To be creative, ideas must be both novel and useful. But novelty and usefulness often diverge. The challenge can be traced all the way to the very star of the creater process. I use the term prime mark to capture the first bit of content that you start with as you develop a new idea. It's relatively easy to then make it more useful by incorporating some familiar elements.
“To be creative, ideas must be both novel and useful. That’s the definition that we use in creativity research,” says Justin Berg, an assistant professor of organizational behavior at Stanford Graduate School of Business. But, he warns: “Novel ideas are often not very useful and useful ideas are often not very novel.”
In this episode of Think Fast, Talk Smart, Berg sits down with lecturer and podcast host Matt Abrahams to share lessons from his work on creativity, which has included conducting experiments with both movie directors and circus performers.
“The takeaway is that we should never stop being a creator. As managers and executives climb up the organizational ladder, they may benefit from staying involved in the creative R&D side of things, rather than just spend time having ideas pitched to them.”
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