The creative gene is a myth

Stralfors.co.uk

A CREATIVE PERSON

Has skills in a given area.

Can listen to others and is interested in other people’s perspectives.

Is unassuming.

Is motivated and passionate about an issue.

Masters divergent thinking.

Creativity can be found in individuals in all professions and in all situations. Traditionally, we think that creativity only thrives in creative professions, but Maria Sandgren, psychologist and Ph.D. at Södertörn University, is conducting research into creativity and she believes that anyone can be creative in the context they find themselves. The creative process involves play and joy, as well as work and tough demands. She has conducted a lot of research in the field of music, and finds creativity in both the singer in an amateur choir and in the professional opera singer.
Maria Sandgren is a senior lecturer in Artistic Psychology. And with inspiration brought over from the USA, it’s the field of creativity that she’s introduced to the world of Swedish academia. It studies how people’s learning, development and well-being are all connected.

Anyone can be creative
There is no creative gene, but in the right context and with the right backing anyone can be creative. But being creative doesn’t just mean coming up with good ideas.
“Creativity can’t be compared with regular problem-solving. If I decide what to have for dinner this evening, that’s not being creative. The idea must be innovative and it must be possible to use it several times if you’re going to be able to call it creative,” says Maria Sandgren.
“We’re now used to convergent thinking, a rational way of thinking in which we analyse and assess the pros and cons and come up with one single solution. More than 90 per cent of our thinking nowadays is convergent.”
Divergent thinking, by contrast, goes in different directions, and different ways of performing a task are discovered and tried out. People keep lots of balls in the air. Open discussions are held, with no status issues. There’s an openness to inspiration from many totally different directions.
“A flow of spontaneous associations can emerge, which can sometimes seem irrational. It can just simmer away quietly for a long time before the insight comes along,” says Maria Sandgren, who can sometimes come up with her most creative ideas on the way to the supermarketafter her brain’s been wrestling with a problem over several long sessions.
It is possible to learn to think divergently and it is possible to increase creativity out at the workplace.
“All organisations need structures, more or less fixed working hours, meetings and procedures, but you need to add little diversions offering time for alternative problem-solving sessions. These might be demarcated activities where you allow a group of employees to let their ideas flow and really give them time to think.”

Free time to produce good ideas
Maria Sandgren mentions Google by way of example as a company that has let its employees have free time, but in return wants those employees’ ideas to benefit the company.
“Most companies underestimate their employees’ motivation to do something for their workplace, and it’s primarily environmental factors that prevent creative thinking. But opening up the opportunity for development creates tremendous involvement and pleasure.”
According to Maria Sandgren, it’s possible to teach the brain to think in a divergent rather than a convergent way:
“You enter a state of mind, and in time it becomes the obvious way to be. I’m now a person who thinks more divergently, and that’s changed me. I’m no longer stressed, I find it easier to accept criticism and people call me a fountain of ideas.”