BOOK SUMMARY 436 The Myths of Creativity

BOOK SUMMARY 436 The Myths of Creativity

·         Summary written by: Joel D Canfield

“We must rewrite the myths.”

The Myths of Creativity, page 15

We all know someone (and some of us are someone) waiting for the visit of the Muse so we can launch our Great Idea for all the world to see.

The truth is that creativity, innovation, and great ideas are already inside us. When we fall prey to myths which have grown up over millennia, we fail to act and our ideas wither and die.

To help us take action to prevent that death, Burkus dispels 10 common myths about creativity and innovation:

1. The Eureka Myth
2. The Breed Myth
3. The Originality Myth
4. The Expert Myth
5. The Incentive Myth
6. The Lone Creator Myth
7. The Brainstorming Myth
8. The Cohesive Myth
9. The Constraints Myth
10. The Mousetrap Myth

In the past year I’ve read 2 dozen business books, including Seth Godin’s The Icarus Deception, Martin Seligman’s Learned Optimism, Dan Pink’s To Sell is Human, and Michael d’Antonio’s surprising A Full Cup. David Burkus has nestled himself right there with those wonderful books by delivering a single great idea, well-documented, clearly explained in simple language, with plenty of actionable items springing from one simple truth: creativity exists in each of us, if we’ll simply do the work to bring it out.

You’re holding back from doing something marvelous because of one or more of those myths above.

Which myth? What is it stopping you from doing? And how are you going to change that?

The Big Idea

YOU are the muse

"[Harvard Business School professor Teresa] Amabile's assertion is that creativity is influenced by four separate components: domain-relevant skills, creativity-relevant processes, task motivation, and the surrounding social environment….The final influencer, social environment, is the only component that exists entirely outside the individual."- The Myths of Creativity, pages 6 & 8

As a writer and writing coach, I know the greatest enemy of art: the great bully Resistance, called out prominently in Steven Pressfield’s The War of Art. Creation is such a visceral act that our unconscious looks endlessly for ways to sabotage us. Burkus calls us all out by naming 10 myths we tell ourselves to excuse inaction. In each case, he shows us that while it’s easier to invoke the myth than do the work, the solution is to turn that around: do the work, and invoke the Muse – you.

Insight #1

10 Reasons to Stop Waiting and Start Creating

"We don’t need to rely on belief in an outside force to generate great ideas. We have everything we need inside ourselves."- The Myths of Creativity, page 5

1. The Eureka Myth

o Myth: If you’re in the right place at the right time, your idea will manifest itself when triggered by something outside your control.

o Reality: Creative people share a similar creative process which includes preparation, incubation, insight, evaluation, and elaboration. It is not a gift, but the result of the right kind of hard work combined with a wandering mind.

2. The Breed Myth

o Myth: Creative types are born that way. You are or you aren’t.

o Reality: Of our 5 primary personality components (openness, conscientiousness, extroversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism) only openness has a measurable correlation to creativity. Our openness isn’t fixed but can be learned or expanded. There’s no compelling evidence to support a genetic component to creativity.

3. The Originality Myth

o Myth: Great ideas are the unique creations of single individuals.

o Reality: Most great ideas and inventions can be directly traced to previous thinking and in many cases great ideas occurred simultaneously to more than one person (the telephone, calculus, the personal computer.)

4. The Expert Myth

o Myth: Those with the deepest knowledge in a domain are most likely to have breakthrough ideas.

o Reality: At a certain level expertise leads to narrowed thinking and can decrease creative output. The toughest problems are often solved by people at the edge of a domain, those with enough knowledge to contribute but enough ignorance to take innovative paths.

5. The Incentive Myth

o Myth: The output and quality of creativity can be increased with incentives.

o Reality: Study after study shows that extrinsic motivation decreases creativity.

6. The Lone Creator Myth

o Myth: Creativity is a solo performance; innovations come from a single person working fervently on the new idea.

o Reality: Both Thomas Edison and Michelangelo had large teams of workers supporting them. Edison’s inventions were almost all the result of teamwork. Michelangelo’s art (the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, for instance) often involved a team rather than being solo efforts. Great ideas often grow from the differing experiences and perspectives of groups.

7. The Brainstorming Myth

o Myth: One great idea will creative innovation, so generating as many ideas as possible leads to success.

o Reality: Brainstorming is part of the creative process, but must be done correctly (it rarely is) and only adds value as part of a larger creative process. See Gem #2 below.

8. The Cohesive Myth

o Myth: Great ideas come from teams which work in perfect harmony, suspending criticism.

o Reality: Creative abrasion, properly managed, can result in as much as a 25% increase in creative ideas.

9. The Constraints Myth

o Myth: Creativity needs total unbounded freedom because constraints dampen it.

o Reality: Research shows that constraints promote creativity, whether they’re imposed artificially or exist naturally. One example is the 12-tone musical scale which resulted in the greatest explosion of musical creativity in human history.

10. The Mousetrap Myth

o Myth: If you develop a brilliant idea the world will embrace it: the old “build a better mousetrap and the world will beat a path to your door” axiom.

o Reality: Most people have a hard time seeing how the novel can be useful. Innovative ideas are rejected all the time.