Cultivating Creativity for Non-Creatives
Welcome to I’ve Started Thinking About, a random collection of thoughts on startup life and exploring better ways of working.
I spent most of my life believing I wasn’t creative. My drawings were always a bit more on the abstract side than other kids’ artwork in my school. As art was one of the few unstructured classes we had where there were no definitively right answers, somewhere along the way internalised that not being good at art meant I wasn’t creative. Art also happened to be one of the classes where, at least in the schools I attended, you weren’t given much guidance to improve, if you didn’t show an inherent ability. The fact that I struggled to draw the outline of a butterfly that didn’t look like it was influenced by cubism wasn’t seen as a concern. It was just treated as a fact, and so, I spent most of my life also thinking that creativity was a fixed trait. One that I couldn’t study my way out of to get a good grade. Now I know that is bullsh*t. While there is some evidence that some creativity is a genetically inherited trait, there is broad consensus that for the most part it’s a skill that can be cultivated.
Creativity is the ability to produce or use original and unusual ideas. It’s core to helping solve society's major challenges, from how we produce clean energy to how we tackle educational inequality. Creativity is what drives businesses forward. Creativity channeled through the arts generates beauty and a sense of wonder in our lives. Being creative appears to be one of those characteristics that has nearly universal upsides, and yet, most people I know (including myself), and most organisations, spend little if any time deliberately developing creativity as a skill.
“You can’t use up creativity. The more you use, the more you have.” —Maya Angelou
Looking back, there are two periods of my life where I considered myself to be creative on a consistent basis (creative here defined as having a steady stream of new ideas on a frequent basis). The first time was several years ago when I was backpacking around Asia. The second was a few months ago when I was in an accelerator programme. Both were very different experiences and I wanted to dive into what factors contributed to my increase in creativity during those times.
I went backpacking alone and on a budget, accompanied by a phone that had limited data and even more limited battery life. This meant I often spent hours alone on a bus or train with nothing but my own thoughts to pass the time. I had so many ideas. This feeling is probably familiar to anyone who lets their mind wander frequently. Not focusing on a specific task activates our brain’s Default Mode Network which is a network of interacting brain regions that is active when a person is not focused on the outside world. This type of brain activity has been shown to be linked with creativity thinking. I won’t dive into the science here as others have done so much better than I could. What this did highlight to me was that if I want to generate new ideas more frequently then I need to allow my mind to wander for extended periods of time. This will require deliberate tech and distraction detoxes, something I haven’t figured out how to stick to yet…
The second time I experienced regular creativity in terms of idea generation was when I was in Antler. In the first few weeks of the accelerator programme, we were grouped together into teams and asked to generate a business idea and a corresponding output (product idea/pitch deck/video ad etc) in a matter of hours. Granted the quality of ideas was sometimes questionable, but quantity was never an issue. If anything, the primary challenge each team of 3-6 people usually faced was idea selection. Given the amount of variables involved I can’t with pinpoint the exact component which triggered rampant idea generation but I have three theories which align with many studies on this topic:
The inclusion of constraints (set brief, fixed time frame): A review of 145 studies proved that introducing constraints up to a certain limit helped enable creativity and innovation within teams.
A diverse team: each team member brought varying skill sets and perspectives, which required us to think more critically to come to a consensus
An absence of hierarchy: Studies have shown “that hierarchy of authority is detrimental to the idea generation phase of innovation” as people engage in self-censorship.
“You can’t wait for inspiration, you have to go after it with a club.” —Jack London
It’s not particularly practical to rely on abandoning everyday life in the pursuit of becoming more creative. Nor is it necessary. There are a significant number of techniques which can be used to cultivate creative thinking. Below are a collection of a few which can help you and your team become more creative.
Enhancing creativity as an individual
Practice divergent thinking: Divergent thinking is a thought process or method used to generate creative ideas by exploring many possible solutions. It’s the art of imagining what could be. As adults we tend to default to convergent thinking, eliminating ideas based on practicalities such as budgets and deadlines, before even allowing ourselves to explore new options. Deliberately practicing divergent thinking (even if the ideas are never used) can help strengthen our ability to think creatively.
Ideate regularly: Quantity yields quality when it comes to creativity. Make time and space to think of ideas. Not all have to be shared publicly or shipped into the world, but the process of thinking of ideas regularly, significantly increases your odds of creating an innovative solution for whatever problem it is you’re solving.
Let your mind wander: Reduce screen time, go for a walk, medidate, allow yourself to be bored. Proactively eliminate distractions. Allow your mind to unfold at whatever pace it wants, without pressuring it come up with ideas. Oh and carry a notebook.
Enhancing creativity within a team
Make time for embracing creativity: Video calls have been proven to curb creativity. I’d hazard a guess that very few great ideas have been generated in recurring in-person team meetings also. Creativity doesn’t often happen on demand. It needs to be fostered, and nurtured. It requires solitude and collaboration. Create an environment where ideas are shared frequently, purely for the sake of sharing ideas, whether that’s in slack channels, team offsites or even in weekly team meetings. Create space to explore and discuss innovations, even if there is no immediate goal/OKR attached to that exploration. Creativity develops over time from connecting new and old ideas together.
Introduce constraints to activate creativity: Endless resources, whether that’s time or runway can lead to complacency. Schedule a customer event as a forcing function for new ideas to be shipped. Schedule hackathons where teams solve (more fun) challenges in compressed timeframes. Schedule regularly demo events internally for each team to showcase their work.The aim isn’t to stress people out for an artificial purpose but rather to create an environment where teams continuously push forward, resisting the tendencies towards perfectionism and bureaucracy induced inertia that often slows things down.
Create trust: Fear of failure and ridicule is often the main reason why people choose not to share ideas. Proactively fostering a team environment with high degrees of psychological safety will help increase the likelihood of idea sharing.
“There is no doubt that creativity is the most important human resource of all. Without creativity, there would be no progress, and we would be forever repeating the same patterns.” —Edward de Bono
In many ways I think practicing creativity can be an antidote to toxic productivity. It encourages us to think bigger and focus on an unimagined future. It’s not doing for doing’s sake. It’s the process that helps us shape our inner world and the world around us, in the direction we want to see. For that reason alone, I believe it’s a practice that’s worth deliberately cultivating and pursuing.