What is Creative Intelligence?
You've probably heard of Emotional Intelligence, popularised by Daniel
Goleman, and Spiritual Intelligence which grew out of research by Danah
Zohar. Nowadays, there is an ever-increasing interest in exploring creativity
and the attributes or "intelligences" that help people to be creative.
For some years, it was thought that information and information technology
had overtaken industrial processes as the key drivers to commercial
and other success. The civilised world had started on its road to prosperity
through agriculture and this was the principal driver of commerce for
centuries. Then the industrial revolution changed all that - agriculture
diminished in importance and industry came to the fore. Then, in the
late 20th century, information became the key. Those who had information
or knowledge were the kings of the castle.
But the growth of the internet means that we are all kings now; whatever
information you have now, your competitors can have one nano-second
later - or earlier. We are living in a post-information age and what
matters now and for the foreseeable future is not what information we
have but how many ideas we can come up with and how creatively, efficiently
and effectively we can turn those ideas into new and profitable products
and services. So businesses and other organisations need to employ people
with creative intelligence.
The problem is that most businesses employ
people who are a product of an earlier age, an age in which education
encouraged the accumulation of facts rather than the development of
personal creativity. We are, of course, all creative but our education
and often the type of work we do has stifled our innate creativity.
Research undertaken by Kobus Neethling in 15 different countries exploring
the creativity of schoolchildren showed that:
Creative behaviour diminshes from 98% in the 3-5 year old age group
to 32% by age 10; by the time children are turning 15, only 10% are
behaving creatively and it's only 2% by the age of 25.
So many businesses, anxious not to get left behind,
started to look around to see who could help re-ignite the creativity
of their people. Not surprisingly, many of them started to turn to the
arts and artists - people whose work demands a continuous flow of creative
abilities. Could business people learn from them? They could - and they
do.
The sorts of processes and techniques used by artists, often honed
over centuries of artistic endeavour, are precisely the processes that
encourage creative intelligence. And creativity does not just relate
to problem-solving. A creative approach to learning, leadership, management,
interpersonal relations, culture, values, organisational development,
communication, change or any other aspect of organisational life is
what will distinguish the successful company from the failure in the
21st century.
And we at Ci:Creative Intelligence are here to help you
develop your Ci and that of your colleagues.