Creativity's influence on other soft skills

On its own, creativity is an incredibly valuable skill. It is applicable and useful for every single human being, in every single profession, regardless of their current point in life. However, creativity is also a fundamental skill to have because it can serve as a foundation for other more specialized soft skills.

One of the skills that relies on the groundwork established by creativity is communication. As I explained in my previous post, a big part of creativity’s importance is the idea that it allows you and your work to stand out from the millions of other individuals trying to do the same thing as you. Throughout its history, humanity has not been monotonous and has historically fought against regimes attempting to impose monotony. Therefore, this individuality should be reflected in everything you do, including communication.

In terms of communication, the most difficult aspect is finding the delicate balance between your communications being unique and being easily understandable. Understandable does not only mean comprehensible, but more importantly that the points and arguments you are making have an impact on the audience. In one of her blog posts about communication skills, Sydney March writes, “Although we may speak the same language as someone else, [it] does not necessarily mean that the interpretation is the same” (2018).

My explanation of creativity presented in previous posts is essentially the idea that creativity is a manifestation of each individual’s unique life experiences. For this reason, individuals embody creativity in very different ways. Thus, in order for one’s communications to be universally understood, they must take into consideration the common threads that link everyone’s creativity together.

According to Sydney’s blog post, this consideration is one of the principle elements of effective communication skills. Anyone who was the intent of communicating something to another individual must first be aware that certain concepts or phrases included in the communication will not evoke the same internal response in the audience that it does in the communicator themself. After all, creativity is useless if your intentions behind it cannot be understood by those consuming it.