Creativity: Not by Design or Collaboration

Is the modern trend by many corporations to encourage their workforces to be innovative, often forcing groups into brainstorming or scheduled ‘creativity’ sessions, in fact the antithesis of creativity?

A small group of academics at the Institute of Personality Assessment and Research (IPAR), University of California, Berkeley in the late 1950s enlisted 40 highly successful and world famous architects for an extraordinary set of tests in a rigorous scientific study which aimed to discover: what makes someone creative?

Although all the subjects were male, the study results were of remarkable value nevertheless. Inexplicably forgotten, that study was revived by Pierluigi Serraino in a new book ‘The Creative Architect: Inside the Great Midcentury Personality Study’.

Creativity: Being Oneself

The Berkeley research team's leader, Donald MacKinnon, commented later, "The process of creativity is not easily come by, nor are all of its phases easy to endure." The architects turned out to share a list of not-so-surprising characteristics – assertive, confident, inventive – but perhaps some surprising ones too – they were solitary, determined, reliant on intuition, impulsive and skeptical. They were also unafraid of their emotions.

MacKinnon also declared that, "Discipline and self-control are necessary if one is ever to be truly creative." But MacKinnon went on to note of his high-achieving, imaginative and disciplined subjects that "spontaneity and freedom are no less essential."

10 Traits of Highly Creative People

• Driven.
• Independent.
• Solitary.
• Assertive.
• Intuitive.
• Spontaneous.
• Open to own emotions.
• Courageous.
• Questioning.
• Problem-solving (but the solutions always have to be elegant).

Both Serraino and MacKinnon believe that we are all born creative; unfortunately – and tragically for our sense of self – it mostly gets knocked out of us once we join the bigger world, at school. "Then you start relinquishing yourself."

As a then-90-year-old Frank Lloyd Wright told television interviewer Mike Wallace in 1957 when he was asked about death, age and immortality: "Youth is a quality and if you have it, you never lose it."

Focus and Frustration

As for the creative process, Serraino lists the five recognized five steps: preparation, concentrated efforts, incubation, insight, and verification or production.

• That is, first, there is the training or the acquisition of skills over a long period.
• Then, there is the ability to focus hard and long on a challenge or problem as it presents itself.
• Frustration follows and the true creator may often withdraw for a period, or procrastinate. Meanwhile the unconscious gets to work.
• Insight – or the eureka moment – is reached.
• Finally, in the verification phase, the creator must be able to produce his or her idea or solution, through his or her own persistence but also because circumstances and their environment permit it.

The subjects of the study were able to sense problems that others couldn't see, "a type of intuition in making connections that few have,” as Serraino notes. They did not go for early answers either, preferring to push themselves on to a solution that was original and "both true and elegant".

MacKinnon also deduced that "creativity is the reassembling of existing knowledge … bringing together concepts and ideas routinely thought to be far apart."

An interesting YouTube video on the subject of creativity by the English comedian John Cleese (below) also highlights the importance of being able to dedicate time to carefree contemplation, and it is within this ‘Open’ frame of mind that inspiration occurs.

It is also important to be able to switch to a ‘Closed’ form of mind where creative ideas are developed, refined, and prolonged until their final form is elegant and complete. As Cleese observes, “Creativity is not a talent; it is a way of operating.”

A Taste for Solitude

The kind of teamwork (as opposed to collaboration) pushed in workplaces today is the very antithesis of creativity. "Teamwork is a buzzword that gives a false sense of participation … It is inconsistent with creativity," Serraino has stated, "The findings of my fieldwork research were exactly the same. People do not want to hear it, but that is the case." What's more, if pushed into teams or groups, Serraino writes, "[creative people] were prone to lose interest in the task at hand and then underperform".

MacKinnon believed that creatives set extremely high goals for themselves and these can conflict with those set for a group. He argued that "good group dynamics and smooth interpersonal relations" and the "nurturing of the creative talent" were incompatible values and goals.

"Creativity is at the margins of the norm," says Serraino. "When [creatives] are forced into the norm, they become less invested. Their work is downgraded."

I believe we have all seen these traits in colleagues at times. Whilst individuals were famously regarded as ‘creative’ by their managers, those same managers often expressed frustration with the same individuals for being unable to meet deadlines, for frequently changing the design of their inventions, for being unwilling or unable to conduct harmonious relations with others, or being unable to foster improved creativity in others within department. Quite simply, these people work to the beat of their own drum.

Note that a 25-year follow-up study by IPAR allowed the investigators to conclude that being productive into advanced age depends on their commitment and drive, ‘overlearned’ skills (continuously seeking to improve their own competence), aesthetic sensibility, ability to be a good salesman, and ability to delegate responsibility.

These last two attributes demonstrate that a pragmatic capacity is necessary to accept that others must inevitably be recruited to bring the work of the creative to fruition, despite often being self centred.

The Courage to be Oneself

“The most salient mark of a creative person, the central trait is … the courage to question what is generally accepted; the courage to be destructive in order that something better can be constructed; the courage to think thoughts unlike anyone-else's … the courage to follow one's intuition rather than logic … the courage to stand aside from the collectivity and in conflict with it if necessary, the courage to become and to be oneself.”

If I look at the history of the seismic industry I can easily identify several names who weren’t necessarily the first to conceive the idea behind their path to fame, but whose fanatical, resolute and single-minded dedication shaped the foundations of everything we do today: For example, Jon Claerbout from Stanford University and wave-theoretic seismic migration, Leon Thomsen from BP Amaco and anisotropic seismic processing and imaging, or Rune Tenghamn from PGS and multisensor streamers. Many years after their work first received acknowledgement, each continued their connection to their work.

We need to embrace the often disconnected, contrary, even antisocial world of obsessive mavericks!

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