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Making creativity and innovation happen
Making creativity and innovation happen

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4.1 Boundless freedom isn’t always helpful

Just as failure can be good for creativity, so too can constraints and limits. Despite a perception that starting with a ‘blank page’ – whether literal or metaphorical – is always beneficial, this is not necessarily the case.

Figure 9 Is a blank page helpful for creativity?

Neither boundless freedom nor boundless choice are conducive to creativity and innovation, but can in fact have the opposite effect. Indeed, boundless choice might leave people paralysed or indeed create the conditions for failure to occur by removing the necessary framework within which you are able to make decisions.

Completing projects successfully depends on making choices. If you do not exclude options that might take you in unhelpful directions, you cannot hope to get where you would want to be. If it led to unwarranted procrastination, boundless freedom would also not be an advantage.