Get creative, or get left behind

By Alex Wadelton | 12 December 2019
 
Getty

Picture this:

A kitten wrestling with a chicken on top of a fifty storey building at dusk, on Mars, while a crowd of fluffy toys looks on.

That sentence made no sense.

But it made you imagine it. It made you think creatively to visualise it. And that’s something that fewer and fewer of us do as we become adults. And with the rise of AI and robots, that’s a problem.

But firstly, what is creativity?

Well, it’s not just the arts.

Creativity is a way of thinking that is open to exploring new possibilities. To approaching problems from new angles. Of seeing opportunities that are not immediately obvious. It’s about knowing you don’t know the answer, and enjoying the process of trying to figure it out.

Too many of us, sadly, are having this creativity taught out of us.

You may be aware of a test conducted by Dr George Lund and Beth Jarman. They started with 1,600 three to five-year-olds and through a series of tasks determined that 98% were at genius level of creativity. Yes, 98%.

They were so staggered by the results that they decided to do follow-up tests with the same children over the ensuing years.

By the age of ten, the figure was down to 30%.

By fifteen, it had dipped further to only 12%.

Upon testing adults, the figure had fallen down to a mere 2% being considered “highly creative”.

No matter which way you turn it, that’s not good.

And with the CSIRO’s 2016 prediction that 44% of jobs were under threat by the new industrial revolution, it’s also very sobering reading.

Creativity, however, is something that humanity is absolutely blessed with.

It’s an advantage that we have over every other living creature on the planet.

By being able to create new ways of thinking we have gone to the Moon, built incredible flying machines, invented intricate cuisine, constructed complex systems through cities with millions of inhabitants, created cinema that movies scores of people emotionally, written literature that inspires people all over the world, and we can summon running water at the flick of wrist, electricity at the flick of a button, and through small handheld rectangular devices can call up any fact from history at the touch of a finger.

It’s really quite staggering when you stop and think about it for a minute.

Because every single breakthrough has been achieved through humans thinking creatively. And it’s a skill you have laying dormant inside of you, right now. And if you have kids? Well, do all you can to encourage their creative side. Because if you do, you’ll be setting them up for life.

That’s why Russel Howcroft (of Gruen fame) and I collaborated on our new book The Right-brain Workout.

It’s filled with 70 questions posed by some of Australia’s most creative people from the worlds of comedy, art, advertising, music, literature, and photography. Questions designed to help you, your workmates, and your kids to reconnect with your genius five-year-old self, or to help it flourish even more.

Because when you are creative every day you get to explore and see the world with fresh eyes again. You get to see problems as an exciting possibility to learn new things. You get to create fun out of nothing. And you just might future-proof yourself in the process.

Alex Wadelton is one of Australia’s leading independent creative directors. He is co-author with Russel Howcroft of the new Penguin Random House book The Right-brain Workout. 

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