Can Creativity Be Taught? 73% of Professional Creative People Say Yes

Aside from being disruptive - though preferably in an approved manner - most enterprises today want their people to be creative. Innovative is nice, but it's been around for a long time and has become something of a cliche. Who isnt innovative, even when all they are producing are line extensions for sugared breakfast cereal? 

So creativity - or being creative - has become the new attribute on the corporate block, the sign that you can think outside the cubicle, move that proverbial needle and maybe even generate some much-needed moolah.

The question then becomes, how to find creative types or, barring that, helping your current staff become more creative. Is that even possible?

Turns out that the answer may be yes - and the people who feel most strongly about that are those who are currently employed in creative tasks. In the nurture versus nature debate that afflicts so many aspects of human performance, it appears that nurture wins: work environment, incentives, colleagues, supervisors, attitude and encouragement all play a role. As the following article explains, one of the most crucial lessons may be learning to manage one's creativity for greater impact and effectiveness. Who knew? JL

Evie Nagy reports in Fast Company:

A whopping 35% of respondents said that the most important quality in a creative businessperson is a willingness to kill ideas they love.
"It is important that any account of creativity should recognize that, in a sense, there is something necessarily mysterious about it, so that even those who are creative are at a loss to explain it," concludes a study from the British Journal of Education Studies titled "Can Creativity Be Taught?"
Considering the importance of creativity to society's advancement, many have tackled the question, and states have even tried to develop standardized tests for it. But the best people to ask are creative people themselves. To that end, a recent poll of Fast Company's Most Creative People in Business found that 73% believe creativity can be learned, with many citing the importance of being open to new experiences and unfamiliar ways of thinking--in other words, embracing the mysterious.a whopping 35% of respondents said that the most important quality in a creative businessperson is a willingness to kill ideas they love.

More than a quarter of creative respondents credited their parents for focusing their creative abilities, while teachers and even media--as in, the creative output of others--had a significant influence. But a full third of those polled said their creativity was primarily self-taught--coming from their own inquisitiveness and desire to create something new. And sorry, bosses--while it's important to support your employees' creativity, only 4% gave primary credit for their creative ability to superiors at work.
This recent argument against eating lunch at your desk should probably be heeded--not a single one of our Most Creative People said they have creative breakthroughs during meals (and it's more enjoyable to give that slice of pizza your full attention, anyway). Having a breakthrough at a desk during normal working hours did scarcely better (2%), but the private zone-out environment of the shower is the ideal idea birthplace for 19% of respondents. The top answer makes an argument for night owls and unconventional work hours--29% of creative people polled have most of their breakthroughs late at night.
So what are important qualities for creative people to cultivate? Thatgamecompany cofounder and creative director Jenova Chen says that "creativity is not talent but attitude," and other creative people seem to agree.
Having a lot of those ideas in the first place was most important to 28% of people polled, and being an easy collaborator topped the list for 29%. Being a good manager? Important to business, but not necessarily to creativity.
While there's not unanimous agreement on whether creativity itself can be taught, our Most Creative People have a lot of thoughts on how to tease it out and encourage new ideas.
An overwhelming number of those polled tied increased creativity to breaking out of patterns, exploring new environments, and being open to the unfamiliar. LittleBits founder Ayah Bdeir advises to "look outside your field--the most creative solutions come at the intersections of disciplines," while WET CEO Mark Fuller suggested to "take things you have learned that seem completely irrelevant and ask yourself how to apply them to the challenge at hand." Similarly, Fashion.me cofounder Renato Steinberg says that "creativity happens when you get two people or two things that don't seem connected and find a way to connect them." Some, like freelance creative director Megan Sheehan, thought we were asking the wrong question--she believes that creativity is inherent, and "there might be disciplines that can make you more productive, but not necessarily more creative." But the most welcome news for many of us: some of the most common pieces of advice to bring out creativity were variations on "take more naps."

Even the most creative people get stuck, and need a way to refocus or unfocus to get back on track. Many of the people we polled are inspired by physical movement--either exercise, like going for a walk, dancing, or taking a hike, or traveling to favorite hideaways or foreign lands (Tokyo seems to be a particularly motivating locale). Adam Sadowsky, president and CEO of Syyn Labs, is a strong advocate of letting your inner kid loose, explaining that he is most inspired by "playing with children, swinging on a swing, making fireballs, taking things apart." And then, of course, there's the value of actual mind alteration--coffee and wine were muses for many, and Impending Inc. CEO Phil Ryu admitted that "pot spaces me out in exactly the right way."