This post is the first of three posts to present some creativity-related beliefs from music and how to transfer them to the world business. While I am neither a professional musician nor a business consultant or a remarkably creative person these ideas might be inspiring for some of you.
“Some people are creative, some are not!” – “I’m just not a creative kind of person.” – “You cannot learn creativity, either you are creative or you’re not.”
I have heard these statements dozens of times, be it in dark and muggy rehearsal rooms, clean and flashy offices or in crowded lecture halls. While there is a certain truth in the notion that some people are more creative than others I believe that certain elements of “being creative” can be learned, applied and mastered. While this belief originates in my musical passion as a casual pianist and songwriter I think the principles can also be transferred to the world of business. In my view, the effective use of creativity can be achieved through a three-stage process; its steps are “foster”, “capture” and “communicate”. This post presents step I – “foster”.
Foster creativity – Expose yourself to stimulus
In his book “On Intelligence” Jeff Hawkins defines creativity simply as “making predictions by analogy”. It is “mixing and matching patterns of everything you’ve ever experienced or come to know in your life”. He also gives advice on how to foster creativity, namely by letting your mind wander in order to find “a pattern that is analogous to the problem you are working on”. While this is advice on how to increase the probability of a successful match you can also try to foster creativity by exposing yourself to different stimuli (or “patterns” in the language of Hawkins).
Fostering creativity in music
Improvising jazz musicians achieve a delicate balance between developing an idea and reacting to “input” from the rhythm section and other fellow musicians thereby creating whole new melodies. One of my favorite examples is pianist Keith Jarrett who used the gong of the Cologne Opera as a starting point for his famous improvised "Koln Concerts". When we are creating a new song in our band we usually jam for one or two hours and keep reacting to each other’s different inputs or “stimuli”. Only then we arrive at a song idea that is really “in the pocket”. In a musical context emotions can serve as a huge stimulus for songwriting or composition too. Use them!
Fostering creativity in business
Exposing yourself to stimulus is rather straightforward in a business context. I love to read books, go to conferences, read my twitter feed or just talk to people (or brainstorm). In every one of these instances a myriad of ideas are generated and immediately thrown into the paper bin. But from time to time an idea is really good and useful. In choosing the topic of books, conferences or talks I believe there is an inverse relationship between “probability of creative transfer” and “innovativeness of new idea”. The farther away from your original discipline a topic, the harder it is to transfer insights to your domain of work. However, when it happens, chances are that it will seem quite innovative. As always, try to strike a health balance!
A word of caution
Exposing yourself to stimulus can be quite a lengthy, fragmented and time-consuming activity. I remember leaving our band rehearsal cellar after four hours of intense jamming without the emergence of a single idea worth this designation. I am quite sure most of us had the same experience with lengthy brainstorming sessions in a business context. Therefore, the most important bit of advice is: Have fun! There are so many ways of exposing yourself to stimulus, do not waste your time with discouraging activities. Then, sooner or later a decent idea will come to your mind. What you do then, is the topic of my next post!
What do you think of these ideas? Write a comment!
I am currently writing part II, follow me on Twitter and I will let you know when it is done.
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