The often-misunderstood label: creative
Many companies over the past couple decades have successfully brought the notion of design thinking to the forefront of business minded people. No longer can something simply do what it says it does. It must now be the best, most ground-breaking, or far-fetched futuristic concept no one has ever imagined. They’ve branded the idea that creative led ideation drives innovation, unique thinking, and out-of-the-box solutioning. They are not completely wrong. Creative thought, paired with other attributes certainly can result in all of that. Still, all these ideas associated to a creative’s magic make the executive suite drool over the prospects that only those mythical dreamers can deliver the next big thing.
OK… So that’s not entirely fair and probably an oversimplification of any leadership team. The label of being a creative has shifted in the minds of many people, resulting in the misuse and/or misunderstanding of the term. There once was a time where creatives were not a product or a label but a mindset. Especially now, with the worlds’ focus on creativity, there is an opportunity to push what it means to be creative into a more accurate and/or appropriate understanding. To find a way to help people comprehend that being creative isn’t only about being artistic or seeing things in a magical way. Instead, that being a creative is learning how to fail, how to put your neck out there, it’s feeling comfortable with being the only one doing something, and waiting for whatever comes. Whatever that may be. Wrong, right, or something different. Being creative is embracing the unknown or uncertain because you believe in what will eventually come out of the fog on the horizon.
Like many of you, I grew up drawing scribbles on a blank sheet of paper in my early childhood. Crayons and markers rarely stayed within the lines of the coloring books my parents fed me to keep quiet. At that age, I didn’t care that the grass should be green, and the sun should be yellow. Hell, if I wanted the sea to be purple and the clouds blue — that’s what I did. The notion of right and wrong didn’t have control over my decisioning in that blissful world of mindless fun. In my adult years I learned there would be consequences to my decisions and that to avoid the negative results, I should analyze, predict, and anticipate. I learned to conform. I learned to play it safe. This conditioning and sculpting, as we grow into our adulthood and careers, slowly chips away at our bravery, resilience, and willingness to step out of line.
This is the difference between whether a person is a creative or not. Herein lies the culprit of our collective misunderstanding around what the label of creative ultimately is and to whom it applies. It’s not that they are able to draw, create a limerick, or magically conjure innovation. Somehow, some way, those that are seen by the world as creatives have retained the illusive willingness to be different. But not just be briefly different and then ultimately change to conform… but be different and defend it. They welcome the discomfort. They have the desire to challenge if what is wrong is actually right. They have found a way to hold onto that childlike curiosity and confidence that compels them to ask, “why not”. They are in a constant battle to understand, create, and combine to manifest the new and unique. This is not something that exclusively lives in the world of those that typically carry it in their titles (Creative Directors, Designers, Artists, Musicians, etc.).
Now I’m not suggesting that everyone throw caution to the wind, forget the boundaries and frameworks that have been established for one reason or the next. Far from it. Instead, we must acknowledge that those constraints exist. Guidelines, best practices, and formulas are foundations to be built upon. They are not cages; they are starting points. But the challenge I’m advocating for is to push and pull on each and every one of those structures and test their actual limits. Attempt to find your own comfort with the uncomfortable. Embrace the willingness to see between the lines and dream of something different. Listen to that child’s voice that is still echoing inside of us. Whether your creative-ness manifests as simply allowing more time than usual for something to come to fruition, or just suggesting to look at the numbers differently, maybe something as easy as allowing yourself to contemplate the perspectives of others — each has the same mystical ability to give space for something new and unique.
The barrier to being a creative is not impenetrable. We can all be creatives in our own way. If we make the conscious effort in our own daily lives to stretch ourselves, we can transform the label of being creative back from an isolating and exclusive label to an inclusive, all-encompassing mindset that drives for new thinking in everything we do. A return to a universal creative mindset utilized by all.
