Creativity:
What is it?

By Jonathan Halls
 

I used to think creativity was something artists, musicians and novelists were born with. 

And something accountants, lawyers and insurance brokers were born without. 

But I've learned it's not.  I come from a family of novelists, broadcasters and musicians.  We're the type of people who have often described as 'creative'. 

And I used to think our way of vague, non-mathematical thinking was genetically designed for creativity. But I was wrong. 

For starters, creativity is not just something that happens in the liberal arts.  It's as important in business and everyday life.

And creativity is not a trait some people are are born with and others miss out on.  It's not something for novelists at the expense of managers or people working hard in an office.

The truth about creativity and innovation is simply we're either trained to unleash it or taught to repress it.

Defining Creativity

Dictionary.com defines the noun, creativity, as ‘having the ability or power to create’ as in the phrase ‘human beings are creative animals’.

It also says creativity is ‘characterised by originality and expressiveness.’

Based on the dictionary definition and what has been published in academic literature, I describe creativity as 'the process of coming up with original ideas and putting them into action'.

I believe there are three steps we need to follow in the creativity or innovation process.  I've based this on my research and experience working in broadcasting and the education.

Three Stages for Creativity

First, we have to dream.  The initial stage in creativity is dreaming up loads and loads of ideas.  It's about not worrying if they are viable or not and suspending our critical faculties for a moment to let the possibilities bubble to the surface.   

Second, we select.  Of all the exciting ideas we dreamt up, we have to choose the very best one that we make work.  Choosing the best idea is critical.  Because if we choose the wrong idea, it may be a failure. 

Third we make it real.  This requires discipline and hard work to set goals and objectives before combining real life skills to make our idea a reality.

This three stage process is what I call ICE creativity.  I stands for imagine.  C stands for critique your idea.  And E stands for execute, or act.


Don't Confuse Imagination with Creativity

Some people confuse creativity with imagination. This is dangerous because to be creative, you also need to be highly disciplined.  Creativity is not all dreaming.  In fact it's as much about dreaming as it is hard work.

If master spy novelist Robert Ludlum – creator of the Bourne Trilogy – could dream up ideas for novels but neither knew how to tap away on his keyboard or string a sentence together, he wouldn't have been able to create his best selling novels.

Being creative is about integrating imagination, critical thinking and discipline. Often this will have been developed or crafted over many years.

In the media world we bring together skills of production such as coding, writing, designing layout, shooting video or planning content.

If we can’t write code for a webpage, it really doesn’t matter how good our ideas are.  We’ll be simply unable to create something.

I may have a fabulous idea for a TV drama. But if I can’t direct or shoot a video camera it will never happen.

Creativity in communication requires us to understand our medium and its storytelling tools, along with our audience. It also requires us to be clear on our purpose.

We need to put in the hard work to understand our medium and know how to produce content if we want to be creative.

Methods of Creativity

There are many ways that creativity can occur. I've listed four below.  For a full description of these, click on the link beside each category

• Evolution
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• Synthesis
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• Revolution
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• Reapplication
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• An about turn or something just out of the blue.
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Attitudes that foster Creativity

There are numerous attitudes we can adopt that encourage creative and imaginative thinking. When you come across a problem, you need to adopt the right mindset. 

Get this mindshift right and you'll find yourself generating all sorts of exciting possibilities.

The main mindsets include:

• Curiosity

• Challenge

• Positive Discontent

• Belief anything can be solved

• Suspension of judgement.

For more details about attitudes that foster and also inhibit creativity, click here.

Physiology and Creativity

Your physiological condition can also affect your creative potential. Unfortunately, modern life actually works against many people having the optimum physiological condition for creativity.

Issues to consider are:

• Fatigue

• Diet & Exercise

• Stress

• Alcohol & drugs

To find out how these affect your physiology, read our article on creativity and physiology.  To do so, click here.

These are things we need to bear in mind when looking at how we can unleash our creative juices and spur on the ideas generation process. 

With this in mind, it's time to consider the practical ideas generation processes which form an important part of the ICE stage of ICE Creativity.  Click here for more on generating ideas.