Daniel Pink in his book A WHOLE NEW MIND tells us a story about Gordon MacKenzie, a longtime creative force at Hallmark Cards and author of the wonderfully creative book ORBITING THE GIANT HAIRBALL. MacKensie would always open a talk he was giving to students by asking:
“How many artists are there in the room?”
In kindergarten and 1st grade classes every kid raised their hand. In 2nd grade classes, about ¾ of the students would raise their hands. In 3rd grade, only a few kids raised their hands and by 6th grade no student raised their hands. He contended that by 6th grade kids had learned that art was a deviant behavior.
I think this story in part explains why we see creativity or innovation as something mysterious and slightly threatening. In fact, I believe there are 3 reasons more of us don’t jump on the innovation bandwagon.
1. To be creative – to innovate – means to take a risk. It’s a risk that could bring us ridicule or even failure. Staying with the known, the comfortable and predictable seems much safer than saying to the world --- or to our boss: “I think I have a great idea!”
2. Innovation and creativity seem still to be the prevue of slightly odd “geniuses” who are rare and whose assumed ‘brilliant flashes of insight’ seem beyond the capabilities of the average person. Those who innovate seem to conjure up a picture of the slightly demented professor in Back to the Future (What average person would have turned a DeLorean into a time travel machine?) Frankly, most of us long to be unique – but not TOO unique – we want to be accepted by the group, and that acceptance doesn’t always seem to jive with being the ‘creative outsider’.
3. In today’s work world there is sadly little time or recognition for innovative efforts. Expected to be available 24/7 with endless meetings and 60-70 hour work weeks, many do not have the energy or time to pursue innovation – even if they have the courage to put forward that great idea. And, most organizations have well developed antibodies that respond pretty ferociously to anything too different.
Yet, we here in the Silicon Valley know that innovation and creativity once defined our reputation , our uniqueness and our extraordinary wealth. We still marvel at today’s innovative companies such as Google, Facebook and Apple --- they seem to have something other companies don’t have --- and somehow what they have is an immunity to the 3 reasons above: they know how to take risks –even encourage risk taking, they know that anyone in the company could have that valuable great idea, and they make the time for innovation.
They know that everyone in the room is an artist.
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