Everyday Creative

Introduction

Over the last few years, I’ve asked hundreds of people to describe what comes to mind when they first hear the word ‘creativity’. The following are a small collection of real responses:

• endless possibility, borderless thinking, joyful expression
• fun, freedom, playfulness, curiosity, energy, excitement, colour, vibrancy, authenticity, vulnerability, uniqueness, originality
• letting go of control, hands in the air, challenging the norm, thinking outside the box, living life on your own terms, making yourself and others smile.

I then ask them to describe their relationship to creativity. Here are some of the responses:

• love/hate, long-distance, frayed, tortured
• ‘It’s something I love but don’t prioritise enough in both work and life’; stigma around it being frivolous, indulgent and a waste of time
• ‘I crave the time to dream up new solutions and play with interesting ideas but almost always suppress it because of the constant pressure to deliver.’
• ‘It’s something I know I have but often squander to get the job done. And whenever I do that I’m never satisfied with the result.’
• ‘It’s the thing that brings me the most joy but also the thing I find most difficult to dedicate time to.’

And when I ask them to define their company’s relationship to creativity, I hear this:

• nonexistent, complicated, misunderstood, delusional
• ‘There’s a desire for more creativity but it’s mostly suffocated by process and bureaucracy.’
• ‘It’s encouraged, especially on training days, but ...