The Importance of Creativity

One of my favorite workshops to teach is the one on Creative Leadership. In that workshop, and in others, I try to set up experiences to help participants expand their ideas of what creativity is and explore their own creativity. I have found through personal experience and listening to others that for most of us the biggest hindrance to creativity is not bureaucracy, or money or even other people. The biggest obstacle is ourselves.

Sometimes, it is our idea of creativity. For example some think they aren’t creative because they can’t draw. Who said creativity is only drawing and when do most of us need to be able to draw for work anyway? Or we may think we need approval for our idea when really others are wishing we would try something new. It may be that it feels too risky – what if others don’t like it?

The reality is that creativity is messy and risky and that sometimes what we try really doesn’t work outside of our heads, which is no fun. But usually, we over-estimate the costs and under-estimate the potential rewards. I’m sure all of us have had moments when we had the perfect idea, knew just the right thing to say, or intuited the best action, but failed to step forward. Likewise, I suspect we all know how good it feels when the opposite happens.

A few years ago, while reading the magazine ‘Writer’s Digest’, I had the ‘perfect idea’ in response to one of their small contests. The winner would have the submission printed in the magazine. I’d had fun, interesting ideas before, but never had the nerve to send anything. This time, I liked my own idea too much to chicken out. So, I wrote it up and submitted it. A few weeks later, I received an envelope with a response. Apparently, the judges didn’t think it was quite as perfect as I did. Oh well. They did think it warranted Honorable Mention and five or six of us were published on their web page – I think it still exists out in cyberspace somewhere. (It’s located below.) Out of hundreds of entries, Honorable Mention wasn’t too bad.

So what ideas are you squelching? What’s the worst that can happen if you take the idea to your supervisor? They may not like the idea and that’s not fun, but now they know that you are interested in being creative and willing to take a reasonable risk. Those are good attributes for any staff member to exhibit. And if for whatever reason, it’s hard to be creative in our work right now, we can all find ways to be creative in other aspects of our lives. You might not win first, but Honorable Mention is worth something. Give it a try. Play, Imagine. We never know what fun might happen!

Take care,

Gage

Reprinted (with slight modifications) from UTSA Student Affairs Newsletter, July 2010

From Writer’s Digest, Sept. 2005

Pretend you’re the offspring of a villainous literary character (no fairy tales, please), and your parent’s worst nightmare has come true: you’re nowhere near evil. Write a letter to your parent telling him or her why you turned out the way you did and why you’re not interested in the dark side. Be funny, be serious, be angry – but don’t exceed 75 words. Deadline Sept. 10th.

Dear Dad,

I’m taking the coolest course this semester – Abnormal Psychology. My professor says I have a real flair for it, so I’m looking into grad school. That means I won’t be able to help you run the motel after college. I’m sorry, but we can talk about it at break while we work on the hawk. Take care of grandma. She was looking a little worn out when I saw her last.

Love,
Susan Bates.

Submitted Sept. 6, 2005.

PS – The movie “Psycho” is based on the novel Psycho by Robert Bloch so this does qualify as the offspring of a literary character.