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May 1997
Bill Boon
The creative spark
reativity is the buzz-word of the nineties. No matter what activity
is being discussed - from building a birdhouse to raising orchids - if
you do a good job, you are described as very creative.
Roger von Oech, who wrote the book A Whack on the Side of the Head: How to Unlock Your Mind for Innovation, asks the question, "Are you creative?" He then tells the story of a major oil company whose top management brought in a team of psychologists to find out why there was a lack of creativity among its research and development personnel. After several testing procedures, the results proved that the only difference between the personnel who said they were creative and those who said they were not was the former thought they were creative. It was all a matter of attitude.
We all have the capacity to become creative, and much of it has to do with attitudes about ourselves, about the work we do and especially about the excitement we have about learning new things. People who are really creative have a desire to know everything - 19th century mathematics, flower arranging and hog futures. They want to know everything because they know that connections are made between seemingly unrelated material.
Gutenburg's printing press came about by combining the coin punch and the wine press. Knute Rockne's four horsemen came from watching a chorus line in a burlesque house. It sounds crazy, but new ideas come from strange combinations. And the strangeness makes it very risky business. You are setting yourself up for ridicule and failure. The world loves to laugh at and shoot down new and weird ideas. And every creative person has behind him or her a whole resume of failures.
I often think that when individuals are introduced to speak to a respectable audience, instead of reciting all of their successes they should be reminded of their failures. I talk a lot about my failures because, in the first place, they are more interesting than my successes. And in the second place, it helps people realize that professors are not all that different from anyone else. In fact, most of the time I feel like a turtle on a post: I'm not sure how I got where I am, but I am quite sure that I did not get here by myself.
f attitude, willingness to learn new things and failure are a big
part of being creative, then the creative spark that puts it all in
proper perspective is humor. There is an absolute necessity to find
humor in our lives in order to be creative. In fact, we need to learn to
laugh at ourselves. If you find that you can't do that, then it's up to
the rest of us to do it for you. We need to learn to take ourselves
lightly and our work seriously. Groups that come up with the most
creative ideas are those that laugh more. They don't feel threatened
because they "are just fooling around" anyway.
Edward De Bono, the most quoted name in creativity today, has said that creativity and humor are very likely the same thing because, when measured, they both stimulate the same part of the brain.
So put the creative spark in your life, and when failure comes your way, just ride it out. You can, with the proper attitude, because it's really a learning experience. And some day when you really understand it, you will laugh about it.
Bill Boon, professor of landscape architecture
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