The Myths of Creativity

The Myths of Creativity Plot Summary

Introduction

Creativity seems magical, elusive, and often misunderstood. When we see remarkable innovations or artistic breakthroughs, we tend to explain them through comforting myths rather than understanding the true processes behind them. These myths - that creative insights come as sudden flashes, that only certain people possess creative genes, or that constraints hinder innovation - provide simple explanations but ultimately limit our creative potential. The truth about creativity is far more structured and accessible than these myths suggest. By examining empirical research and studying innovative organizations, we can identify patterns that reveal creativity as a process that can be developed, nurtured, and systematically enhanced. This framework challenges our preconceptions and offers a new understanding of how ideas emerge and evolve - not through divine inspiration or lone genius, but through deliberate practice, collaboration, appropriate constraints, and organizational cultures that know how to recognize and implement novel ideas.

Chapter 1: The Eureka Myth: Why Great Ideas Rarely Come as Sudden Flashes

The story of Isaac Newton being struck by a falling apple and suddenly discovering gravity makes for compelling storytelling. Similarly, Archimedes' famous "Eureka!" moment in the bathtub, where he allegedly discovered the principle of displacement, perpetuates the notion that creative breakthroughs occur in instantaneous flashes of insight. This is the Eureka Myth - the belief that creativity manifests as sudden, fully-formed realizations. In reality, creative insights emerge through a much more structured process. Psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi's research with creative professionals revealed that creativity typically follows five stages: preparation, incubation, insight, evaluation, and elaboration. The "eureka moment" represents just one part of this larger process. Before Newton could have his apple revelation, he had spent years studying mathematics and physics, preparing his mind to recognize the significance of what he observed. Similarly, Archimedes had been contemplating his displacement problem extensively before his bath. The incubation stage is particularly critical yet often overlooked. Research by scientists at the University of Sydney demonstrated this by dividing participants into groups working on alternate uses for objects. Those given brief incubation breaks generated significantly more ideas than those who worked continuously. Similarly, Benjamin Baird's research at UC Santa Barbara found that mind-wandering during incubation periods correlates with enhanced creative output. This explains why solutions often appear when we step away from problems - our unconscious mind continues processing information. The Post-it Note exemplifies this extended creative process. When Spencer Silver at 3M developed a "weak" adhesive in 1968, he initially considered it a failure. It wasn't until years later, when colleague Art Fry connected this adhesive to his need for repositionable bookmarks, that the product's potential emerged. Even then, it took another extended period of development and testing before Post-its became commercially viable. The entire process spanned over twelve years - hardly a single flash of insight. Understanding creativity as a prolonged process rather than momentary inspiration has profound implications. It suggests we should work diligently on problems, then deliberately step away to allow incubation. Rather than waiting for lightning to strike, we can structure our creative practices to maximize both focused work and strategic disengagement, significantly increasing our chances of meaningful innovation.

Chapter 2: The Lone Creator Myth: How Innovation Emerges from Collaboration

Popular narratives celebrate solitary geniuses - Edison alone in his lab inventing the light bulb, Michelangelo painting the Sistine Chapel ceiling in isolation, or the starving artist working in seclusion. This is the Lone Creator Myth, which attributes innovation to individual brilliance rather than collaborative effort. The reality, however, reveals a different story. Thomas Edison didn't invent the light bulb alone in a workshop, testing thousands of filaments personally. Historical records show he assembled a team of engineers, physicists, and machinists at Menlo Park - his "invention factory" - who called themselves "muckers." This team collaborated on various projects simultaneously, sharing insights and even "borrowing" parts from each other's prototypes. Edison himself often focused on business development and media relations while his team did much of the experimental work. As his assistant Francis Jehl noted, "Edison is in reality a collective noun and means the work of many men." Similarly, Michelangelo employed thirteen artists to help complete the Sistine Chapel, and many acclaimed screenwriters like Ron Bass rely on teams of researchers and collaborators. This pattern extends into scientific research as well. Kevin Dunbar's ethnographic study of microbiology laboratories revealed that breakthrough insights typically occurred not when scientists worked alone but during lab meetings where they shared problems and findings. Diverse teams generated more creative solutions than homogeneous ones. Brian Uzzi and Jarrett Spiro's analysis of Broadway musicals from 1945 to 1989 provides quantitative evidence for optimal collaboration. They found that productions with teams comprising both previously connected individuals and newcomers were significantly more successful than those with either entirely new relationships or overly familiar collaborators. This "small-world quotient" (Q) revealed that teams with a Q score of approximately 2.6 on a scale of 1 to 5 were 2.5 times more likely to produce commercially successful shows and 3 times more likely to receive critical acclaim. Design firm Continuum exemplifies effective collaborative innovation. When tasked with creating a response to Nike's Air technology for Reebok, their diverse team of designers, engineers, and healthcare specialists combined knowledge from multiple domains. Some team members had previously designed inflatable medical casts, while others had experience with IV bag manufacturing. This cross-pollination of expertise led to the Reebok Pump shoe, which generated over $1 billion in sales. The innovation came not from a single brilliant mind but from the synthesis of diverse perspectives addressing the same challenge. Rather than romanticizing isolated creativity, recognizing the collaborative nature of innovation enables organizations to deliberately structure teams and workspaces to facilitate productive interactions between diverse viewpoints - maximizing the potential for breakthrough ideas.

Chapter 3: The Expert Myth: When Knowledge Hinders Creative Breakthroughs

Conventional wisdom suggests that the more expertise one has in a field, the better equipped they are to solve its hardest problems. This Expert Myth seems logical - after all, shouldn't specialized knowledge lead to more creative solutions? However, research reveals a counterintuitive truth: expertise can sometimes hinder innovation rather than facilitate it. When Jay Martin received a $300,000 grant to develop a revolutionary prosthetic ankle that could adjust in real-time to changes in terrain, he initially assembled a team of PhD-level experts in engineering and computer systems. Surprisingly, these experts quickly concluded the project was impossible, citing known barriers they couldn't overcome. Frustrated but determined, Martin dismissed the entire team and recruited undergraduate engineering students with no experience in prosthetics or robotics. These novices, unburdened by preconceived limitations, successfully developed the groundbreaking device. As Martin explained, "They had no conceived notions of what was possible or impossible. I told them it was possible, and they believed me." This pattern extends beyond anecdotes. Dean Keith Simonton's historiometric research examined creative output across various disciplines and consistently found an inverted-U relationship between expertise and innovation. In most fields, productivity and creativity peak relatively early in one's career before gradually declining. Physicists typically make their most influential discoveries before age thirty, while social scientists peak in their forties or fifties. Einstein published his revolutionary papers on special relativity and the photoelectric effect at twenty-six, not during his later years when his expertise was greatest. The explanation lies in what Simonton calls "ideation rate" - the ability to generate novel configurations of ideas. Early in careers, individuals have enough domain knowledge to understand problems but remain open to unconventional approaches. As expertise deepens, the mind becomes more structured and constrained by established paradigms, reducing the quantity of ideas generated. While experts may better evaluate ideas, they produce fewer of them and are more likely to dismiss potentially transformative concepts that conflict with conventional wisdom. Organizations have begun leveraging outsider perspectives through platforms like InnoCentive, where problems are posted for anyone to solve. When pharmaceutical company Eli Lilly faced a manufacturing challenge that internal experts couldn't resolve, they posted it anonymously online. The solution came from Werner Mueller, a retired industrial chemist with no pharmaceutical background, who recognized similarities to problems he'd encountered in a different industry. Netflix similarly crowdsourced improvements to its recommendation algorithm through a million-dollar prize competition, attracting diverse teams from various disciplines and countries. The nonprofit Fuse Corps applies this principle to government by pairing entrepreneurial professionals with civic leaders. These fellows, like Noelle Galperin who helped build the Children's Movement of California, bring fresh perspectives from different sectors to solve entrenched problems. As Fuse Corps founder Lenny Mendonca notes, "A lot of problems that need to be solved involve the intersection of the private, public, and nonprofit sectors." The lesson isn't to dismiss expertise entirely but to recognize when fresh perspectives might yield better results than deeper specialization. Organizations can overcome the Expert Myth by building diverse teams, encouraging cross-functional collaboration, and periodically rotating people through different divisions - keeping minds open to innovative possibilities.

Chapter 4: The Incentive Myth: Why Rewards Don't Always Enhance Creativity

Traditional management thinking suggests that if you want exceptional creative work, you should offer substantial rewards. This Incentive Myth presumes that larger incentives lead to greater motivation and thus better creative output. It's a belief with roots in Frederick Taylor's industrial-era management principles, where monetary incentives effectively improved performance on repetitive factory tasks. But research reveals that creativity functions differently - what motivates routine production doesn't necessarily spark innovation. Psychologist Teresa Amabile's extensive research distinguishes between two types of motivation: intrinsic (the internal desire to engage in an activity for its inherent satisfaction) and extrinsic (motivation from external rewards like bonuses or recognition). In a revealing study, Amabile and her team examined the creativity of artists working on commissioned pieces versus self-initiated works. Art experts, unaware of which pieces were commissioned, consistently rated the non-commissioned works as significantly more creative. When extrinsic motivators like payments were prominent, they actually diminished intrinsic motivation and reduced creative quality. This finding aligns with psychologist Edward Deci's forty years of research showing that certain external rewards can undermine pre-existing intrinsic motivation. The explanation is that extrinsic motivators shift attention away from the work itself to the reward, reducing the deep engagement that fuels creative thinking. As Amabile concludes in her "intrinsic motivation principle of creativity": "Intrinsic motivation is conducive to creativity; controlling extrinsic motivation is detrimental to creativity." Innovative organizations have developed alternatives to traditional incentive structures. The MacArthur Fellowship (often called the "genius grant") exemplifies this approach by awarding $500,000 stipends with no strings attached and no obligation to produce specific outcomes. Recipients like Radiolab creator Jad Abumrad aren't even aware they're being considered until selected. This approach trusts that highly motivated individuals will make better decisions about allocating their creative energy than external authorities could prescribe. Companies like 3M pioneered similar thinking with their "bootlegging policy," established in 1929 after engineer Dick Drew disobeyed orders to stop developing masking tape (which became a major product). This policy allows technical staff to spend 15% of their time on self-directed projects without management approval. Google, Atlassian, W.L. Gore, and Twitter have adopted variations of this approach, with Twitter holding regular "hack weeks" where employees pursue projects outside their normal responsibilities. Facebook's monthly "hack-a-thons" have yielded major innovations like Facebook Chat, which began as an unauthorized project. Perhaps most dramatically, software company 37signals once gave its entire staff a full month to experiment with whatever they wanted. After this period, employees pitched their creations, many of which became valuable product improvements. CEO Jason Fried explained: "How can we afford to put our business on hold for a month to 'mess around' with new ideas? How can we afford not to? We would never have had such a burst of creative energy had we stuck to business as usual." These approaches recognize that creative work fundamentally differs from routine tasks. Rather than attempting to engineer motivation through rewards, the most innovative organizations identify intrinsically motivated individuals and provide them with autonomy to pursue what naturally interests them - resulting in more genuine creativity than any incentive system could produce.

Chapter 5: The Originality Myth: Building on Existing Ideas for Innovation

We tend to view truly creative ideas as wholly original - springing forth from the mind of their creator without precedent. This Originality Myth leads us to attribute innovations to lone geniuses who somehow conceived entirely new concepts. It's why writers mail themselves copies of manuscripts and inventors rush to patent every idea. However, examination of history's most celebrated innovations reveals a different pattern: new ideas are almost always recombinations of existing concepts. Consider the telephone, commonly attributed solely to Alexander Graham Bell. In reality, Bell filed his patent on February 14, 1876 - the exact same day that Elisha Gray filed a remarkably similar patent at the same office. This wasn't mere coincidence but evidence that both inventors were working with the same available technologies and knowledge, pushing toward an innovation that was, in some sense, inevitable. As Henry Ford testified during a patent dispute: "I invented nothing new. I simply assembled into a car the discoveries of other men behind whom were centuries of work... Progress happens when all the factors that make for it are ready, and then it is inevitable." Economist W. Brian Arthur describes this as "combinatorial evolution" - technologies arise from combinations of existing technologies, creating exponential possibilities for innovation. Steven Johnson applies biologist Stuart Kauffman's concept of the "adjacent possible" to explain this phenomenon. At any moment, only certain combinations are feasible based on existing components, making similar simultaneous discoveries predictable rather than miraculous. This pattern extends beyond technology. Shakespeare's Henry VI plays show strong influence from Christopher Marlowe's Tamburlaine. Vincent van Gogh copied paintings from artists like Emile Bernard and Eugene Delacroix - over thirty of his works can be traced to other sources. George Lucas's Star Wars films blend elements from westerns, samurai films, and Flash Gordon serials. Even Walt Disney World was inspired by Tivoli Gardens in Copenhagen. Psychologically, this aligns with Sarnoff Mednick's theory of "associative thinking" - that creativity involves forming new combinations from existing mental elements. Recent neurological research by Hikaru Takeuchi supports this, finding that creative individuals have significantly more white matter (the brain's connective tissue) than less creative people, literally making them better wired to connect ideas across different domains. The development of the graphical user interface (GUI) perfectly illustrates this combinatorial nature. When Steve Jobs confronted Bill Gates about Microsoft "stealing" Apple's Windows interface, Gates famously replied: "Well, Steve, I think there's more than one way of looking at it. I think it's more like we both had this rich neighbor... and I broke into his house to steal the TV set and found out that you had already stolen it." The GUI's lineage traced back through Xerox PARC's Alto computer to earlier work at ARPA, Stanford, MIT, and conceptual designs from Vannevar Bush in 1945. Even Jobs acknowledged this reality, telling Wired magazine: "Creativity is just connecting things. When you ask creative people how they did something, they feel a little guilty because they didn't really do it, they just saw something... they were able to connect experiences they've had and synthesize new things." The implications are profound. If innovation comes from combining existing ideas, then sharing concepts freely - rather than hoarding them as intellectual property - accelerates innovation. Organizations that encourage information sharing across departments and teams create more fertile ground for creative connections. Individuals benefit from exposing themselves to diverse influences, as the adjacent possible expands with each new exposure. Creative breakthroughs don't require mythical originality, but rather strategic recombination of existing elements in novel and useful ways.

Chapter 6: The Constraints Myth: How Limitations Foster Creative Solutions

Conventional wisdom suggests that creativity flourishes with unlimited resources and complete freedom. This Constraints Myth leads us to believe that the most innovative organizations provide boundless budgets and remove all limitations. In reality, research consistently shows the opposite: constraints often enhance creativity rather than diminish it. When humanitarian worker Jock Brandis witnessed women in Mali painfully shelling peanuts by hand, he promised to find them a small-scale peanut sheller. Upon returning to the United States, he discovered that only large commercial machines existed - far too expensive for subsistence farmers. Constrained by cost limitations, Brandis modified a Bulgarian design to create an affordable sheller. Later, engineering professor Lonny Grafman and his students faced another constraint: how to make the molds for these devices from plastic waste in Haiti without releasing toxic gases. Rather than admitting defeat, they developed an innovative method of weaving plastic bags into fabric that could be shaped using a simple iron. These constraints didn't limit creativity - they inspired it. Psychologist Patricia Stokes, who transitioned from a successful advertising career to academic research, has extensively studied how constraints affect creativity across domains. Her research identifies four types of constraints that actually promote creative thinking: domain constraints (standards within a field), cognitive constraints (limitations of the mind), variability constraints (how much difference is valued), and talent constraints (innate abilities). These constraints provide structure that helps solve ill-defined problems by forcing exploration beyond obvious solutions. Experimental evidence supports this counterintuitive relationship. Researchers at the University of Amsterdam found that participants who first played a highly constrained maze game subsequently solved 40% more creative puzzles than those who played an easier version. The constraints activated cognitive processes that enhanced imaginative thinking. Software company 37signals embraces constraints as a core philosophy. Founded by Jason Fried, the company initially designed websites with a strict constraint: $3,500 per page, delivered in one week. This limitation forced efficiency and creativity. When developing their flagship product Basecamp, resource constraints led them to focus on simplicity rather than feature bloat. "These constraints forced us to keep the product simple," Fried explains. Even after becoming successful, the company maintains self-imposed constraints, including pricing caps and refusal of venture capital funding. They continue to offer just four core products, each characterized by elegant simplicity. As Fried and cofounder David Heinemeier Hansson write in their book Rework: "Constraints are advantages in disguise. Limited resources force you to make do with what you've got. There's no room for waste. And that forces you to be creative." The company's success - generating millions in revenue without external funding - validates their approach. The creative value of constraints appears across diverse fields. Fixed poetic forms like sonnets and haiku produce some of the most creative poetry. Sculptors find inspiration in the unyielding nature of marble. Product designers discover that constraints eliminate paralysis that can come from too many options. As Teresa Amabile notes, "Many people freeze if they are given a blank piece of paper. But if they are given a blank sheet of paper with a squiggly line on it and asked to elaborate on that squiggle, they often have fun turning out something pretty interesting." Rather than seeing constraints as creativity killers, innovative individuals and organizations recognize them as focusing mechanisms that stimulate resourcefulness. By embracing limitations - whether natural or self-imposed - we can activate cognitive processes that lead to more creative solutions than unlimited resources might ever produce.

Summary

The mythology surrounding creativity has persisted for centuries, from ancient Greeks attributing inspiration to divine muses to modern beliefs about sudden insights, creative genes, and the necessity of freedom from constraints. By systematically examining these myths through empirical research and organizational case studies, we can replace comforting fiction with practical understanding. Creativity isn't magical or exclusive - it's a structured process involving deliberate preparation, collaborative exchange, strategic constraint, and persistent advocacy for new ideas in the face of inherent resistance. The most profound insight from debunking these myths is that creativity becomes democratized - accessible to individuals and organizations willing to embrace its true nature. By recognizing creativity as a collaborative process requiring diverse perspectives, understanding that constraints often enhance rather than limit innovation, acknowledging that expertise must be balanced with fresh viewpoints, and creating environments where intrinsic motivation flourishes, we can systematically enhance our creative capabilities. In an innovation-driven economy, this demythologized understanding of creativity doesn't diminish its wonder but rather makes its power more accessible to all who seek it.

About Author

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David Burkus

One of the world’s leading business thinkers, David Burkus’ forward-thinking ideas and bestselling books are helping leaders and teams do their best work ever.He is the bestselling author of four books about business and leadership. His books have won multiple awards and have been translated into dozens of languages. His insights on leadership and teamwork have been featured in the Wall Street Journal, Harvard Business Review, USAToday, Fast Company, the Financial Times, Bloomberg BusinessWeek, CNN, the BBC, NPR, and CBS This Morning. Since 2017, Burkus has been ranked as one of the world’s top business thought leaders by Thinkers50. As a sought-after international speaker, his TED Talk has been viewed over 2 million times. He’s worked with leaders from organizations across all industries including Google, Stryker, Fidelity, Viacom, and even the US Naval Academy.A former business school professor, Burkus holds a master’s degree in organizational psychology from the University of Oklahoma, and a doctorate in strategic leadership from Regent University.

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