6.3 Capitalising on creativity
Your smart unconscious may help you leap to previously unimagined ideas, but deciding which ideas to develop can be difficult.
In his bestselling book Give and Take, Adam Grant suggests that there’s an often-overlooked element in what makes successful people successful.
According to conventional wisdom, highly successful people have three things in common: motivation, ability, and opportunity. If we want to succeed, we need a combination of hard work, talent, and luck.
Yet Grant’s research into reciprocity drew attention to a fourth ingredient: interaction with other people. You might be motivated, able and lucky – but making desirable differences depends on other people lending you their intelligent cooperation. In this sense it is critical to recognise that both leaders and followers need each other – their common interests make them allies and bind them together.
Consequently, to succeed you need:
- motivation
- ability
- opportunity
- relationships with those who might help you do things better.
So far you have looked at how creativity can thrive in an organisation, however it is also important to recognise what can damage and stifle creativity. You will look at this next.