david burkus

Creativity is the new buzzword in the world of work today. Everyone is looking for creativity in every department, every employee, and every job description. With so much resting on creativity, how can one truly be creative? 

Firstly, everyone can be creative. It is an ability that is inherent in everyone, and only exercising it is a matter of choice and learning. The Myths of Creativity by David Burkus throws light on some of the common myths surrounding creativity that many believe. He debunks these myths and offers a practical guide to letting creativity flourish, by changing perceptions.

The Myth Of The Out-Of-The-Blue Divine Inspiration

We have all heard how Newton discovered gravity while sitting under an apple tree. His sudden, out-of-the-blue experience led to the realization of gravity. It’s true that he saw the apple fall, but he didn’t actually discover gravity while sitting alone under the tree. He was with someone else. 

His observation sparked a scientific discussion with the person, and that led to immersing himself in years of study and research, finally discovering the mathematical formula for gravity.

The first myth that creativity comes in sudden, out-of-the-blue experiences is simply a myth. Even creative, lightening-bolt, inspirations need some amount of hard work. According to the psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, an idea is born when successful creatives move through the center of a number of insightful steps.

A seed of an idea needs to germinate with the help of the water and sunlight of hard work and deep thought, often on a number of things simultaneously. For example, Da Vinci and Edison worked on a number of projects and ideas often, because their ideas needed to develop over time.

The Myth Of The Creative Breed

Many believe that creativity is in our genes. However, creativity is neither divinely bestowed to special people nor is an exclusive resource that only a few can tap into. Scientists have been studying Einstein’s brain to ascertain if his intelligence was genetic. While they found that his brain was remarkably small in size, they found no proof of genetic markers showing creativity as genetic.

To study creativity in genes further, scientist Marvin Reznikoff studied creativity in twin children. He divided them into two groups, fraternal twins and identical twins, and gave them creative tasks to do. He found that there were differences in creativity between both, the fraternal as well as the identical twins, ruling genes out as a carrier of creativity.

Unfortunately the ‘Breed Myth’ creates prejudiced perceptions, and organizations tend to classify employees and roles into creative and non-creative. However, with changing trends and the need for creativity in all aspects of the organization, companies are giving equal importance to creativity in all areas. This bucking of traditions has shown an increase in innovation, as so-called ‘non-creative’ employees are given chances to showcase their creativity as well.

The Myth Of Timelines In Creativity

Organizations are hardwired to work in timelines and deadlines. However, to nurture and foster creativity, one has to let go of the timeline concept. This is because creativity hardly flourishes within timelines. Many organizations are now turning to a more democratic form of structure versus the traditional top-down organizational structure. This change has shown encouragement to creativity and innovation. 

Semco, the industrial manufacturer is a great example. Ricardo Semler took over the wheels of Semco from his father at a time when the company was near bankruptcy and needed innovation desperately. He immediately moved to remove the old structure of fixed teams and assignments and top-down management. By 2003, after a decade of following the new structure, Semco has made more than $200 million in revenue.

When it comes to creativity, rigid timelines restrict creative outflow and thus, innovation. In fact, creativity is known to develop better when one mulls over the job at hand and lets the mind wander.

The Myth Of The Creative Loner

People have prejudiced perceptions about creative people as ‘loners’, and that creativity and innovation as the output of one single mind working in isolation to spin yarn after yarn of creativity.

This is, however, ‘the myth of the creative loner’, and needs to be debunked! Creativity in fact gets a boost when there are many minds focussing on innovating. Moreover, it is a known fact that the people who surround you can be a source of inspiration. Therefore, having a like-minded, creatively inclined, the social network can have a catalytic effect.

Steve Jobs and Bill Gates, despite their differences over the personal computer, influenced each other with the Alto Computer and the PARC Company. While Jobs found his inspiration during a tour of PARC, Gates found his inspiration while working for Jobs for a short time.

Creativity and innovation need collaboration for success. Even other inventors and geniuses like Edison had a team of ‘muckers’ – a mix of engineers, machinists, physicist, etc. – that brainstormed together on some of his best-known inventions like the light bulb.

The Myth Of Characteristic

People often associate creativity as a characteristic or an ability that creative people have. However, research has shown that creativity also depends on the physical connections in the brain.

Our brains have ‘grey matter’ and ‘white matter’. The grey matter is the brain tissue that stores the information that we think, whereas white matter is the connectivity tissue that’s responsible for transporting electric pulses. Creative people have a better ability to connect the information stored in the grey matter. Therefore, it was found that creative people have more white matter that helps in connecting ideas and blending them with thoughts from different areas of the brain in a more creative way.

The truth of the matter (pun intended) is, that white matter grows the more we use it. That is why it is often seen that old ideas, existing innovation, and known information are often the basis of new creative innovative ideas.

If we take Edison’s ‘muckers’ as an example, they worked on existing ideas and technologies, stripped-down other’s machines and ideas, and gathered a whole lot of knowledge to create things of their own.

So what if one isn’t naturally creative! Creativity can be practiced and just like one exercises to build muscles, one can exercise their creative thinking skills to build more white matter!

The Myth Of Creative Freedom

People also believe that creativity needs freedom and that any constraints can restrict the flow of creativity. However, too much of anything is bad and this is true for creativity too. Too much freedom can lead to ideas running amok. Too many ideas without direction will lead to many incomplete ideas that keep piling up.

Restraints help in keeping creativity on the right path. Some amount of constraints and restrictions on time, processes, and resources can propel out of the box thinking.

Japanese Haiku is a form of poetry that restricts the poet to a limited number of syllables. The creativity and beauty of a Haiku is brought out by the restriction placed on the process of writing. It is the same with European Sonnets.

The Brainstorming Myth

We have seen or been part of brainstorming sessions at the workplace. While a large group of people sitting together, throwing ideas at each other seems like a great way to be innovative and creative, it is, in fact, a melting pot of half-cooked or useless ideas that often get tossed into the corner. 

The reasons could be many. The idea could be absolutely useless, it might not appeal to some of the group members, it could be half-cooked and might need some more thinking and working on. Often great ideas get discarded because they need time to develop, and no one sees them.

Brainstorming works, but only if there is a creative process set around it. Moreover, it needs a leader to oversee the session, set creative restrictions and constraints, and revise stormed ideas. Finally discarded ideas need to be revisited, restructured, reframed, and shaped in order to work. 

The Key To Creativity

There is no inherency or genetic make-up of creativity. No one is born creative or is naturally creative. In fact, creativity can be cultivated, nurtured, and practiced by everyone. The myths that have been debunked above, prove that all one has to do to be creative is to first understand that their knowledge about creativity is incomplete. Only then can one open their eyes and their mind to learning to be creative!

The way the world works has completely changed in the last 50 years. Today, organizations, work culture, and the roles of people are more knowledge-based. The standard management policies designed for maximum efficiency by Frederick Taylor more than a century ago are no longer relevant because the basic structure of work has changed.

Under New Management (2016) by David Burkus gives us an insight into this change and how to adapt to it to become successful managers in a work environment that is more flexible, more creative, and more unpredictable. 

David Burkus, the author, discloses new management strategies that are in line with the new workspace, discusses management strategies that never worked earlier, and busts some management myths that have ruled the roost for a long time.

Myth 1 – The Customer is the King

Most management and marketing studies have stressed the fact that the customer is king. Today, organizations need to be more employee-centric. This is because organizations are finding out that happy customers are a result of happy employees. This might sound radical, but to best serve their customers, many leaders now put their customers’ needs second and their employees’ needs first.

This was supported by a study conducted in 2008 by Son Lam and Stephen Brown from Houston University. The study revealed that the service given to customers by happy employees was of much better quality, as perceived by the customers. This was evident even for customers who did not have much interaction with the employees.

Myth 2 – Employees Need to be Micro-Managed

Organizations need to put their trust in their employees. The age-old, rigid micromanaging structure is detrimental to employee engagement and managers need to give their employees more space because the way of working has changed from the manual labor-based work of the past to knowledge-based work today.

Netflix’s unlimited vacation policy and no standard working times are a great example. It is the employees’ discretion to decide their work schedule based on the amount of work they have. They can themselves decide when they need to take time off.

Such a work environment has actually led to a reduction in travel costs for the company because the employees actively make decisions in the ‘best interests’ of the company. 

Myth 3 – Only Leaders Know Who to Hire

Conventional methods of hiring involve recruitment interviews to be done by one or two people, mostly managers and upwards. They focus on qualifications and past work experience as determining factors. 

A new employee, at any level and designation, has to work with a team. And there is no guarantee that an employee with a great past record will fit well with a new team.

This is due to the fact that even top performers need the right team to push them to excel. Moreover, even star performers could bring the morale of the entire team down due to conflicts.

It is wiser to include the entire team to participate in the hiring process. A classic example comes from Whole Foods, where they allow the prospective hire to work with the team for a few weeks, after which the entire team votes to hire the person or not.

Myth 4 – Underperforming Employees Should be Fired

Underperforming, disengaged employees are bad for all companies. They are unproductive, skip work, and/or affect the working environment negatively. However, the better way to do it is to let them go with a good payoff.

Disengaged employees mostly linger around because of the amount of time they have invested in the company. Moreover, they find it difficult to admit that their efforts in their current job were poorly invested.

Paying them a good quitting bonus works in three ways – 

1. It helps such employees see a reason to why they should move on 
2. A cash bonus helps alleviate the pain of parting to some extent, and
3. Helps in creating a better relationship with a parting employee 

Myth 5 – Strict Timetables And Job Descriptions Keep The Organization Organized

The days of manual and repetitive work usually done in factories are over and it is the era of knowledge workers now. Earlier, during the industrial revolution, most work was manual. Productivity was mostly proportional to the number of hours a worker put on it. This gave rise to the necessity of a top-down organizational structure where job descriptions were fixed and strict timetables were maintained.

In creative and knowledge-oriented jobs, having fixed timelines are difficult. At the same time, roles are also dynamic, where employees are organized around projects. Having a flexible work environment allows employees to be intrinsically motivated and more productive.

Myth 6 –  Offices Mean A Closed, Quiet, And Serious Workspace

Many organizations like Facebook are moving out of the typical office, and incorporating open offices. Gone are the cubicles for workers and corner offices for managers. Integrating open workspaces with closed offices in the right amount today facilitates communication and teamwork.

Unlike the myth, Facebook used both open and closed workspaces giving employees the freedom to choose where they would like to work. Such freedom and personal space in work have shown to increase productivity.

Myth 7 – Emails Are The Best Communication Technology

Yes, technology did bring us one of the most convenient and quick forms of communication – emails. However, studies have proven that emails are the biggest distraction for employees. 

One research showed that an average employee checks their emails 36 times an hour. Thus some companies like Atos SE custom-designed an internal network system that helped reduce the use of emails, and thus reduce distraction at work.

Myth 8 – Non-Compete Clauses Are Good For Business

Non-compete clauses prevent employees from joining competitor companies and sharing corporate secrets. While this might seem like a wise business move, it actually led to the fall of Boston’s Route 128, an erstwhile competitor for Silicon Valley.

In actuality, the ‘big idea’ that propels a company to success is often related to something that an employee learns from his previous work experiences. The flow of ideas, development of successful networks, and increase in knowledge take place only when employees interact, take information and knowledge to the next place, and innovate with previous and present knowledge.

This brings up the point that companies should maintain good relations with their past employees because companies with close ties with their ex-employees are better suited to re-hire them or tap their network in the future.

Myth 9 – Performance Rankings Are The Best Feedback Systems

Yearly performance rankings have been the norm in most organizations. However, they do not prove to be productive for new-age companies, considering they are done only once a year – a yardstick that does not do justice to the amount of work an employee does in a year. Performance rankings push employees to focus only on the yearly ranking, killing creativity, because they also foster competition among peers rather than collaboration.

Microsoft showed the way to change. They moved to a system of timely, personal feedback, assessing how people have performed on the goals set in the past and what the employee would like to achieve before the next meeting. This system proved efficient as employees felt fairly assessed, felt that there was lesser comparison with peers, and felt that the company took interest in building their personal skills.

Myth 10 – Salary Details Is Confidential Information

It is a common occurrence in organizations that discussions around salary are secret. Pay scales are considered confidential information in most organizations today. 

However, research has shown that companies are better off being transparent with employees about their salaries. Being transparent prevents them from feeling shortchanged, or feeling envious towards their peers and at the same time shows employees that the company is fair.

For example, in Whole Foods, the salary and performance data of all employees is available for everyone to see. This has resulted in the employees enjoying a great sense of teamwork.

Busting Old Management Myths

All the myths busted above point out to one key feature that new-age companies should understand and imbibe. The key concluding idea is flexibility. Organizations should understand that this new age is brimming with knowledge workers who will appreciate flexibility and autonomy in the workspace. There’s a definite shift in the wind, and it’s going to change management as we know it in the next few decades.