Think about this for a second. If Steve Jobs, Bill Gates or Sergey Brin hadn’t lived, I wonder… Would we have had the kind of technology we happily use every day?
If Walt Disney, J.K. Rowling or Dan Brown, hadn’t lived, I wonder… Would we have had the incredible pieces of art and entertainment we are happy to enjoy every day?
Here is my view on creativity...
Everyone is born with a high creative spirit. It’s embedded in our genetic make-up. You can see it clearly in very young children. Each child shapes a unique perspective of life, in their own creative manner, from the first moments they can understand what the world around them is all about.
Some of us are lucky to have people who will nurture our creativity skills since early childhood. People who will motivate us, who will build our self-confidence, who will give us the gift of knowing what is self-expression without limitation. These are the builders of young generations of great minds shaping the world for every one of us.
Have a look at any object you can see right now. Take a look at the desk you have your laptop on, or at the chair you’re sitting on, or the building you are in. Each object came from someone’s momentary sparkle of inspiration, who decided to transform that inspired thought into a physical object. With a bit of creativity, they managed to do it right.
Why do we focus so much on improving your creativity skills?
Creative people are an important pillar in 21 century society. They come with innovative thinking, new perspective, out-of-the-box solutions for problems stuck in repetitive, old patterns.
We tend to think of creative people as those curious, very eccentric or highly sensitive people, which, in a smaller or higher degree, I believe we all are. But creative is everyone of us, each in our own unique way. Together with personal interests and some special skills, each of us forms a set of abilities, which we will refer to as ‘profile ’ in this article.
Your own unique ‘profile ’ defines you as an individual, and sets you apart from other people. You may have some special interest in science, or astronomy, or music, or writing. And to every single one of these the centerpiece is creativity.
In fact, what is creativity? Combining existing patterns in new ways to form new patterns.
At least this is a creative way I can put it.
You may be an astrophysicist, or a teacher, or a musician, or a gardener, or a tailor, or a chef, or a writer, or a researcher. You can be any of these. My point here is that each of these require you to have a minimum of creativity skills.
There is a growing interest – I might say that it’s growing exponentially – towards highly creative people, growing in the same pace with the exponential development of technology in more and more aspects of daily life.
Your creativity skills are more valued today than 3 years ago. And in 3 years’ time your creativity will be valued even more in the business environment.
Next, you can read a very thought-provoking observation the German historian and philosopher of history Oswald Spengler could make in modern society:
“It only takes 2% of the population to create basic ideas that everybody else applies ”.
More and more studies and researchers start focusing on the role creativity plays in modern civilization, both individually and collectively, and they come to conclude that art and creative expression play an important role in the learning process for young people, since early childhood. This translates later on in life as an increased ability to reach much more of their potential, leading to higher chances of success in life.
With this aspect in mind, let’s have a look at a very intriguing study conducted by George Land, an author, speaker, consultant, and general systems scientist. In 1965 he founded a research and consulting institute to study the enhancement of creative performance.
What is so intriguing about his decades-long study on creativity is the end result.
Let’s have a look:
George Land’s Creativity Test
In 1968, George Land distributed among 1,600 5-year-olds a creativity test used by NASA to select innovative engineers and scientists. He re-tested the same children at 10 years of age, and again at 15 years of age.
Test results amongst 5 year olds: 98%
Test results amongst 10 year olds: 30%
Test results amongst 15 year olds: 12%
Same test given to 280,000 adults: 2%
“What we have concluded,” wrote Land, “is that non-creative behavior is learned.
What does this mean for every one of us?
Well, the conclusion is staggering. What we have learned here is that there is a significant influence in the way we are educated – referring to the educational system, in general – which inhibits creativity skills, until they somehow vanish in most people until they reach adulthood.
Now, how can we use this information, especially students reading this, and perhaps, understanding the need for creativity in their future development?
The answer lies within each reader. This information may have triggered within you a will to nurture your creativity skills more for performance enhancement. Or it may have determined you to look further deep into who you are, or what kind of personal development you wish to experience. In any case, you have the answer in knowing how you can put your
creativity skills at work to support you into becoming the kind of person and professional you can only picture yourself now.
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