HOW DO YOU EXPLAIN CREATIVITY? ASK AN EXPERT…
The truth is out there. And inspiring..
R. Keith Sawyer is one of the leading thinkers in the fields of creativity, innovation and learning. He’s also a psychologist and writer.
In his wide-ranging (and thoroughly fascinating) Explaining Creativity: The Science Of Human Innovation, Sawyer takes lessons from all walks of creativity and delineates a key and, I think, inspiring truth.
SO HOW DOES OUR BRAIN HELP US BE CREATIVE THEN?
Sawyer reminds us of the Right and Left Hemisphere argument, that different parts of the brain are responsible for (and have) different attributes that are responsible for different functions. You’re probably aware that this argument describes the Right Hemisphere as ‘creative’, and the Left Hemisphere as ‘logical’ or ‘analytical’.
But Sawyer is no fan of this way of understanding the brain. Though he concedes that the Right Hemisphere is crucial for early ideas and creative thoughts, he argues that you need the organising power of the Left Hemisphere to properly formulate these ideas.
It’s difficult to argue with that analysis.
If you consider an ‘act of creativity’ or ‘a good idea’, it is really only once it is in its complete, full-form that it can be regarded as ‘good’. Until an idea is realised, it is just a nice thought. Clearly, writing a book, creating a piece of art, writing a song, inventing a new product or improving the customer helpline requires an idea to be worked on until it is workable and can function in the real world. To do this, you (or your team) need to be both ‘creative’ and ‘logical’. It is only at the implementation stage that worth can be assigned.
The RH/LH myth is all part of the same fallacy that gives us terms like ‘male’ and ‘female’ brains. Any person can have an aptitude for anything, regardless of their gender, and through hard work and expanding their internal solar system, anyone can be more creative.
In essence: there is no creative gene.
For Sawyer, ‘creativity involves a cycling between two quantitively distinct modes of thought, but it doesn’t seem to be the case that those distinct modes are localised in different brain hemispheres.’
Creativity happens all over the brain, depending on the subject.
As a point of interest, Sawyer also looks at different psychoanalytical theories on the route of creativity.
For Freudians, creativity is driven by repressed desires, and is a form of neurosis.
For Humanists, creativity is part of a healthy personality.
Either way, Sawyer states most creative insights aren’t fully formed; the creator has to use his or her immense domain knowledge to bring it to life in the real world.
TO CONCLUDE: CREATIVITY TAKEAWAYS
· Creativity is not a special mental process, but involves everyday cognitive processes
· Creativity results from a complex combination of basic mental capabilities
· Creativity does not occur in a magical moment of insight; rather, creative products result from long periods of hard work that involve many small mini-insights, and these are organised and combined by the conscious mind of the creator
· Creativity is always specific to a domain. No one can be creative until he or she internalises the symbols, conventions, and languages of a certain domain
On that last point it’s worth saying though that while a person may not fully understand how, for example, a finished product would be received by customers, that person could definitely have ideas and insights that could help in the creation of a product or service.
What do you think? Why not let us know?
Indeed why not test Sawyer’s theories at IDEAFLIP?
We’ve developed the perfect, democratic platform to allow ALL your team to participate in your idea generation phase. If there is no one creative centre in the brain, it stands to reason there is no one creative part of your team…
Ideaflip is an ingenious tool for the remote-working era, providing the perfect, online space for all your team to connect, interact and create — wherever in the world they are.
The Ideaflip Brainstorm PROCESS is also perfect for at-work collaboration. It democratises the workplace, creating a platform for everyone to have their ideas heard — inspiring PEOPLE to participate through PLAY — and helps discover and harness everyone’s latent creativity.
