Embracing & Encouraging Creativity
When you hear someone described as “creative” what do you think of? A painter at an easel, maybe, or a poet scribbling in a notebook? Chefs are creative, teachers are creative and parents must certainly be creative. People who say “I am not at all creative” are laboring under the illusion that you need to artistic or crafty in order to be considered creative.
In reality, creativity is the ability to look at things from different angles in order to solve a problem or create something. Webster’s Online Dictionary defines creative three ways:
1 : marked by the ability or power to create : given to creating <the creative impulse>
2 : having the quality of something created rather than imitated : imaginative <the creative arts>
3 : managed so as to get around legal or conventional limits <creative financing>; also : deceptively arranged so as to conceal or defraud <creative accounting>
So, if you create something entirely new or if you consider a problem from an unusual perspective, you are being creative. The importance of creativity to success cannot be overstated. When we are creative we solve problems and make the world a better place.
Children are usually much more creative than adults because in most cases they don’t know that any given way of thinking is “usual” or “normal.” As we get older and go to school we begin to think of ourselves as either creative or not and that self-classification alone is probably enough to limit our thinking.
Exposing children to all types of creativity from art and stories to the scientific method is one way to encourage them to remain and even develop their own creativity. Neighborhood art galleries such as the Red Bank Gallery give children access to art and a chance to see how others put their creativity to work.
Workshops are another good way to expose children to different ways of being creative. If you have the opportunity to attend a kid-friendly woodworking, painting, sculpture, writing or other type of workshop with your children, do yourself a favor – Go! You’ll both have fun and learn something.
Not only should we be exposing children to art and all types of creativity, we should bring those things into the workplace, too. Stimulating innovation is an art all by itself. If you’ve ever head someone say that insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result, then you’ve encountered a situation where creativity is no longer taking place. New ideas drive us forward, and those ideas tend to be stimulated outside of normal practices.
Thanks for reading and for your comment dmkasprzak. You are right – creativity in the workplace is essential to new ideas, to problem solving and to moving forward. Being able to consider any issue from different sides makes it easier to find the best way to proceed. Wouldn’t it be nice if “normal practices” included trying something unexpected?