Maslow on Management

Notes on Creativeness

Creativeness is correlated with the ability to withstand the lack of structure, the lack of future, the lack of predictability, of control, the tolerance for ambiguity, for planlessness.

We can learn from the T-group experiences that creativeness is correlated with the ability to withstand the lack of structure, the lack of future, lack of predictability, of control, the tolerance for ambiguity, for planlessness.

Here-now creativeness is dependent on this kind of ability to forget about the future, to improvise in the present, to give full attention to the present, e.g., to be able fully to listen or to observe.

This general ability to give up future, structure, to give up control and predictability, is also characteristic of loafing, or of the ability to enjoy—to say it in another way—which itself is also essentially unmotivated, purposeless, without goal, and therefore without future. That is to say, in order to be able to listen totally, in order to be able to immerse oneself, to be all there in the here-now, one must be able to give up the future in the sense of being able to enjoy, to loaf, to saunter instead of purposefully walking, to take one’s ease, in a word—to play (94).

Note, also, that the self-actualizing subjects can enjoy mystery, futurelessness, ambiguity, lack of structure. They can be contrasted with Kurt Goldstein’s brain-injured subjects ...