The Creativity Conflict

Twenty years ago, as a student at School of Visual Arts, I was asked to redesign a book cover as part of a routine assignment. I picked Creativity by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. I redesigned the cover to show a central idea to the book—that two things may appear unlike initially, but one can discover they actually have commonalities.

It was the first time I had thought about creativity in any serious way. For some unknown reason, I was compelled to depict the transformation of a green bean to a worm, sequentially painting its visual metamorphosis in an analogue way, to rearrange reality.??

The allure of creativity

Creativity is a beloved word. It brings artists to mind, people who can tap into some unknown or unexplained world that they only have access to in order to access something compelling, surprising, provocative. It is a word of mystery. We gather around it and its magnificence.

As a designer, it is also beloved to me. However, in professional life, creativity becomes more complex. When you begin to get good at something, people start to ask you to repeat what you’re good at. You then become better, and more people expect you to do it, and you are eventually known for and called for that specific skill or task.

Say the skill is drawing Golden Retrievers. A few people asked you to draw them, you drew them, you got great at it, and now everyone asks you to draw them (of course, before AI can produce them) and now that’s how you spend your days—drawing Golden Retrievers. No room for goldfish or turkeys or even German Shepherds or Shih Tzus. The creativity in this way of working vanished long ago because there was no opportunity to do anything new. Animals aside, this applies to any creative pursuit.

When one becomes professional, we are expected to perform, to be good at our roles, to be efficient, to deliver good work on time. Companies need to operate in a cost-effective way, to meet targets, to deliver results to shareholders. People need to get paid, to live, to put food on the table.

This creates an environment that can be antithetical to a creative mind. When we need to perform, our minds narrow in to deliver what we know. We draw another Golden Retriever because our rent is due rather than discovering how to draw a turkey and risk not getting paid.

The creative mind

But creativity comes mostly from not knowing exactly what you’re doing. It comes from discovering something new. It requires an open mind, unburdened by results or objectives. It requires taking risks, the possibility of failure, and most importantly the space for true discovery.

I’m thinking of Picasso, who would paint in a style until he mastered it, abandon it, and start again on something totally different. He said, “I must keep on trying, just to keep the experiment going until I get tired of it all. Even if the last result is not necessarily the best, I stop when my interest in the problem wanes.”

I’m thinking of Monet, who took enormous risk by painting outdoors to capture fleeting light. Everyone else was in the academic tradition, painting studio portraits of royalty or depicting images from the Bible (and noting that 150 years later, the shock of ‘outdoor painting’ seems incomprehensible).

I’m thinking of you now, reading this. You may not identify as an artist. I don’t. I have always identified as a designer, and sometimes I’m labeled a ‘creative’ … which has always been a confounding term to me. It implies some people are creative and some are not, which is just not true. We all have the capacity to think creatively. We may just need permission, structure, and a bit of guidance to help us get there.

The conflict

Over the past years, our imaginations have become dwarfed by digital efficiency. When we start something new, we look at what is most easily available: TikTok, Pinterest, Instagram, Behance, the endless ‘how to’ articles and ‘creative hacks’ that digital content provides. Our schedules, and brains, default to the easiest route to an outcome unless provoked otherwise. Professionally, we can demonstrate our value by how full our calendars are.

Creativity takes discipline and rigor. It's not something that is always available, surrounding us like atmosphere or weather, which we can call for whenever we have a moment. It doesn’t live on our phone. Ideas struggle to blossom in thirty minute brainstorming blocks while we stare into the abyss of black squares on zoom. Instead, it is capricious and inefficient, offering the promise of a worthy reward without the tidy result of our many immediate tasks. Creativity does not follow the rules of our professional worlds. Sometimes the muse is there, sometimes it isn’t.?

With the onset of AI, the need for imagination and creativity is even more paramount. AI amplifies our digital dependencies, making the easiest path even easier. It can help us understand what already is, but our imaginations are the true doorway to new ideas of what could be. Let’s begin with what we, as individuals, can do to open our minds for new ideas. Organizations face their own hurdles and complexities in welcoming creativity, some are highlighted in a piece I wrote here , others to be articulated at a later date.

Your creative practice

At the risk of being too practical, here are a few questions that help anyone get focused about how to bring creativity into their work.

For your project:

1. Determine where creativity is needed most.

Sometimes we think the declaration that something 'needs to be creative' is enough, and we aren’t specific enough with what we need to accomplish with it. We hear 'make it more creative' without getting into detail. Some parts of projects can be perfectly fine if they are tried and true. Other parts can become stale or repetitive and need new ideas or imagination. Think of a project you are working on. Based on what you know or are experiencing, what parts of the work need creativity the most? Is there an area where you are stuck? Be specific.

2. Begin anywhere, as a beginner.

In order to welcome the new, we need to shelve what we already know. What past successes do you need to forget in order to begin again, as if you knew nothing? What assumptions or inhibitions do you need to let go of to ideate freely, without judgment?

For your practice:

3. Open yourself to discovery.

Strategy is the oxygen for business. Discovery is the oxygen for creativity. To truly innovate and make something new, we need both. Be conscious about what elements in your life open your creative mind. They are different for everyone. The only right answer is the one that is true for you.

Ask yourself when and where do ideas come most easily throughout a day? (e.g., a morning walk to work, an evening shower, late at night when everyone is asleep)

What makes you feel most inspired and open-minded? Who are you with when ideas most come to you? (e.g., a museum, a park, with a colleague or friend...or alone!)

4. Make a creative practice for yourself.?

Based on your previous answers, what is one ritual you, personally, can do to build your creative practice and help your mind open? (e.g., taking advantage of the time you are most open-minded, intentionally spending time with the people or in the places that are most inspiring, going on a walk and capturing your thoughts in a voice memo, sketching for five minutes to begin the day, laying out a collection of books and flipping through them to draw inspiration, meditating).

Your practice may not look efficient or be seen under the traditional guise of what work looks like. But it may be your most important pathway to new ideas.

Answering these questions may be easy. But the act of following through is more challenging. Our brains (and our work) like us to take the easiest route with the most achievable results. I have tried mediation to begin the work day, but emails and Slack beckon. If I’m at home, and sit down to sketch, I feel a sudden urge to unload the dishwasher or fold the laundry.

My most creative time of the day is the morning, prior to the workday. It starts around 4:45am—before the world has woken up, before anyone needs anything from me, before I have real obligations. I read or write with coffee, in the dark with a little spotlight. In the stillness and quiet, I feel as if I’m stealing time at that hour, getting the first drop in the ocean of a day. I then go running, get my household ready for the day and bike to work. After I’ve engaged my mind in the dark, ideas come to life in the light, through movement. I feel most myself. It is one of my happiest times of the day.

While the lure of a creative practice is always there, it is often at conflict with what feels productive and easy.

But the value of creativity—for our minds, for our growth, for our work—is immeasurable. It’s not a metric that is tracked or even something that is quantifiable.

Instead it’s something that keeps us, and our work, alive.?