| The first contact with the outside world for many of the tribal people in the New Guinea highlands was with planes which dropped packages of food and supplies. It is not surprising that at first, some of these people thought the planes were big birds sent by the gods to give them gifts. This
turned into a new religion called the "cargo cult". Most people in our society have a cargo-cult view of creativity, because they think that creative people are gifted people who are born with a special way of thinking that most of us can never hope to emulate. This is not so.
The reason for the confusion about creativity lies in the way we use the word. Creativity is not a thing you have, it is a way of doing something - a way of thinking. Because we are all able to think in creative ways, we are all potentially creative people.
Fortunately, like most other skills, creative thinking can be learned.
Being creative does not mean sitting around passively waiting for inspiration either. This is another common misconception. Generally, creative thinking is a very active process which ideally involves consciously using a range of skills to help generate, and then manipulate, new ideas. It's a bit like fishing - you can go out in your boat and wait for the fish to jump into it, but we don't usually call that fishing. Fishing, is when you do something active like throwing in a line. Either way you will never be sure what you are going to catch, but your chances of not catching anything at all are much greater if you just sit around waiting. In that case, probably the only thing you will ever catch is a cold.
The reason so many people have the wrong idea about creativity is the same reason the New Guineans got confused about aeroplanes - it is just a lack of any direct experience. After all, few schools formally teach creative thinking skills, it's not even a part of many university courses. It has been left to people like the father of the concept of lateral thinking, Dr Edward de Bono, to popularise the idea that creativity is a deliberate process that can be learned. In fifty years, people will look back on this time as the dark ages because we don't formally teach creative thinking.
High Performance Learning runs creative thinking courses for both individuals and groups. These tailor-made courses combine both theoretical and practical components. As part of each course, participants are shown how to apply their new skills to a specific project or problem of their choice.
By the way, nobody in Papua New Guinea sits around waiting for flying gods to send them presents any more.
We hope you will stop thinking that being creative means sitting around waiting for new ideas to hit you!
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