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What Is Creative? - Part 11

Now the use of words like "principles," "techniques," or "methods" requires a further caution: creative thinking is not a gimmick. It is not a stunt. It is something that can encompass your whole range of living—from your job and company needs, on out to the kind of parent you are. But sticking strictly to business, we should remember that we are interested in getting ideas, not just for the sake of ideas, but for solving problems. This cannot be overemphasized. And we should begin early in our study of ideas to learn the difference between an idea that is important and an idea that is just an idea.

Only by setting our standards high and insisting on meeting them will we be able to reach up to true creativity—deliberately!

What makes a man creative? Is it something in his education, or his upbringing, or his physical make-up? Was it where he went to school? Or the books he read while growing up? Is it his intelligence? Is it the kind of job he has? Or the problems he has had to overcome merely to stay alive?

Actually, all of these factors may have some bearing on any individual's creativeness. But not necessarily. In studying the great creative thinkers of the past, we find that they came from all walks of life; were in all kinds of businesses. They had varied interests, beliefs, educations, and temperaments. And the same thing holds true for the creative people we have been able to study in our own time.

Current studies of what makes a person creative are far from complete. But preliminary findings, from independently con­ducted studies, are so closely in agreement that we think we can now predict what characteristics will indicate at least a potential for creativeness. The most comprehensive research effort in this field is probably that of Dr. J. P. Guilford at the University of Southern California. A similar type of study, with almost identical preliminary findings, has been initiated at Penn State College, Pennsylvania, by Dr. Viktor Lowenfeld. Industrial companies have also been studying their personnel assigned to creative activities with similar confirming results. Among the leaders in this are such firms as the AC Spark Plug Division of General Motors; the General Electric Company; and RCA-Victor's Tele­vision Engineering Department. We shall expand on the findings of these business concerns in Chapter 14. For now, however, it is important only to note that their researching has, to a large extent, given some practical, dollars-and-cents support to the more aca­demic and scientific studies made by Drs. Guilford and Lowenfeld.

Related terms include business success and businessmanagement.