Quotes About Creativity

When people know the desired destination, they're free to improvise, as needed, in arriving there.

Most of the big problems we encounter in organizations or society are ambiguous and evolving. They don't look like burning-platform situations, where we need people to buckle down and execute a hard but well-understood game plan. To solve bigger, more ambiguous problems, we need to encourage open minds, creativity, and hope.

Beware the soul-sucking force of reasonableness

And that's the charge for all of us: to defy the forgettable flatness of everyday work and life by creating a few precious moments.

Big problems are rarely solved with commensurately big solutions.

You want to invent new ideas, not new rules.

Journalists obsess about their leads. Don Wycliff, a winner of prizes for editorial writing, says, "I've always been a believer that if I've got two hours in which to write a story, the best investment I can make is to spend the first hour and forty-five minutes of it getting a good lead, because after that everything will come easily.

Good metaphors are "generative."13 The psychologist Donald Schon introduced this term to describe metaphors that generate "new perceptions, explanations, and inventions." Many

If you want your ideas to be stickier, you've got to break someone's guessing machine and then fix it.

if appropriate, add an element of surprise.

In 2016, the $148 million allocated to the National Endowment for the Arts accounted for .004% of the federal budget expenditures ($3.9 trillion). Suppose we eliminated it in response to criticism? Trying to balance the budget by eliminating the NEA would be like editing a 90,000-word novel by eliminating 4 words.

But isn't the use of a template or a checklist confining? Surely we're not arguing that a "color by numbers" approach will yield more creative work than a blank-canvas approach? Actually, yes, that's exactly what we're saying.

Employees as cast members" is a generative metaphor that has worked for Disney for more than fifty years.

The most basic way to get someone's attention is this: Break a pattern. Humans

Seeking out one more option. Finding someone else who's solved our problem. Asking, "What would have to be true for you to be right?" Ooching as a way to dampen politics. Making big decisions based on core priorities. Running premortems and preparades. Laying down tripwires. Using these techniques will improve the results of your group decisions.

to defy the forgettable flatness of everyday work and life by creating a few precious moments.

Not every meeting needs to be a "defining moment." But once every 5 to 10 meetings, find a way to break the script.

Best of all, bright spots solve the "Not Invented Here" problem.

Big problem, small solution.

Unexpected ideas are more likely to stick because surprise makes us pay attention and think.

Surprise isn't enough. We also need insight.

as soon as people know what the intent is they begin generating their own solutions.

Research tells us that brainstorming becomes more productive when it's focused. As jazz great Charles Mingus famously said, "You can't improvise on nothing, man; you've gotta improvise on something.

Top management challenged employees to be on the lookout for potential innovations—