Why the n-step approach doesn’t work for creativity
When Henry Ford applied the assembly line to his automobile industry, he changed the world of manufacturing and business forever. In this, now seemingly simple, act, Ford showed that things could be produced faster and cheaper by having people specialize in one process and having them do that process ad infinitum. Every day, car after car, the same person did one job, and it worked. However, the unseen consequence of this is the corporate search to make everything efficient.
Human beings are not efficient. People are not logical. They are not machines. People are inherently messy and unpredictable. Someone may seem happy doing the same thing day after day for years and then all of the sudden snap and, best case scenario, run off and join the circus or find a desert island to live on; worst case scenario usually starts with a quote on the news that sounds something like “he was such a quiet guy…”
Subjugating this inherent illogical-mess intellectually has led to a dysfunctional society full of people who refuse to apply logic in their private lives because they have used their limit in their work lives. It has led to millions of minions who live on the couch, playing video games, watching sports or believing Fox News. It has also led to learned helplessness – when ideas are ignored or derided at work, employees feel less vested in their jobs and then they feel less vested in their lives – after all, work is still the largest identity marker for most people. The first question at a part is “What do you do?” Most people will answer with some form of work, even if it is not true.
For better or worse, there has been a change in business since Ford’s application of the assembly line. Intellectual property and the ability to create and apply it have become every business’ best way to ensure a healthy financial future. But creativity is at the core of what human beings are. It is the reason that people exist – to create. It can be seen in the myths where the Supreme Being is the Creator – and is who people should strive to be like. In religions where people are considered divine or a part of the divine creator or a son or daughter of the divine creator, the divinity is inseparable from the ability, right, responsibility and drive to create.
Creation is messy. It requires knowledge in more than just one area of life. It takes time, and it is resource intensive. While the economy generally rewards those who can make it cheaper, there is no cheaper without the original invention. Because it is through invention, intellectual property and innovation that companies are going to survive, companies are continually searching for the silver bullet, the n-step plan, the way to manage and make efficient the ability to create. There are no steps for creativity. Every situation is different – just as every creative thinker and creative process is different. Unfortunately, the more that creativity is managed, the less likely it will result in something new.
Companies who want to take advantage of their employees’ abilities to create need to have an atmosphere that embraces, learns from and rewards failure. Employees need to feel safe in expressing their ideas, in experimenting and in their job security. Companies need to have longer term goals that will allow for people to work on projects that may take more than three months, a fiscal year or even a decade. Walt Disney worked on Disney’s adaptation of The Snow Queen in 1937. It took the company 76 years to turn the Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale into a billion dollar and beyond movie. The Disney Company would work on it, shelve it and work on it again. The idea kept coming back, even after numerous people, including Walt, failed to make it a story that would translate to the screen.
To recreate the n-step process for Frozen would be impossible for most companies to even consider. Yet, the ability to allow people to create and fail allowed the Disney Company to finally come up with a property that has dominated movies, music, theme parks and Christmas toy sales.
That is the nature of creation. Unlike the story of the divine creator, humans cannot say and it becomes. Instead, people must strive, work, create, create again and keep on creating until they get it right. It is time and inefficiency in the process that makes it possible to create. Without time and the ability to fail, people end up copying other ideas, using what they know and falling into the very clichés, tropes and been-there, done-that ideas that most companies would be smarter to avoid.
Human beings are not efficient. People are not logical. They are not machines. People are inherently messy and unpredictable. Someone may seem happy doing the same thing day after day for years and then all of the sudden snap and, best case scenario, run off and join the circus or find a desert island to live on; worst case scenario usually starts with a quote on the news that sounds something like “he was such a quiet guy…”
Subjugating this inherent illogical-mess intellectually has led to a dysfunctional society full of people who refuse to apply logic in their private lives because they have used their limit in their work lives. It has led to millions of minions who live on the couch, playing video games, watching sports or believing Fox News. It has also led to learned helplessness – when ideas are ignored or derided at work, employees feel less vested in their jobs and then they feel less vested in their lives – after all, work is still the largest identity marker for most people. The first question at a part is “What do you do?” Most people will answer with some form of work, even if it is not true.
For better or worse, there has been a change in business since Ford’s application of the assembly line. Intellectual property and the ability to create and apply it have become every business’ best way to ensure a healthy financial future. But creativity is at the core of what human beings are. It is the reason that people exist – to create. It can be seen in the myths where the Supreme Being is the Creator – and is who people should strive to be like. In religions where people are considered divine or a part of the divine creator or a son or daughter of the divine creator, the divinity is inseparable from the ability, right, responsibility and drive to create.
Creation is messy. It requires knowledge in more than just one area of life. It takes time, and it is resource intensive. While the economy generally rewards those who can make it cheaper, there is no cheaper without the original invention. Because it is through invention, intellectual property and innovation that companies are going to survive, companies are continually searching for the silver bullet, the n-step plan, the way to manage and make efficient the ability to create. There are no steps for creativity. Every situation is different – just as every creative thinker and creative process is different. Unfortunately, the more that creativity is managed, the less likely it will result in something new.
Companies who want to take advantage of their employees’ abilities to create need to have an atmosphere that embraces, learns from and rewards failure. Employees need to feel safe in expressing their ideas, in experimenting and in their job security. Companies need to have longer term goals that will allow for people to work on projects that may take more than three months, a fiscal year or even a decade. Walt Disney worked on Disney’s adaptation of The Snow Queen in 1937. It took the company 76 years to turn the Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale into a billion dollar and beyond movie. The Disney Company would work on it, shelve it and work on it again. The idea kept coming back, even after numerous people, including Walt, failed to make it a story that would translate to the screen.
To recreate the n-step process for Frozen would be impossible for most companies to even consider. Yet, the ability to allow people to create and fail allowed the Disney Company to finally come up with a property that has dominated movies, music, theme parks and Christmas toy sales.
That is the nature of creation. Unlike the story of the divine creator, humans cannot say and it becomes. Instead, people must strive, work, create, create again and keep on creating until they get it right. It is time and inefficiency in the process that makes it possible to create. Without time and the ability to fail, people end up copying other ideas, using what they know and falling into the very clichés, tropes and been-there, done-that ideas that most companies would be smarter to avoid.