Lesson Forty-Six: You’re More Creative Than You Think

I’ve sat through more “brainstorming” sessions than I care to remember and I’m convinced that most of them are a complete waste of time. The reason for this is that most people misunderstand the concept of creativity.

My job is to be creative. And I can tell you, the creative process is not coming up with as many ideas as possible, but rather the refinement of a single concept into an unexpected conclusion.

The unexpected is what makes work engaging, delightful, exciting. It’s what makes something “creative”. If you look at the great artists, their work is almost always single-minded.

Everyone knows a Picasso when they see it. While his style changed several times during his career, Picasso went through periods that were deeply consistent variations on a single theme. I suspect that his work was a personal working-through of an idea. He painted again and again until he felt his idea was fully flushed out. Hemingway had a specific style of writing that never changed. Emily Carr painted those same trees again and again. No one would accuse these artists of lacking creativity.

The golden rule of brainstorming is that no idea is a bad idea.While this is a nice sentiment, it’s not true. There are lots of bad ideas.

Effective brainstorming is done by defining the goal prior to beginning. How else can you determine whether an idea is a good one?

Brainstorming can lead to magical and never before considered conclusions. But like Emily Carr’s trees, the idea needs to be built on a solid goal. And then refined and refined and refined.

Creativity is a muscle. Use it and it gets stronger, but don’t and it will stay weak and useless.