Studies of creative people have consistently shown that creativity is related to openness to new ideas, risk-taking, and inner direction. Do these characteristics put creative people at odds with the culture and people around them? The answer is sometimes yes and sometimes no.
For example, let's say Jeremy is a creative kid who does below average in school. Teachers and parents may consider him a bad student because he "dreams" and performs poorly on objective tests. His latent abilities as a right-brain thinker may be underestimated and underdeveloped.
Or consider the case of Alycia, a high school teacher working in a restrictive environment. He is eager to try new teaching techniques, but finds his colleagues traditional and even hostile to his ideas. What can he do?
There's no doubt that creative people struggle in overly structured environments and feel frustrated with tasks that don't offer challenges. This helps explain why creative children often struggle in school, their right brain wandering while left brain teachers try to force them to remember information that these creative children instinctively consider unimportant or trivial to understand the "big picture". life
Things often get worse for creative people when they enter the workforce. If they have not chosen their profession carefully, they may find themselves in a job that does not match their particular gifts and talents. Unfortunately, they find out the hard way when they are bored and frustrated at work.
But the job itself may not be the problem. It can also be the social environment of the workplace. Each workplace has its own personality that organically evolves and changes over time. Some workplaces value new ideas and risk-taking, a very stimulating environment for the creative and risk-taking. Other environments are rigid and traditional, which is frustrating and can lead to conflict and dissatisfaction.
Social psychologists have found that some work groups suffer from groupthink, which is the tendency for some groups to feel superior to others and ignore evidence to the contrary. These groups value conformity and resist new ideas. The innovator feels isolated and rejected by colleagues who support such an environment.
These coworkers often use an unspoken code for people who are different or outstanding. They send messages of overt and covert rejection to a creative colleague who suggests new ideas. Such signals include ignoring the person's comments or offering superficial, hollow praise, or worse punishments such as threats and ridicule when suggesting ideas that threaten the perceived integrity of the group. Many people adapt to their daily routines at work, and over time they protect that routine as sacred. Such people often fall in love with the well-worn saying, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it," but they transcend that attitude, and for them, nothing is ever really "broken," and to say otherwise is to threaten the comfort of work routines. These people can react toxically to creative and risk-taking coworkers who threaten their "comfort zone" by suggesting new ways of doing things.
All this indicates that creative people are often at odds with the people around them and frustrated by rigid and inflexible work environments and organizational structures. This is partly because creative people are attracted to novelty and new ideas and ways of doing things, and their creative minds often create alternatives to accepted practices. The cumulative effect of these frustrations at school, work, or any environment can cause some creative people to rebel against rules and authority. When this happens, the result can be frustration and conflict everywhere, causing a downward spiral of interpersonal conflict and disagreement. This frustration can lead to career changes or workplace disciplinary action, an unfortunate byproduct of the failure of creative people to integrate into the workplace.
These negative manifestations of rebellion can only be avoided if organizations and individuals are aware of the interpersonal dynamics that distinguish different personality types. One popular way to do this today is to have co-workers take the Myers-Briggs Personality Inventory and discuss the results with each other. Although this test is not necessarily rigorous in terms of accepted statistical measures of reliability or validity, it serves the larger purpose of opening the door to discussion of interpersonal response styles and mutual respect for their differences.
Workplace diversity is usually defined in sociological terms by placing people into black and white categories such as gender, race and age. However, other important differences between personality and people, such as creativity, rarely receive as much attention. However, the dimension of creativity is one of the most important because creativity and risk are essential qualities for the health and survival of an organization. To avoid the pitfalls of blind rebellion and open conflict, organizations must do a better job of identifying creative workers and actually foster creativity and respect for all employees. This is not to say that collective group practices such as "brainstorming" are necessarily a good way to promote creativity. Creative people often differ from other coworkers in many ways, including interpersonal differences, internal orientation, and work habits. These differences in style and content must be addressed openly and comfortably.
Creative people must also be taught to understand themselves and appreciate that they have needs that can only be satisfied in a certain way. They can succeed as artists, entrepreneurs or other professions that encourage openness, risk-taking and eccentricity. This means that our education system must better meet the needs of creative children and provide creative children with ways of learning that suit their learning styles.
When schools and workplaces are better educated about creativity and are in a better position to integrate creative people into the community, then individuals and society will benefit. And youngsters like Jeremy will be more likely to reach their full potential and adults like Alycia will be able to enhance their work environment by contributing unique and challenging ideas.
For example, let's say Jeremy is a creative kid who does below average in school. Teachers and parents may consider him a bad student because he "dreams" and performs poorly on objective tests. His latent abilities as a right-brain thinker may be underestimated and underdeveloped.
Or consider the case of Alycia, a high school teacher working in a restrictive environment. He is eager to try new teaching techniques, but finds his colleagues traditional and even hostile to his ideas. What can he do?
There's no doubt that creative people struggle in overly structured environments and feel frustrated with tasks that don't offer challenges. This helps explain why creative children often struggle in school, their right brain wandering while left brain teachers try to force them to remember information that these creative children instinctively consider unimportant or trivial to understand the "big picture". life
Things often get worse for creative people when they enter the workforce. If they have not chosen their profession carefully, they may find themselves in a job that does not match their particular gifts and talents. Unfortunately, they find out the hard way when they are bored and frustrated at work.
But the job itself may not be the problem. It can also be the social environment of the workplace. Each workplace has its own personality that organically evolves and changes over time. Some workplaces value new ideas and risk-taking, a very stimulating environment for the creative and risk-taking. Other environments are rigid and traditional, which is frustrating and can lead to conflict and dissatisfaction.
Social psychologists have found that some work groups suffer from groupthink, which is the tendency for some groups to feel superior to others and ignore evidence to the contrary. These groups value conformity and resist new ideas. The innovator feels isolated and rejected by colleagues who support such an environment.
These coworkers often use an unspoken code for people who are different or outstanding. They send messages of overt and covert rejection to a creative colleague who suggests new ideas. Such signals include ignoring the person's comments or offering superficial, hollow praise, or worse punishments such as threats and ridicule when suggesting ideas that threaten the perceived integrity of the group. Many people adapt to their daily routines at work, and over time they protect that routine as sacred. Such people often fall in love with the well-worn saying, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it," but they transcend that attitude, and for them, nothing is ever really "broken," and to say otherwise is to threaten the comfort of work routines. These people can react toxically to creative and risk-taking coworkers who threaten their "comfort zone" by suggesting new ways of doing things.
All this indicates that creative people are often at odds with the people around them and frustrated by rigid and inflexible work environments and organizational structures. This is partly because creative people are attracted to novelty and new ideas and ways of doing things, and their creative minds often create alternatives to accepted practices. The cumulative effect of these frustrations at school, work, or any environment can cause some creative people to rebel against rules and authority. When this happens, the result can be frustration and conflict everywhere, causing a downward spiral of interpersonal conflict and disagreement. This frustration can lead to career changes or workplace disciplinary action, an unfortunate byproduct of the failure of creative people to integrate into the workplace.
These negative manifestations of rebellion can only be avoided if organizations and individuals are aware of the interpersonal dynamics that distinguish different personality types. One popular way to do this today is to have co-workers take the Myers-Briggs Personality Inventory and discuss the results with each other. Although this test is not necessarily rigorous in terms of accepted statistical measures of reliability or validity, it serves the larger purpose of opening the door to discussion of interpersonal response styles and mutual respect for their differences.
Workplace diversity is usually defined in sociological terms by placing people into black and white categories such as gender, race and age. However, other important differences between personality and people, such as creativity, rarely receive as much attention. However, the dimension of creativity is one of the most important because creativity and risk are essential qualities for the health and survival of an organization. To avoid the pitfalls of blind rebellion and open conflict, organizations must do a better job of identifying creative workers and actually foster creativity and respect for all employees. This is not to say that collective group practices such as "brainstorming" are necessarily a good way to promote creativity. Creative people often differ from other coworkers in many ways, including interpersonal differences, internal orientation, and work habits. These differences in style and content must be addressed openly and comfortably.
Creative people must also be taught to understand themselves and appreciate that they have needs that can only be satisfied in a certain way. They can succeed as artists, entrepreneurs or other professions that encourage openness, risk-taking and eccentricity. This means that our education system must better meet the needs of creative children and provide creative children with ways of learning that suit their learning styles.
When schools and workplaces are better educated about creativity and are in a better position to integrate creative people into the community, then individuals and society will benefit. And youngsters like Jeremy will be more likely to reach their full potential and adults like Alycia will be able to enhance their work environment by contributing unique and challenging ideas.
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