Creativity and Productivity – Yin and Yang

According to research published this month, 75% of workers feel under pressure to be productive rather than creative. This is in spite of the expectation that they think creatively on the job. My first thought reading this statistic was the division between creativity and productivity. It seems there is a perception that creativity may not be a productive use of time.

I disagree with this idea, though I understand the logic behind it. Creative methods are often seen as recreational and frivolous. A prime example of this is drama. For hundreds of years it has been used as a form of entertainment, and in the past 50 years drama therapy has emerged as a purposeful way of helping people overcome obstacles. Viola Spolin took improvisation in the early 1920’s and discovered that it worked in terms of enabling young non-English speaking migrants to communicate. Improvisation worked where other methods did not.

Secondly, the reality behind creativity is that not all of it is productive. Some ideas don’t work, and some do. There is no real way of editing ideas until they are someway formed. Does this mean that we minimise the amount of time we spend on new ideas? What will that do for our personal wellbeing, or for our economy? If we looked at the economic cost of time lost to “bad ideas” would it be greater or less than time and money saved/earned from “good ideas”. And when can we call an idea “bad” when we cannot categorically say it has no use whatsoever. Cough medicine became a soft drink, leftover building materials became play-dough, and these materials weren’t created with either use in mind. Their uses were discovered accidentally.

I think we need as a society to rethink the role of creativity. It isn’t an enemy of productivity, rather a necessary bedfellow.  We need new ideas, and the strategy to make these ideas workable. One does not work best without the other.