What Fuels Corporate Creativity?

During the past 9 months, while attending an MBA course at UCT (Cape Town), the question around corporate creativity has been a reoccurring one – whether it be in the field of Marketing, Operations, HR or just in general conversation. It’s as if everyone is aware of the pivotal role that creativity fulfills – contributing to the success, sustainability and growth of every business.

But the real question on my mind was: What exactly is it that makes one business more creative than another – why can’t all corporates be equally creative?

If Toyota Japan can uitilize their creative energy by implementing certain systems, why can’t/ won’t such systems work anywhere else in the world? Ahh culture, I thought! Well, maybe, but there must be more…

How do corporations fuel creative thoughts – and how do they guard against creative fatigue?A reading of Dan Pink’s book, “A Whole New Mind” gave me some valuable insights – especially explaining why creativity will become more valuable in the future. Pink introduces the idea of a next era, namely the Conceptual era, which follows on the current Information era. Pink advises that businesses embrace certain creative skills, such as storytelling, design, empathy, symphony, play, and meaning in order to be successful in the Conceptual Age.

But wait a minute! I’ve worked with people who have these skills – and boy, were we poor at creating. So this creative energy which leads to creative outsputs needs more than just individual creative skills. Something about group dynamics comes to mind, such as the leadership figures who operate within different groups, group personalities, emotions within groups, sensitivity to grouop emotions, wants and needs of group members, etc. It might be summed up as the collective conscious or unconscious phyche of a group, as Jung explains.

You might ask: So what – what difference does all of this make? In my search for the elements that fuel creativity, I’ve learned that there is no easy one-line answer to what exactly fuels creativity in groups. What I have learned though, is to be more sensitive to the workings of the psyches of groups, to become less judgemental of individuals and more inquisitive – seeking understanding rather than affirmation of my own beliefs.

Which brings me to my final question: Is creativity fueled by the need to express, or by the curiosity to learn, or both?