According to a survey conducted by IBM in 2020 of 1500 CEOs across sixty countries and 33 industries, CREATIVITY is the most important skill required for today's complex business needs. I diverged from this study's findings when the same CEO's expressed that creativity ranked above integrity. Not in my book.
Research establishes that there are two main modes of thought - intense focus on the present to achieve goals, and downtime when we daydream, let our minds wander, and come up with new ideas. Have you ever noticed this happens at the strangest of times? I know of someone who keeps a notebook in their bathroom. I keep one by my bed as it is first thing in the morning that I find my head filled with ideas. Morning people have been found to be most creative in the evening and night owls tend to be more creative in the morning. It is the wandering mind that is the secret to creativity, inventive thoughts and new perspectives.
“All great achievements of science must start from intuitive knowledge. I believe in intuition and inspiration......imagination is more important than knowledge” Albert Einstein.
This feeds into how we can train ourselves to be purposefully mindless, which is not quite the same as practising 'mindfulness'. We need a balance of focus and rest to stop processing information.
Practising mindfulness is a good way to achieve that rest, or any activity that doesn't require your intellectual resources such as walking or loading the dishwasher. Creating inner stillness will give you a connection to your inner world.
For many business people, and my personal experience of lawyers is that our hectic lifestyles and focus on discipline, rigour and logic have led to an over emphasis on linear thinking. Accessing the inner child has been kicked out of us in a world that seems to have turned on its head with unpredictability, tragedy and chaos. Linearity is now a source of comfort.
Around 50 years ago researcher, George Land, conducted a study to test the creativity of 1,600 children starting at ages 3 to 5. He retested the same children at 10 then at 15. The level of creativity was 98% at age 5, 30% at age 10 and 12% at age 15. The level for 280,000 adults taking the same test was 2%.
“What we have concluded is that non-creative behaviour is learned,” Land
It seems that our education system and environment may be stifling creativity.
Land concluded that the more ideas you generate without worrying about quality, the better chances you have of finding a good idea.
So right now, forget about your to-do list, stop compulsively checking your email, move away from your screen and stop reading this article because if you don't give your mind a break, it cannot engage in the kind of drift that leads to creative inspiration. Make time for stillness and silence and invite the fun back into your lives. You could have invented the Air-fryer by now.