What is a Creative Skill?
Fortunately, people have been researching creative skill since 1950, and continue to do so and have isolated individual creative skill from other factors. Take for example the 4P's work of Mel Rhodes (1961) Product, Process, People, and Press (M. Rhodes reprinted in "Frontiers of Creativity Research" Scott Isaksen Editor, Bearly Limited, Buffalo, NY 1987). I am one of those who believe everyone has creative skill. Everyone has a gift.
Everyone has a talent.
But are these all different names for the same asset?
How might you define, or describe the value, or development of a creative skill?
Do some of us have it and some of us not. Having isolated a list of creative skills, can we develop or enhance such a skill.
Can we develop it in others?
Even if we have a creative skill, what good does it do us individually or collectively?
What knowledge and beliefs do we share about how to maximize creative skill in the world.
What might be getting in the way of its development?
If you cite your own or other people's research or publications, please indicate your sources (as I have done for the 4P's of creativity cited above).
The creativity field of practice has abundant research but is also plagued with offerings that are not well founded!
:-)
David Magellan Horth
Senior Faculty and Artist in Training
Center for Creative Leadership
1 Leadership Place, Greensboro, NC 27410 USA
Phone + 336-286-4525
Mobile + 336-254-4541
e-mail: horthd@leaders.ccl.org
web: www.ccl.org
| Re: What is a Creative Skill? « Reply #2 on: August 18, 2006, 09:41:33 AM » |
> I think there is quite a difference between creative
> thinking tools and creative skills training.
Here is my response to Ralph....
I will seek to understand what you are meaning by creative skills.
Creative skills = skills that produce creative results?
Is that it?
Dr. E. Paul Torrance for most of his career focused upon definable, measurable, observable, duplicable,
trainable "creative thinking skills, tools and process". He did not talk about teaching creativity
in public or professionally.
In his last public presentation he described 20 or 22 things I never talked about in public before.
One was "YES we have been teaching creativity all these years!"
The only time he ever got angry with me while I was working on my degree was when we were co-authoring an article about applications of some of de Bono's CoRT materials in elementary and college classrooms. I
wrote the first draft. He reviewe and edited it.
The one statement I made in the first draft that he got angry about was
"to teach creativity"
He was very abrupt and emphatic that "we do not teach creativity" we teach a subset of creative thinking
skills.
He then went on to clarify for me then using the following premise...
"We can not teach what we can not define!"
creativity like too many generic terms is undefinable in a distinct all emcompassing manner as are words
like
beauty, truth, love, ethics, etc.
He had chosen to be rationally scientific in his work into creativity research by working with easily
defined terms....
creative thinking....generation of new ideas or new combinations of old ideas.
Creative Skills to my naive mind are those skills that yield, generate, produce creative results or products.
Some thoughts on a beautiful summer Friday morning in Athens, Georgia
Alan
| e: What is a Creative Skill? « Reply #3 on: August 27, 2006, 12:40:04 PM » |
This is in response to the first posting by Alan Black.
Many thanks for bringing yours and E. Paul Torrence's scientific thinking to the table Alan. I'm reminded of the anger another scientifically oriented member of the creative community when talking about similar topics.
Your thinking reminded me of something I often say when I am in the classroom with a bunch of executives and the topic is leadership development. Much the same thinking applies. I tell them I cannot teach leadership but I believe you can learn leadership and by that I mean you can discover the source of your own leadership and enhance that capacity.
In the initial posting which Ralph invited me to riff on, I wondered if Ralph had in mind to list what one might teach or help people learn in order that they demonstrate their creative thinking or enhanced abilty to think creatively or whatever or whether he was seeking to produce and exhaustive and scientifically based list of creativity skills that one might learn and which demonstrate that someone is thinking creatively or thinking more creatively?
:)MH
David Horth
| Re: What is a Creative Skill? « Reply #4 on: August 28, 2006, 09:07:59 AM » |
My resent interest has been on the role of the facilitator in the creative output of a group. Part of that role is to 'hold the mirror', and by that I mean regularily give feedback on the behaviours I observe and the impact those behavious are having on me and perhaps on others.
Developing creative skills in oneself, or coaching others, may be based on our willingness to work hard, focus on specific measurable behaviours and seek feedback.
Cheers
John Sedgwick
| Re: What is a Creative Skill? « Reply #5 on: October 02, 2006, 07:18:30 PM » |
My view - Art isn’t art without creativity. That’s where this story joins Ralph’s discussion. I think a “creative skill” is something that leads to art, and is quite different, although entirely complimentary, to a “creative thinking skill”.
It’s been at the moments of peak performance that I’ve felt that art and craft were happening together. My experience has been to access the my capacity to create art through the foundation of skills and disciplines. It’s clear to me when one is missing the other.
I think a “creative thinking skill” is part of the craft. Some people employ thinking skills to enable them to access true creativity. But without “creative skills”, a thinking skill will produce only projections of itself. Chiseling will cut shapes from wood. Sculpture creates meaning.
Far from reducing the work of creative thinking gurus, I am suggesting that there is innate creativity in their constructs. There are technical skills that put people squarely in the path of some entirely creative events. As a Buddhist monk, I think, once remarked; “Enlightenment happens by accident.” Some creative thinking makes people accident prone and then the glory of the creative human mind kicks in. So I think it’s symbiotic.
Like DMH, being one who also stands in a room discussing matters of leadership with executives, I innately hold this distinction in mind. I’m big on teaching skills – identifying patterns in the dialogue; the movement of energy and with it power; making meaning through considering character motivation, obstacles and action; directing intention rather than noise; all good theatrical thinking skills – with the express purpose of providing the learning executives with the capacity to take themselves to the edge of a cliff and to take a leap into the unknown. That’s when the creativity kicks in. The creative skill is to jump.
As a business person myself, having to run a small business, read the market, engage new clients, present our value, take briefs, manage contractors and staff, exceed expectations – I know there are moments when I’m really creating something new, and when it’s more predictable. There are times when I jump and there are times when I walk.
So “creative thinking skills” and “creative skills” are different. The former is about how we approach the moment. The latter is what happens within the moment itself.
If such a distinction is accepted, the next question is can (and perhaps how can) a creative skill be taught?
I think "yes". But that can wait until the next post.
David McCubbin
Managing Director
coup
| Re: What is a Creative Skill? « Reply #6 on: October 04, 2006, 07:14:59 AM » |
To teach a creative skill, I create experience where people can take their awareness into moments when they have an opportunity to make a creative choice. It might be as simple as asking the group to imagine that they are sitting in front of a box. Then I ask them to reach into the box and pull something out. "A hammer." "A mouse." "A dimond ring," they say. Then I ask; "was it the head or the hand that decided?" And I encourage people to notice the difference. Notice what it takes and what it yields to have the head alone decide, or to allow the senses into the discovery process. To create something out of nothing, without effort. Simply finding something.
I will also direct non-theatrical executives to create theatre together, and to be conscious of what was happening for them as the decisions about the elements of the production were being made. "What kind of story?" "What characters?" "What do we agree is funny and what is not?" "What is the essence of what we think or feel or sense?" Those may sound like lofty questions, but they are being asked and answered as groups debate whether they are going to do a Fairy Story in the style of a Tarantino film or a Jerry Springer parody. Question and answer drives the process forward to it's final expression. And the outcome - is it creative or reductive? You can tell the difference. I facilitate dialogue about what happened and what were the moments of truth and what was the quality of decision-making in those moments. And awareness rises around what were the creative choices. They may have been choices about the script or the staging. But more often the moments of truth were about stuff that was happening in the relationships between members of the group. Moments in which people took the lead, and supported, and took leaps of faith in themselves and their fellow players.
Those are two processes at opposite ends of the complexity spectrum but the principle and practice is the same; there is a choice - create or think of something that feels safe and go with that.
The first step, in one of possibly many ways of teaching creative skills, is to create awareness that there is a choice. That a creative choice is literally a leap of faith.
Once one discovers that there is choice, one can apply certain skills that help one to make that choice. Acquiring oxygen would appear to be one of them. That is the stuff you breathe. A creative skill is to be able to breathe in a way that reassures the risk averse brain that the upcoming leap into the unknown is not going kill you. Because when the brain gets the message that potential death is nigh (silly brain) it becomes less able to stay present and able to enjoy, or more importantly, be aware of the ride. Breathe, and the moments within the moment come into focus.
Another skill is to keep moving in the face of leap of faith. The mind is very quick when you allow it to be. Quicker than you'd think. Literally. The mind is moving a rate of knots and sometimes the easiest way to a creative solution is to catch a ride on the flow of intelligence that is flowing through the body when we are relaxed and preoccupied. Epiphanies often happen when painting a wall; mowing the lawn; lying in bed at 3:00am; during an early morning shower. What happens to game show contestants when they struggle for an answer. They stop. They stop breathing. The stop the easy flow of intelligence in an attempt to force the neo-cortex to go it alone and remember something that is actually more closely linked to your sense of smell, or your gut instinct. What did Forrest Gump have to do to work out his big problem? He ran. So I try to find ways of helping people to get that sense of engagement with the present through the senses, thereby giving them a sense of movement.
(That's a bit of an unstructured rave. I feel I'm answering aspects of David Horth's question, although I'm just getting a sense that I'm just scratching the surface. My aim is to get down what's in my head quickly or I won't feel I have the time to publish something well structured and spell-checked. I hope my recklessness inspires others to do the same.)
David McCubbin, Coup
| Re: What is a Creative Skill? « Reply #7 on: October 09, 2006, 03:48:24 AM » |
One of our difficulties in understanding creative skill is our approach (analyze to understand). I believe that a holistic approach may be more productive. I am working on that.
Hector Ramos
Creativity, innovation and design are not something that is necessarily skill based, individual or to be institutionalized in 'creative or design departments'. They are characteristic of networks, and emergent properties and value creating in networks given certain conditions. Most creativity in the world is latent in that it happens as a matter of course and is not highly intentional. Thus, this is a vast well of un-tapped resource and needs to be a part of any strategy to enhance creativity.
Ralph Kerle's Response to Larry Quick's Take On Creative Skills « Reply #9 on: October 12, 2006, 05:11:56 AM » |
There are certainly patterns that we can discern and yet it is our perception and interpretation of our perceptions that discerns these patterns that shape us and our behaviours. Both perception and our concepts of perception are driven by our magination. So we live in this constant state of creativity - it is the only thing that distinguishes us from animals, our ability to be able to
imagine - think into the unknown future.
So can we develop, measure and train our imagination to work better? I am sure you can. Artist, creative
practitioners whatever you want to call people with those skills, Masters perhaps. know how to, just like sportsmen and chefs...
My sense of what you are referring to is something I experienced in Melbourne in 70's and that I think is what Florida talks about in his
Creative Communities.
My experience was that artists of all sorts (performing, musical, visual, non classifiable) flocked to Brunswick Street
Fitzroy for a whole variety of reasons and out of those that flocked there formed a community of liked minded practitioners who found ways of working together creatively and went on to change our whole generation of culture in Australia. I was very fortunate to have lived through that period of maybe a decade and I am yet to be convinced you can artificially create an environment of that nature. I think it is driven by time, culture, social conditions and individual entrepreneurs who live the moment..Contrivance and artificiality doesn't work in this domain...
Interested to hear your thoughts...
And A Fine Attempt to Broaden the Discussion by Larry Quick again « Reply #10 on: October 12, 2006, 05:17:49 AM » |
The creative skills argument is interesting and a fairly common commentary from the creative skills camp – especially that driven by the arts wishing to move into mainstream of organizational development and training – which I have no real problem with, in fact I applaud.
I think the arts sector has some good ideas and valuable practices to offer.
However, in some cases they grossly misread and overstate the difference they can make. The argument that the arts has a mortgage on idea generation, creativity and design I do not support. These things are inherent in and the possibility of all people. Where the arts sees the more open application of creativity as ‘brand infringement’ (especially at the academic end) really tells me that they haven’t really understood the long history of humanity and its evolution and creation. The wheel, Gutenberg’s press, Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Nelson Mandella, Gandhi, Richard Branson, Sister Theresa, Johnny Cash, Sam Phillips, or the creators of MySpace.......... etc (& the rest of the who’s who of making a difference in yesterday’s and today’s world) I consider all to be icons of idea generation, creativity, design and innovation – all I am sure did not have creative skills training, or rely on the arts to lead the ‘creative way’. What was at play was something else that we can learn from.
Once again, please don’t misread the above as me being ignorant of or un-supportive of the idea of creative skills training (remember parts of my past life have been in music, theatre, design, advertising, and fashion).
But I do believe there is another frame of reference, another means which is valuable to open up and discuss in the endeavor to create the same end we are all about.
In my opening proposition, you will notice I didn't actually say that creativity and design are NOT skills based - my words are chosen carefully - 'Creativity, innovation and design are not something that is necessarily skill based, individual or to be institutionalized in 'creative or design departments'.
The notion that a skill, talent or competency or the presence of such only determines the act of creativity is a nonsense. For instance, I am yet to find a young child or group of teens, irrespective of nurture or nature that isn’t highly driven by ideas and the curiosity to create – and I don’t see much creative skills training there. So whilst I do agree that creative skills training is an idea worth pursuing – I think there is something else there that also needs to have our minds on.
Having worked for the innovation departments of GM Holden, Telstra, Raytheon USA, and Simplot Australia (Birds Eye etc) - I can assure you that whilst they were hives of creative activity, were by no means the primary source of creativity in those institutions.
I did say that: ‘Most creativity in the world is latent in that it happens as a matter of course and is not highly intentional’. The idea that creativity is not latent & intentional I find fascinating – I go to my initial point – what and who was it that created the mound of ideas, innovations and designs over the history of humankind? They were not necessarily creative acts taught by the arts, design schools, entrepreneurship school, MBA’s, MFA’s, or any training institution, class or planned learning environment – these things have only really existed and been accessible to the masses in the latter part of the 20th century. So, what was it that created human endeavor over time?
I think another place to look into requires us to suspend our deeply embedded 20th century, Newtonian view of how our world works. Whilst this mind-set has produced some amazingly creative acts in the past, I think in the 21st century its linear, siloed, pyramidal hierarchies, 2 dimensional view, and separating nature cuts us away from a HUGE variety of possibilities – all just ripe to solve some of our most critical problems and realize some amazing opportunities.
The idea that I think that is worth pursuing is the view that the world is a plexus – a network of networks, or ‘meta-system’ of nested systems. In having this view we move into a world that is non-linear, deeply connected and interdependent, fractal, 4 dimensional, where value is created through the coupling of intense ‘hives of interactive capabilities’ that emerge and align given certain conditions. Where inherent systemic creative capabilities emerge – given the right conditions.
Over the past 20 years having researched ideation, creativity, creative communities, creative economy, design, innovation and now plexus – I do believe this thinking is where the creativity argument is heading. I also believe that it is a vast well of un-tapped resource and needs to be a part of any strategy to enhance creativity.
Finally, I do not advance this idea as the only approach. I only state that it must be included in the argument.
| Re: What is a Creative Skill? « Reply #11 on: November 05, 2006, 11:40:43 AM » |  |
I have just joined the forum and am slowly working my way through all the good stuff. I notice that the creative skills forum may have closed but I have one small input regarding creative skills.
My defnition of a creative skill is 'any skill / competency that gets me closer to realising the vision of what it is I am wanting to create'.
Trying to nail it down any further to may mind is an activity of exclusion that may not be useful - when I am creating I use any skill and any tool at my disposal - not all work all the time but I guess that is the nature of creativity!!
Cheers
Wayne Morris