10 February 2017

Creativity and why it's important

A recent survey of over 1500 CEO’s worldwide revealed that ‘creativity’ was at the most valued quality of upcoming leaders. Yet, according to a global study by Adobe 75% of people do not believe they are given that chance or driven to be more creative, rather the pressure is on deadlines.

So what is creativity? Often it is breaking the status quo- thinking differently and taking a risk.

Can we learn to be creative? Can we develop ‘out of the box’ thinking? Or were we born creative but taught not to be at school. A TED talk by Ken Robinson, ‘Do schools kill creativity?’ brings this issue to life- and his points have resonated with many people. The rise of standardised testing fails to recognise that every student has different strengths and passions. There is strong emphasis on certain subjects- namely maths and literacy and yes these are important but Ken makes the assertion that:

“My contention is that creativity now is as important in education as literacy, and we should treat it with the same status.”
- Ken Robinson

 And I must say that I agree. He makes the point that kids are not afraid – if they don’t know- they will have a go. And this shot often results in a different way of doing something- something creative. And sure sometimes these ‘shots’ will fail. Definitely. It is rather the ability to try- to speak up without the fear of being wrong. Have you ever been in a classroom where the teacher asks a question and absolutely no one speaks for fear of saying the wrong thing? Often the teacher thinks you do not care or you have not done the readings- yet that often isn’t the case. We have become frightened of making mistakes - yet mistakes shouldn’t be seen as the enemy - they should be seen as learning and growing.

By Cara Mayne, current Bachelor of Commerce (Liberal Studies) student at the University of Sydney Business School and Network of Women Events Director.

This blog was originally published for the Network of Women website.

Sources:
http://adage.com/article/news/study-75-living-creative-potential/234302/
IBM 2010 Global CEO Study: Capitalizing on Complexity.
https://creativesystemsthinking.wordpress.com/2015/04/26/ken-robinson-how-schools-kill-creativity/ big

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