Published by The Royal Bank of Canada

The Creative Approach

Much ability is wasted when people tellthemselves they’re not creative. It’s awaste the world can ill afford. Taking the

creative road means changing some mentalhabits. But think of the rewards!

[] The notion of creativity is so new in the histori-cal scheme of things that it was not until well intothe present century that the word began to showup in dictionaries. Writers and philosophers in thepast have had a great deal to say about talent,imagination and inspiration, but only in relativelyrecent times have these been wrapped together intothe phenomenon we call creativity.

The oversight can be traced back to old-fashionedsnobbery of the kind that took for granted that thecommon man was incapable of "creating" anything.The sages of history believed almost unanimouslythat the universe functioned according to a cosmicpattern in which everything and everybody had aplace, with themselves near the top. The place ofordinary souls in the natural order was decidedlynot to bring new ideas and works into being. It wasto stick to the labours assigned to them in the eter-nal plan.

The closest traditional thinkers ever came to themodern concept of creativity was their concept ofgenius, which was strongly influenced by snobberyand determinism. The word "genius" derives fromthe term for the presiding spirits which were sup-posed to have dwelt within people in ancient Rome.The individuals known as geniuses were thought tobe endowed by the gods with transcendentalintellectual and/or artistic powers. Like gentlemen,geniuses were born, not made.

If the occasional prodigy like Michelangelo wasthrown up out of the masses, the anomaly was con-veniently explained by the theory that he wasdivinely inspired. Otherwise men {almost always

men; hardly ever women) of genius came from thedominant class. This was hardly surprising, becausethey were the only members of society with the edu-cation and leisure to make the most of their talents.The bulk of the people had neither the time nor theopportunity to exercise whatever creative abilitythey might have had.

The prospect that there might be a vastuntapped mine of talent and intelligence in thepopulation at large was scarcely considered. Neitherwas much thought given to the possibility thattalent might come in degrees, so that people oflesser abilities might be capable of making valua-ble contributions to the quality of life.

The advent of public education in the westernnations in the latter part of the 19th century didlittle to change this attitude. The method of teach-ing by rote was not conducive to encouragingyoungsters to use their imaginations. The idea thatcreativity in childhood should be actively nurturedwould have been considered next to heresy in theage of "spare the rod and spoil the child."

It took the pioneers of psychology to see the plainfact that one did not have to be divinely endowedto conceive original works of art or inventions.William James was moving in the direction of ourpresent conception of creativity when he wrote inhis The Principles of Psychology in 1890: "Genius,in truth, means little more than the faculty of per-ceiving in an unhabitual way."

Carl Jung spoke of the "creative man" in hisessays in the 1920s and ’30s, though he remainedsomewhat mesmerized by the mystical theory of

genius. Nevertheless, he and other writers on psy-chology helped to refine the concept of creativitywe have today.

That concept, as it is usually understood, is thatthe potential for originality exists to a greater orlesser degree in every human. It is like a sixth sense,as inherent in the organism as the other five. If itcannot exactly be taught, it can be cultivated bytraining, example, and habituation. And it can bebrought to bear on work of any scale or nature: Anoffice manager who comes up with a bright newscheme for handling paperwork is being as creativein her field as a novelist is in hers.

Though all this might seem clear enough, thequestion of what constitutes creativity remainsbeset by misconceptions. The most basic of theseis that it is confined to the arts, an impression whichartists themselves do little to correct. It is in thearts that creativity has become a rather derisiveterm. Critics and professional practitioners cringeat the thought of all the incomprehensible poetry,the graceless sculptures and truly primitive paint-ings produced in the name of letting the creativejuices flow.

Learning to invent fromthe inventions of the past

The opportunity to be creative has been inter-preted by some as an opportunity to look andbehave like an artist without going to the troubleof actually being one. This leads to another miscon-ception of creativity, which is that it is sufficientunto itself.

It is, of course, associated with freedom -- thefreedom to let the spirit rove in the undiscoveredreaches of the imagination. But what MatthewArnold said about opinions is equally pertinent tocreative endeavours: "It is a very great thing to beable to think as you like; but, after all, an impor-tant question remains: what you think."

Reporting on his experiences preparing a televi-sion series on the subject a few years ago, journalistBill Moyers wrote: "Two things are implied in theword ’creativity’ as I have come to understand it:novelty and significance. What is created is new,and the new opens up paths that expand humanpossibilities." Without the element of significance,creative efforts amount to no more that self-

indulgence. As Ralph Waldo Emerson so nicely putit, "Talent for talent’s sake is a bauble and a show."

Among the definitions of "creative" in theOxford English Dictionary is "showing imaginationas well as routine skill." The reference to skill isessential to the meaning. A man could composemusic in his head like another Mozart, but withoutthe skill to play it or to set in down in musical nota-tion, his artistry would be lost to the world.

Sir Joshua Reynolds insisted that he would neverhave become known as a painter of genius if he hadnot acquired the requisite technique to take advan-tage of the artistic breakthroughs made before him.New heights, he said, are reached through aknowledge of what has already been done and aknowledge of how to build on it." It is by being con-versant with the inventions of others that we learnto invent; as by reading the thoughts of others, welearn to think."

The assumption that there is a mystical elementin the creation of great works, he said, arises froman ignorance of the process. "The untaught mindfinds a vast gulf between its own powers, and thoseof works of complicated art, which it is unuttera-bly unable to fathom; and it supposes that such avoid can only be passed by supernatural powers."

Reynolds did not deny that nature gives somepeople more capacity than others, but he nonethe-less believed that strenuous effort is needed to makethe best of whatever ability is present. "If you havegreat talents, industry will improve them; if youhave but moderate abilities, industry will supplytheir deficiency."

He who shoots most oftenscores the most goals

Some of the most brilliant figures in history hadto toil long and hard to give birth to their master-pieces. Beethoven’s musical notebook bears all thescars of agonized creation. Dr. Samuel Johnson, byhis own account, wrote "doggedly". The NobelPrize-winning novelist, Sinclair Lewis, described thewriting process as "painful." As a general rule, cre-ation is" 10 per cent inspiration and 90 per cent per-spiration," as Thomas Edison said.

Discoveries in science and technology are thoughtby "untaught minds" to come in blinding flashes oras the result of dramatic accidents. Sir AlexanderFleming did not, as legend would have it, look at themould on a piece of cheese and get the idea forpenicillin there and then¯ He experimented with anti-bacterial substances for nine years before he madehis discovery. Inventions and innovations almost al-ways come out of laborious trial and error. Innova-tion is like hockey: Even the best players miss thenet and have their shots blocked much more fre-quently than they score.

The point is that the players who score most arethe ones who take the most shots on the net -- andso it goes with innovation in any field of activity.The prime difference between innovators and othersis one of approach. Everybody gets ideas, but inno-vators work consciously on theirs, and they followthem through until they prove practicable or otherwise. They never reject any thought that comes in-to their heads as outlandish. What ordinary peoplesee as fanciful abstractions, professional innovatorssee as solid possibilities¯

"Creative thinking may mean simply the realiza-tion that there’s no particular virtue in doing thingsthe way they have always been done," wrote RudolphFlesch, the language guru. This accounts for ourreaction to deceptively simple innovations like plas-tic garbage bags and suitcases on wheels that makelife more convenient: "How come nobody thoughtof that before?"

Creativity does not demand absolute originality.It often takes the form of throwing an old ball witha new twist. A concert pianist may play a composi-tion written three centuries ago note-for-note andstill find unsuspected values in it. An engineer maydevise a fresh application of a principle firstpropounded by Archimedes.

The creative approach begins with the proposi-tion that nothing is as it appears. Innovators willnot accept that there is only one way to do any-thing. Faced with getting from A to B, the averageperson will automatically set out on the best-knownand apparently simplest routing¯ The innovator willsearch for alternate courses which may prove eas-ier in the long run and are bound to be more interest-ing and challenging even if they lead to dead ends.

Highly creative individuals really do march to adifferent drummer. A study directed by J.P.Guilford, ex-president of the American Psycholog-icai Association, found that humans go about think-ing in two ways. The most common way is conver-gent thinking, which spirals inward towards thecentre looking for answers. The other is divergentthinking, which radiates out from the centre, open-ing up new lines of inquiry. Everybody thinks bothways from time to time, but particularly creativepeople are in the habit, whether natural or acquired,of thinking divergently.

Originality and the fearof looking like a fool

Small children are divergent thinkers, always lia-ble to take off on a tangent. Any thoughtful adultwatching a group of them playing "let’s pretend"will be humbled by their sheer creativity. Some psy-chologists, in fact, try to draw out the creativestrain in adults by having them play like children.The practice recognizes the truth in Carl Jung’sstatement that "the dynamic principle of fantasyis play, which also belongs to the child, and as such¯.. appears to be inconsistent with serious work.But without this playing at fantasy, no creativework ever yet came to birth."

The poet and essayist Samuel Taylor Coleridgesaid that genius resides in a combination of a child’ssense of magic and an adult’s trained mentality.Unfortunately, most children start to suppress theirwonderment and adventurousness even before theyreach their teens. This happens because of pressurefrom their peers to conform to group standards.Originality begins to falter as soon as children con-ceive the fear of looking like fools.

In later life, especially within organizations, thepeople with the greatest mental openness and themost original slants on questions are often regardedas office clowns, whose far-out ideas are good-naturedly laughed out of meetings. Often, too, theysettle into the role their colleagues have assignedto them. It is easier to play the eccentric than tofight for one’s ideas.

Highly creative people are eccentric in the literalsense of the word. They have less respect for prece-dent and more willingness to take risks than others.

They are less likely to be motivated by money orcareer advancement than by the inner satisfactionof hatching and carrying out ideas. In conventionalcorporate circles, such traits can look quite eccen-tric indeed.

But while there is an identifiable creative perso-nality which follows these lines, testing has shownthat very few people, if any, are without the instinctto be creative. One point on which all the expertsare agreed is that many people are not as creativeas they could be simply because they tell themselvesthat they are not the creative type. To act crea-tively, you must first give yourself permission totry.

Creativity is our lastand best natural resource

Everybody, the saying goes, is a genius once ayear; the certified geniuses merely have their brightideas closer together. It might be added that every-body is a genius while asleep. "Dreaming is an actof pure imagination, attesting in all men a creativepower, which, if it were available in waking, wouldmake every man a Dante or a Shakespeare," wroteFrederick Henry Hodge, a founder of the transcen-dental school of philosophy.

Though some rare types are capable of recaptur-ing their dreams, most of us are left with only frag-ments or vague impressions of our unconsciouswanderings. The nearest we can get to the perfectlyfree state of dreaming is to day-dream, which ourculture tells us is not a fit thing for an adult to do.

In addition to the social misapprobation attachedto day-dreaming, modern society makes it somehowanti-social to engage in silent contemplation. It isironic that, in an age when people have more leisuretime than ever before, they spend less time thanever exploring their own imaginations. We alwayshave to be doing something, if only watching tele-vision. Consciously creative persons do not feeluncomfortable "doing nothing." They allow forplenty of quiet time in which to spin fantasies andtoy with ideas.

Because creativity is a habit of mind, creativepeople deliberately cultivate the habit. They trainthemselves to take a playful approach, thinking upmetaphors and similes, playing imaginary roles, andconjuring up scenarios.

Physical age is not a factor. "No matter how oldyou get, if you can keep the desire to be creative,you are keeping the man-child alive," as actor JohnCassavetes said.

In fact, young-minded people have an advantageover people who are merely young: they have yearsof learning behind them. "The real key to being crea-tive lies in what to do with your knowledge," sayscreativity consultant Roger Von Oech. "Creativethinking requires an attitude or outlook whichallows you to search for ideas and manipulate yourknowledge and experience."

Van Oech and others in his field see a seriousneed to develop the latent creativity in ordinaryhuman beings. On the private level, an inability toexpress themselves causes some people emotionaldifficulties and even mental illness. On the publiclevel, the exploitation of the creative resourceswithin the population is essential to improving thelot of mankind.

At a time when we are using up our other naturalresources at a perilously rapid rate, creativity is thechief renewable resource left to us in treating globalproblems. If we human beings are wise, we will workto remove the social and institutional barriers toexercising creativity everywhere. We should keepin mind that creation is the opposite of destruction.Creativity offers the hope of new solutions to oldproblems. By making creativity a way of life atwork, at home and at play, we can not only fulfilourselves personally, but contribute to the buildingof a better world.