What is creativity?

While the definition of creativity has changed over time, we tend -particularly as westerners, since the enlightenment - to view creativity as a process which happens inside peoples heads. Individuals are creative, and attracting and retaining these kinds of individuals builds creative institutions and organisations. A popular definition which most people would agree with would be:

'an idea or action which is new and valuable'

The problem with this definition is one of context, who decides what is new and valuable? The individual? Society? Institutions?

Organisations looking to attract creative individuals are only seeing half the picture, what if creativity is emergent from within the system? What if creativity is actually dependeant on the cultural boundaries of the organisation? What would the conditions for improving creativity be? How could organisations utilise these conditions to create more innovative structures and cultures?

The psychology of creativity

If like me you have attended or delivered creativity courses you have probably heard about brainstorming, goal setting, inductive and deductive reasoning, six thinking hats and the like. But none of the courses I have seen have much to say about creativity itself. How do we define it? What are the conditions under which creativity "appears"? Are some people born more creative? What can organisations do at a macro level to encourage creativity? What value does it actually add?

This is the start of a series of blog posts exploring the work of Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, the University of Chicago psychologist and business lecturer, leader in the field of positive psychology and in possession of one of the most unpronounceable surnames in modern psychology. His defining contribution (to date) has been the idea of flow: a state of concentration and complete absorption in an activity which leads to a perfect state of happiness.

Csikszentmihalyi studied creativity by interviewing hundreds of people who are considered creative in their field, including poets, novelists, and Nobel prize winners in various disciplines. Among his more interesting observations on the psychology of creativity include:

• Creative people tend to be happy and positive people not suffering artists.
  
• It is much easier to change the system or culture to encourage creativity than to make individuals more creative.
• People cannot be considered creative unless they are recognised as such by peers in their particular domain or specialty.

Future posts will expand on these points and explore the applications for organisational learning.