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CHAPTER 1

CREATIVITY MYTHS

We begin with our own working definition of creativity: the process of experimentation, evaluation, and follow-through that leads to a significant discovery, insight, or contribution. This definition is in stark contrast to many prevailing definitions of creativity that focus only on the final product of creative work and the original genius of the creator. Many of these popular conceptions are based on myths that, we will argue, are simply illusions.

Our definition of creativity, however, implies that the failures of these artists and inventors are every bit as creative as their successes. Indeed, the iconic works that we celebrate as great art would not receive the acclaim they are accorded today without thousands of unknown failures. In this chapter, we will first explore the myths of creativity and then examine our alternate conception of creativity and its foundational elements.

The Muse

For at least three millennia, the prevailing explanation for creativity was divine inspiration or muses—a linguistic heritage that gives us the modern museum. We get this term from Greek mythology, in which there are nine sister goddesses (muses) of music, poetry, arts, and sciences. One of the sisters, Calliope, was the wisest of the muses. She is often depicted holding a tablet in her hand and has been credited by poets from Homer to Dante with inspiration for their work. African, Asian, Nordic, Celtic, Mayan, Persian, and Native American civilizations shared the same tendency to attribute creative insights to divine inspiration. But while contemporary writers may no longer give tribute to Calliope and her eight sisters, the myth of the muse casts a long shadow that to this day colors the way many people view artistic work. We may not attribute creative inspiration to the gods, but it remains tempting to think of creativity in quasi-mystical terms. In his 1835 essay for The New-England Magazine, Victor Hugo wrote, “It seems that poetic inspiration has in it something too sublime for the common nature of man” (p. 204). Even nearly two centuries later, many Westerners still cling to the belief that creativity is a mysterious force bestowed on a special segment of the population at birth. This myth implies that neither environment, will, nor consequence has the power to nurture creativity.

The Creative Type

They have been known by many names: bards, bohemians, tortured artists, absent-minded professors. We all recognize the caricature: head in the clouds or nose in a book, unconcerned with conventional appearance or customs, the “creative type” is simultaneously ridiculed for his or her eccentricity and lauded for his or her genius. They are tropes in fiction, from Sherlock Holmes to Victor Frankenstein, and some people continue to attempt to live out the stereotype of eccentric genius, from the hipster communes of Brooklyn, New York, to the one black sheep at every family reunion. They are defined not only by their capacity to be creative but also in their opposition to the norm. It is a distinction played out over and over again: there are those who can create, and then there are the rest of us. The U.S. Department of Labor even distinguishes between creative and noncreative professions (Burkus, 2014).

But we hope to show you that this distinction is an artificial one. The notion that some people are simply born creative, that the miracle of invention can somehow be attributed to genes, was long ago undermined in a research study of fraternal and identical twins (Reznikoff, Domino, Bridges, & Honeyman, 1973). After testing more than a hundred pairs of twins, researchers found “little consistent or compelling evidence … to support the notion of a genetic component in creativity” (p. 375). Additionally, David Burkus (2014) notes that while it may take supremely confident personalities to engage in the risk taking required for creativity, the skills of creative problem solving can be learned. He asserts, “Even codependent, risk-averse narcissists can be taught how to generate ideas more easily and combine possible outputs to leverage synergy” (p. 7).

Big C and Little c Creativity

Researchers have often drawn distinctions between Big C creativity—the sort of insights that lead to Nobel Prizes or talents that seem to be inborn—and little c creativity—the sort of insights that are merely functional in nature or that are developed through study. Recent research, however, challenges this dichotomy. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart didn’t write the majestic Coronation Mass in C Major without playing some C major scales and arpeggios; and Francis Crick, Maurice Wilkins, and James Watson didn’t conduct groundbreaking research on DNA without first learning the essentials of math and chemistry. The grandiosity of Big C creativity has necessary antecedents—the structure, hard work, and many mistakes that are the stuff of little c creativity.

Creativity involves a complex interaction among creators, products, and audiences. Creators can appear to be larger-than-life figures, sometimes elevated to their status based on the evaluations of their contemporaries but, more likely, viewed as creative superstars only through the rearview mirror of history. Nobel Prizes, for example, are most often awarded for work that took place decades prior (Cima, 2015). The young researcher laboring away through the tedium of trial and error that is the essence of creativity doesn’t seem particularly intimidating. “I could do that,” their colleagues remark. When the same researcher is delivering the Nobel Lecture in formal attire before Swedish royalty, colleagues stand in awed reverence, muttering, “I could never do that.” Making rock stars out of Big C creators threatens society’s creative enterprise. While the recognition may be nice, the impact is the opposite of that intended.

Architect and engineer I. M. Pei created iconic buildings ranging from the Louvre Pyramid to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, but few people remember the names of the engineers (and carpenters, surveyors, plumbers, electricians, and scores more craftspeople) who brought Pei’s vision to life. Novel visions require novel approaches to implementation. Pei’s visions depend on the similarly visionary work of those who helped the buildings leap from the architect’s plans to three-dimensional structures. Some of Picasso’s most recognizable work, such as the untitled giant horse sculpture in Chicago, required the collaboration of others who could transform the master’s conception into reality. For example, the engineers and craftspeople at American Bridge Company, which had never previously done this sort of artistic work, applied their knowledge from one domain, bridge building, to a completely new domain, the cutting, welding, transportation, and installation of Picasso’s new work (Srivastava, 2014).

Scholar Mark A. Runco (2014) argues there is no evidence for this dichotomy and, more important, that the emphasis on Big C creativity undermines the essential work of little c—that is, the foundation for application and dissemination of the Big C ideas. He argues:

Little c creativity is meaningful in and of itself. This is in part because it is not really extricable from Big C creativity. Little c creativity may develop into Big C creativity. Big C creativity involves things that lead to social recognition, but the creativity results from the same process that is involved in little c creativity. (p. 132)

We reject this dichotomy not only because it is inaccurate but also because it is pernicious, undermining the contributions we all must make to create a future that is brighter, safer, and more enjoyable than yesterday.

Completely Original Work

One of the worst epithets that can be directed to one’s competitors in the creative realm is that their work is merely derivative. As Blaise Pascal (1910) said, “The greater intellect one has, the more originality one finds in men” (p. 10). Ella Wheeler Wilcox (1899) added, “A poor original is better than a good imitation” (p. 290). These ideas are the basis of much of the academic distinctions between innovation and creativity, with the latter representing original ideas and the former derivative. But Nina Paley (2010) has argued that everything is derivative. By the logic of the distinction between original and derivative work, the invention of the wheel was creative, but every other form of land transportation since then, from the horse-drawn wagon to a Formula One race car, is derivative; the aircraft that flew for twelve seconds at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, under the direction of the Wright brothers was creative, but the Space Shuttle was derivative; choral tones identified by Pythagoras three millennia ago and harmonies played on didgeridoos on the Australian continent more than a thousand years ago were creative, while the works of Ludwig van Beethoven were derivative. Poppycock! By denigrating the creative efforts of today and dismissing them as derivative, critics go down the reductionist rat hole that anything since the Big Bang was derivative and not worthy of being called creative.

Innovation and creativity are often distinguished from one another, with creativity representing the landmark insights and innovation representing merely the application of creative insights to contemporary challenges. Whether it is the expansion of the color palette and the use of perspective in visual arts; variations in meter and rhyme in poetry; dropping the barrier for the audience in theater; the representation of statistical data in multiple dimensions; or the conception of time and space as relative, these remarkably creative endeavors are, when pedants argue about the term, merely innovative. We find this distinction and its implied hierarchy to be useless. There is innovation in every creative enterprise.

If we accept the premise that creativity is vital for the future of our families and of the planet, then recognizing the creative spirit in all of us is cause for deep reflection on our responsibility to apply our creative gifts to the challenges before us. We believe that creativity is within the grasp of all of us—every student, colleague, neighbor, and friend. This universalist approach is not meant to make people feel good, but to challenge them. Every time we defer to the Big C version of creativity, we let ourselves off the hook by employing a false logic that says if you didn’t write the Magna Carta, Declaration of Independence, or U.S. Constitution, you can’t improve democracy in creative ways; if you didn’t demonstrate for women’s suffrage, you can’t make a creative contribution to women’s rights; if you didn’t write a symphony or invent the twelve-tone scale, you can’t sing your child a creative lullaby. We are all responsible for and capable of innovating to extend and improve on ideas to create solutions.

The Artistic Personality

The popular Myers-Briggs personality test claims the ability to sort people into sixteen distinct personality types and is used throughout the business, government, education, and nonprofit communities to profile potential candidates and employees. Despite widespread adoption, this theory of personality has never been tested and proved scientifically (Burnett, 2013), and the scientific literature on the test challenges the essential elements of any test—reliability (consistency of results) and validity (testing what we think we are testing; Eveleth, 2013).

Worse still is the commonly cited left- and right-brain dynamic. This is the staple of many so-called “brain research” seminars that are, unfortunately, about neither the brain nor research. But the story of the left-right brain dichotomy is so pervasive that it holds a place in the pantheon of folk wisdom. People who are “right brained” are supposedly impulsive, emotional, and also more creative, and those who are “left brained” are more rational, logical, and realistic. Or is it the other way around? The story has been retold so many times with breathless enthusiasm that it is difficult to keep track. It doesn’t matter, because the theory does not stand up to scrutiny.

There are several problems with this model, not least of which is that it has been thoroughly debunked (Iezzi, 2015). While it is true that some control of speech is localized in the right hemisphere, the brain is a much more complicated machine than the hemispheric theory suggests. The left and right portions of our brains don’t operate in isolation, but instead work together to form our thoughts and ideas. For instance, when examined in a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) device, our right brain lights up when noticing the general shape of an object, whereas the left portion of our brain is focused on assessing the details of the object. Between the two, we automatically recognize the difference between an orange and our neighbor Frank.

As with many myths, the idea contains a kernel of truth. The left side of our cerebral cortex controls the right side of our body and vice versa. But that is where science stops and mythology begins. Those people who favor one side over the other, as in left-handedness versus right-handedness, are also distinguished by certain aptitudes, according to the theory. But hand preference is not an indication of favoring one side of the brain versus the other (Kosslyn & Miller, 2013). Indeed there have been some very interesting evolutionary theories that seek to explain the phenomenon of hand preference, but none of them show any correlation with hemisphere preference (Faurie & Raymond, 2005).

Another example of analysis linking brain function with personality is the five-factor model of personality (Digman, 1990), which measures five attributes: (1) openness to experience, (2) conscientiousness, (3) extraversion, (4) agreeableness, and (5) neuroticism. When creative capacity has been tested against these five factors, only openness to experience showed any correlation to creativity (Sawyer, 2012). The results of these tests show that the ability to be creative is not limited to any set of predefined personality types or characteristics.

Even age should not be considered a limiting factor for the development of creativity, despite the common assertion that young children are creative but adolescents and adults have lost their creative impulses due to poor schooling. While it is true that the human brain does lose some plasticity once we pass the age of twenty-five, the benefits of the experience and expertise we earn as we grow older often counteract these effects. A cross-cultural study from the University of Arkansas considered 420 literary creators culled from history of Western, Near Eastern, and Asian literatures, and while they found that poets started writing at an earlier age than prose writers, the researchers found no correlations between imaginative and informative output as the population aged (Simonton, 1975). For every Galileo and Jack Kerouac, who produced some of their most startling work at an early age, there are examples like William Shakespeare, who produced what are widely acknowledged as some of his greatest works late in his career; Claude Monet, who picked up his craft late in life and whose distinctive style was influenced by his diminishing eyesight; and Elliott Carter, who produced great 21st century music in his nineties and conducted world premieres after his one-hundredth birthday. This reality stands in stark contrast to the legion of YouTube creativity gurus, led by Sir Ken Robinson (2006), whose popular YouTube video and accompanying books argue that while children are innately creative, the spark is dimmed or extinguished by our woeful education systems. Similarly, Ugur Sak and June Maker (2006) claim that mathematical creativity decreases as students progress in schooling. But the evidence we will present in the remainder of this book shows that people can engage in the process of creativity at any age.

Elements of Creativity

As we noted previously, in contrast to these various myths, we understand creativity to be the process of experimentation, evaluation, and follow-through that leads to a significant discovery, insight, or contribution. The evidence is clear that creativity is a process, and a single product—the breakthrough scientific paper, the magnificent sculpture, the soul-inspiring bars of music—is not the result of a single moment of inspiration, but of processes that included many considered and discarded ideas (Grant, 2016; Johnson, 2010). Outlining this process provides the foundation for understanding not only what creativity is, but how it can be nurtured. It also provides insight into how creativity is, however unintentionally, undermined in classrooms, boardrooms, halls of government, and councils of industry. In particular, creativity is undermined when educational, business, and governmental organizations punish errors. While leaders often talk a good game about how they value mistakes and learn from them, the prevailing evaluation mechanisms for students and for adults is based upon the average—that is, the sum of every observation divided by the number of observations. In this system, we do not value mistakes and failure, but systematically punish them. Every mistake of January is remembered and calculated into the final evaluation in December.

Experimentation

The centrality of process to creativity is as important in the sciences as in the arts. Experimentation is the initiating element in this process. Consider Archimedes’s contribution to physics. He is said to have discovered the nature of mass as he noticed the displacement of water as he bathed in ancient Greece. The tale goes that, having successfully reckoned that the volume of an object could be determined by its displacement of water, he leapt from the bathtub and ran naked through the town shouting “Eureka!” or “I have found it!” This tale, enshrined in the eureka moment of discovery by scientists and artists through the ages, suffers from a fundamental flaw. Speculation about the private lives of figures in ancient history is fraught with peril, but of one thing we can be fairly certain: this wasn’t Archimedes’s first bath. It certainly was not the first time that he had attempted to estimate the volume of objects—in this case, the king’s crown. He arrived at this realization after many failed hypotheses and experiments. The eureka myth gives the illusion that creativity is about the moment of discovery, rather than the long process that preceded it.

Emphasizing experimentation means that Thomas Edison’s 9,999 failures were as important as the success that followed. We do not see the experimental canvases that Leonardo da Vinci rejected and destroyed. We do not get to wonder at the casts that Auguste Rodin smashed. But that doesn’t mean they didn’t exist and embody important experimental work that influenced the creations we know today.

Evaluation

The second element of our definition is evaluation. Scientific insights are achieved through a process of review, criticism, evaluation, and ultimately, validation. Creative insights, likewise, are not universally accepted but emerge over time after a process of public evaluation, deliberation, and debate. For an extreme example, the 1913 premiere of Igor Stravinsky’s ballet The Rite of Spring in Paris inspired such spirited debate and evaluation as to its creative value that it included shoe throwing and fist fights (Pasler, 1986). Vigorous debate, dissent, and discussion are essential parts of the creative process. The melee of the Paris premiere of The Rite of Spring may not be a model of civil discourse, but it does illustrate the fact that conclusions regarding creative contributions are the result of a process of evaluation.

Perhaps it is not a coincidence that the global summit on climate change occurred in the same city in 2015. Amidst the creative solutions in future meetings in Paris and around the globe will be debate, dissent, evaluation, and perhaps even some shoe throwing. In the century to come, society will be best served not by remembering the proclamations of world leaders, but the contentious process that just might lead to creative solutions that will give generations to come a better chance at survival.

The critics of creative breakthroughs are often cast as villains or buffoons, but we must not be afraid to be critical when we evaluate new ideas. What if the shoe throwers of Paris led Stravinsky to more expressive compositions? What if Einstein’s critics, when the general theory of relativity was posited, were essential to the special theory of relativity? What if Johann Sebastian Bach’s early critics led him to be a better composer? Reflect on feedback you have received over the past year, particularly on creative endeavors, but also on any attempt at excellence. Which feedback led to your own breakthrough performances—the superficial and laudatory or the critical and evaluative?

Follow-Through

The third element of our definition of the creativity process is follow-through. Creators not only think great thoughts, they act. James Madison did not just think about democracy; he wrote the Constitution. Maya Angelou not only reflected on her childhood experiences, she put pen to paper, gave voice to the voiceless, and famously announced to the world that she knew why the caged bird sings. The implications for teaching and learning creativity are clear. Follow-through demands a level of discipline, organization, and focus that in popular mythology are the antithesis of the creative genius who is undisciplined, disorganized, and scatterbrained. That stereotype may be part of traditional definitions of creativity, but it does not accord with ours.

Creativity is not merely the idea itself, but the process that leads to the idea—the continual cycle of evaluation that makes the idea better and the follow-through that gives the idea endurance over time. Consider the common practice of brainstorming. It is a good bet that every reader has at some time been encouraged to generate creative new ideas through brainstorming focused around this primary rule: no judgment or evaluation—just get as many ideas, no matter how improbable they might be—on the wall. This was a splendid idea in 1946 for advertising executive Alex Faickney Osborn. Unburdened by evidence, Osborn (1963) dominated the creative consulting industry with his books and seminars about brainstorming. Although there were signs of trouble with studies starting in 1960 that establish this type of brainstorming as ineffective (Gobble, 2014; Mongeau, 1993; Orme, 2014), the enthusiasm of Osborn’s disciples remained undiminished.

Well into the 21st century, high-priced consultants with Ivy League pedigrees continue to suggest that strategic planning and other group processes begin with brainstorming. But the truth is that this kind of brainstorming is not only ineffective, it is counterproductive. This process buries important ideas and wastes time and energy on ideas that are popular, perhaps even funny, but are soon forgotten and never implemented. But tell educators, business leaders, or nonprofit executives that traditional brainstorming is an ineffective waste of time and resources, and you might be greeted with hostility or bewilderment. Although follow-through is an essential element of creativity, activities such as brainstorming offer a comfortable but futile alternative to follow-through. As amateur musicians, we would much prefer to think about the music rather than practice it. As writers we prefer languorous discussions of ideas to the more difficult challenges of putting those ideas into prose that readers will find useful. Creativity without follow-through is Picasso without the canvas, Mozart without the orchestra, John Locke, Thomas Jefferson, and Nelson Mandela without societal and governmental structures with which to implement their ideas. In sum, creativity is not just about thinking or being, but about doing.

Our Creative Responsibility

Nearly every professional development session for teachers and school administrators includes an oration about the importance of creativity as a 21st century skill, but these educators routinely return home to face the reality of a system that undermines the creative efforts of students and themselves. Despite the rhetoric favoring creativity, the message teachers hear is, “We’ll get to creativity—just as soon as we raise our test scores.”

Even advocates of creativity undermine their case when they refer to creativity as a “noncognitive” skill (Gutman & Schoon, 2013). This wholly inaccurate understanding of creativity sends the message that creativity is a frill—something that competes with and is at the other end of the cognition continuum from “real” thinking and learning.

One reason that creativity myths are so prevalent may be that they remove the responsibility of being creative from individuals, teachers, and organizations and lay the onus on nature. People may feel that if creativity is the exclusive domain of the loner scientist or the eccentric aesthete, then they have no duty or ability to try to be creative themselves—believing that they either possess a certain creative quality from birth or they do not. What we must understand is that creativity is not a trait. It is a set of behaviors that can be developed through practice. Creativity is, to some degree, a way of life. But it is also a responsibility. Creativity is not just the way that the great geniuses of the past have enriched and given meaning to our culture, it is an obligation we all have to enrich and give meaning to our own lives and community. We hope that by exploring and explaining each of the seven main traits and modes of thought that support creativity in the following chapters, we can help in some small measure guide you, your students, and your colleagues to a more fulfilling and creative life.

CREATIVITY REFLECTIONS

1. Identify at least one thing you thought about creativity that changed after you read this chapter, and discuss with a partner or small group. If you have not changed your thinking, consider at least one or two ways in which your thinking has been challenged or reinforced. You might want to consult your responses to figure I.1 (page 8).

2. Identify specific sources of creative inspiration that you find most helpful. These might be nature, music, silence, visual images, or a thousand other sources. Just select two or three, and resolve to make time and space for those sources of creative inspiration this week.

3. Think of someone you regard as an exceptionally creative person—either a personal acquaintance, someone you have observed from afar, or an historical (or even fictional) person. What are ways that you and your creative exemplar are similar? How are you different?

4. What are the resources within you—your experiences, deeply held beliefs, exceptional moments of learning and insight—that you can use to open the doors to creativity?

5. You have probably witnessed situations in your professional career when experts disagreed. How did you and your colleagues deal with divergent and strongly held views? What do your most promising experiences in sorting out alternative expert views suggest for how you can analyze divergent views to promote student creativity?