaps they don?t always result in the creative equivalent of a bodybuilding champion; but, like going to the gym, they do some good.
But have we as a society become more creative? This is a tougher question, because the effort does not occur in a vacuum, but rather must contend with societal pressures that work to limit creativity. The biggest limits on creativity come from the educational system, with its emphasis on standardized testing, finding the one right answer and moving students through the system. Indeed, internationally recognized creativity expert and author of Out of Our Minds: Learning to be Creative Sir Ken Robinson concludes that the educational system actively suppresses creativity. So, have all of our workshops, research, and books made society as a whole more creative? Perhaps not. But given the obstacles we face, we?re probably doing well if we simply avoid becoming less creative.
Dr. Andy Aylesworth is an Associate Professor and Chair of the Marketing Department at Bentley University. In addition to his marketing education he has trained in the techniques of improvisational comedy and strives to use these techniques to improve the business skills of his students.
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