The 7 Creative Killer Suspects
Worktech-13 Melbourne
Gaia Grant
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Keynote talk excerpts Presented at Worktech-13 Melbourne by Gaia Grant, co-author of "Who Killed Creativity? and how can we get it back" (Wiley 2012).
A crime scene investigation is underway to investigate a death. This is not an average death, this is the death of creative thinking. It's time to identify and deal with the creativity killers. Through our surveys of thousands of workshop participants from a range of backgrounds and experiences over more than 20 years, we have narrowed down the list of suspects to 7 key profiles. By recognizing and managing these effectively, we believe it will be possible to revive and nurture creative thinking. Allow us to take a creative approach to interrogating these murder suspects:
Who Killed creativity? What weapons did they use, and where? Was it X.S. Stress in the Executive's Office with 'crushing coercion'? Or was it Beau Rock-Racy in the Accountant's office with 'noxious negativity'. Only when these can be identified in each specific organization, can the appropriate "rescuers" and "strategies" be implemented.
So often money and time is wasted on solutions that eventually make very little or no impact -- the major reason for this is that solutions are generated before the essence of the problem is understood.
In our research we have attempted, in a fun and creative way, to identify the killers and blockers of creativity in the organization and identify the solution processes that will get the desired results. If these creativity killers can be identified upfront then (and they will be different for every company and team), then leaders can start to proactively do something about it, rather than be passive victims.
