Even age should not be considered a limiting factor for the development of creativity, despite the common assertion that young children are creative but adolescents and adults have lost their creative impulses due to poor schooling. While it is true that the human brain does lose some plasticity once we pass the age of twenty-five, the benefits of the experience and expertise we earn as we grow older often counteract these effects. A cross-cultural study from the University of Arkansas considered 420 literary creators culled from history of Western, Near Eastern, and Asian literatures, and while they found that poets started writing at an earlier age than prose writers, the researchers found no correlations between imaginative and informative output as the population aged (Simonton, 1975). For every Galileo and Jack Kerouac, who produced some of their most startling work at an early age, there are examples like William Shakespeare, who produced what are widely acknowledged as some of his greatest works late in his career; Claude Monet, who picked up his craft late in life and whose distinctive style was influenced by his diminishing eyesight; and Elliott Carter, who produced great 21st century music in his nineties and conducted world premieres after his one-hundredth birthday. This reality stands in stark contrast to the legion of YouTube creativity gurus, led by Sir Ken Robinson (2006), whose popular YouTube video and accompanying books argue that while children are innately creative, the spark is dimmed or extinguished by our woeful education systems. Similarly, Ugur Sak and June Maker (2006) claim that mathematical creativity decreases as students progress in schooling. But the evidence we will present in the remainder of this book shows that people can engage in the process of creativity at any age.
Elements of Creativity
As we noted previously, in contrast to these various myths, we understand creativity to be the process of experimentation, evaluation, and follow-through that leads to a significant discovery, insight, or contribution. The evidence is clear that creativity is a process, and a single product—the breakthrough scientific paper, the magnificent sculpture, the soul-inspiring bars of music—is not the result of a single moment of inspiration, but of processes that included many considered and discarded ideas (Grant, 2016; Johnson, 2010). Outlining this process provides the foundation for understanding not only what creativity is, but how it can be nurtured. It also provides insight into how creativity is, however unintentionally, undermined in classrooms, boardrooms, halls of government, and councils of industry. In particular, creativity is undermined when educational, business, and governmental organizations punish errors. While leaders often talk a good game about how they value mistakes and learn from them, the prevailing evaluation mechanisms for students and for adults is based upon the average—that is, the sum of every observation divided by the number of observations. In this system, we do not value mistakes and failure, but systematically punish them. Every mistake of January is remembered and calculated into the final evaluation in December.
Experimentation
The centrality of process to creativity is as important in the sciences as in the arts. Experimentation is the initiating element in this process. Consider Archimedes’s contribution to physics. He is said to have discovered the nature of mass as he noticed the displacement of water as he bathed in ancient Greece. The tale goes that, having successfully reckoned that the volume of an object could be determined by its displacement of water, he leapt from the bathtub and ran naked through the town shouting “Eureka!” or “I have found it!” This tale, enshrined in the eureka moment of discovery by scientists and artists through the ages, suffers from a fundamental flaw. Speculation about the private lives of figures in ancient history is fraught with peril, but of one thing we can be fairly certain: this wasn’t Archimedes’s first bath. It certainly was not the first time that he had attempted to estimate the volume of objects—in this case, the king’s crown. He arrived at this realization after many failed hypotheses and experiments. The eureka myth gives the illusion that creativity is about the moment of discovery, rather than the long process that preceded it.
Emphasizing experimentation means that Thomas Edison’s 9,999 failures were as important as the success that followed. We do not see the experimental canvases that Leonardo da Vinci rejected and destroyed. We do not get to wonder at the casts that Auguste Rodin smashed. But that doesn’t mean they didn’t exist and embody important experimental work that influenced the creations we know today.
Evaluation
The second element of our definition is evaluation. Scientific insights are achieved through a process of review, criticism, evaluation, and ultimately, validation. Creative insights, likewise, are not universally accepted but emerge over time after a process of public evaluation, deliberation, and debate. For an extreme example, the 1913 premiere of Igor Stravinsky’s ballet The Rite of Spring in Paris inspired such spirited debate and evaluation as to its creative value that it included shoe throwing and fist fights (Pasler, 1986). Vigorous debate, dissent, and discussion are essential parts of the creative process. The melee of the Paris premiere of The Rite of Spring may not be a model of civil discourse, but it does illustrate the fact that conclusions regarding creative contributions are the result of a process of evaluation.
Perhaps it is not a coincidence that the global summit on climate change occurred in the same city in 2015. Amidst the creative solutions in future meetings in Paris and around the globe will be debate, dissent, evaluation, and perhaps even some shoe throwing. In the century to come, society will be best served not by remembering the proclamations of world leaders, but the contentious process that just might lead to creative solutions that will give generations to come a better chance at survival.
The critics of creative breakthroughs are often cast as villains or buffoons, but we must not be afraid to be critical when we evaluate new ideas. What if the shoe throwers of Paris led Stravinsky to more expressive compositions? What if Einstein’s critics, when the general theory of relativity was posited, were essential to the special theory of relativity? What if Johann Sebastian Bach’s early critics led him to be a better composer? Reflect on feedback you have received over the past year, particularly on creative endeavors, but also on any attempt at excellence. Which feedback led to your own breakthrough performances—the superficial and laudatory or the critical and evaluative?
Follow-Through
The third element of our definition of the creativity process is follow-through. Creators not only think great thoughts, they act. James Madison did not just think about democracy; he wrote the Constitution. Maya Angelou not only reflected on her childhood experiences, she put pen to paper, gave voice to the voiceless, and famously announced to the world that she knew why the caged bird sings. The implications for teaching and learning creativity are clear. Follow-through demands a level of discipline, organization, and focus that in popular mythology are the antithesis of the creative genius who is undisciplined, disorganized, and scatterbrained. That stereotype may be part of traditional definitions of creativity, but it does not accord with ours.
Creativity is not merely the idea itself, but the process that leads to the idea—the continual cycle of evaluation that makes the idea better and the follow-through that gives the idea endurance over time. Consider the common practice of brainstorming. It is a good bet that every reader has at some time been encouraged to generate creative new ideas through brainstorming focused around this primary rule: no judgment or evaluation—just get as many ideas, no matter how improbable they might be—on the wall. This was a splendid idea in 1946 for advertising executive Alex Faickney Osborn. Unburdened by evidence, Osborn (1963) dominated the creative consulting industry with his books and seminars about brainstorming. Although there were signs of trouble with studies starting in 1960 that establish this type of brainstorming as ineffective (Gobble, 2014; Mongeau, 1993; Orme, 2014), the enthusiasm of Osborn’s disciples remained undiminished.
Well into the 21st century, high-priced consultants with Ivy League pedigrees continue to suggest that strategic planning and other group processes begin with brainstorming. But the truth is that this kind of brainstorming