{CHAPTER 2}
DANCING
ALONG THE
EDGE OF THE BOX
A significant ingredient in creativity is the decision to be creative. Creative individuals have the ability to tolerate ambivalence and doubt. They overcome barriers, and they dare to take risks. They sail out into the deep water, but not without direction. So what, precisely, does it mean to say that one is creative? What does one need to be able to do?
HUMAN CREATIVE POWERS
The term creativity is derived from the Latin creatio, from creare, which means “to produce”. This is a relatively new word in the Danish language. Before modern times, it was assumed that that which is created is created once and for all (by a godly power). In other words, we can only be inspired (by the spirit) to liberate an already inherent creative capacity within us. Until 1950, reflections concerning “creation” were thus of a purely theological nature, and terms such as “genius” or “fantasy” played the role that creativity plays today. “Creativity is no longer a luxury for the few but is a necessity for all,” as Professor Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi wrote in 2006.
Even if some people are equipped with greater creative powers than others, we cannot afford a situation in which only the few have the opportunity to develop their abilities. We no longer believe that there are limits to human creative potential, and modernity places considerable faith in the possibilities of science and technology. This is linked to great and well-grounded hopes for creativity. Most companies seek to employ creative workers – workers who are capable of coming up with new ideas and transforming these into saleable products. As jobs disappear from our country, it is argued that we should learn from creativity and renewal. It is not enough just to produce. We must produce the new, the different, the original.
This is what Earle Dickson did in 1920, prompted by an unlucky wife who was constantly burning herself while cooking. He invented adhesive bandages to help her and ended up becoming Vice President of Johnson & Johnson in the USA. Bette Nesmith Graham worked as a secretary when the electric typewriter first truly came to prominence. It was no longer possible to remove errors with a rubber eraser, so she invented Liquid Paper correction fluid. The idea originated from observing painters who corrected mistakes in their work by painting over them. In 1956, she patented the idea.
In a summer 2011 project as part of the Master’s education at Aalborg University, five of Lene’s students provided accounts of their own experiences as public sector managers and concluded that creativity arises from necessity. This is the case regardless of whether you are seeking to create new educational solutions for children with special needs, to ensure employee satisfaction despite workplace cutbacks, or to arrange a festival in a socially vulnerable neighbourhood while minimizing the potential for violence and unrest. Necessity may be the starting point, but it is followed by the work of getting “inventions” to succeed through a hearty dose of practical reason, willingness to take risks, and the ability to sell ideas to others.
Most people agree that we need creativity like never before. In addition, creativity is primarily a human project. We regard ourselves as creative and existence as such as mouldable. The British sociologist Richard Sennett, author of numerous exciting books concerning modern capitalism, argues in his The Culture of the New Capitalism (2006) that employees today encounter difficulties if they do not manage to regard themselves as flexible and creative. We are quite certain this argument is correct. On the one hand, it provides us with a large degree of freedom of action as individuals. On the other hand, it presents certain risks: being constantly creative is just as likely to lead to burnout as it is to lead to innovative products and organizations.
There are thus also good grounds for taking a closer look at what creative people actually do to be more creative. How do they develop and maintain their new ideas? Where do they find the courage to keep going even though they sometimes encounter resistance? And how do they manage their own demands to continue being creative?
One of our primary arguments, which we derive directly from our cases, is that sustainable creativity encourages creative breakthroughs. We need not necessarily think more quickly; it may be better to think more slowly. Creativity cannot be forced but it can be framed. We need to have the courage to undertake these creative breakthroughs – whether this requires that we get in the bathtub like Picasso or take off our trousers to win an Emmy, as described by DR’s former head of drama, Ingolf Gabold. Otherwise, demanding creativity will simply lead to more burnout.
WHAT IS CREATIVITY?
Most of us go through life with multiple understandings of creativity. It is not unusual for us to assert simultaneously that creativity is the use of one’s fantasy, a matter of thinking differently, and about creating something new. This is also true for research into creativity. At the risk of oversimplifying things slightly, we can say that our dominant models of creativity often include the following three understandings. Conceptions of what creativity involve include:
1. Thinking as wildly and differently as possible.
2. Innovation as a driving force, as a sort of societal engine.
3. A mystical energy that can lead to innovation if released in the appropriate manner: in psychoanalysis, creativity is the light that can force its way through cracks or the sexual energy that can be transformed into rational productivity.
Creativity is the new that enters the world in meaningful ways. It is not enough to think wildly or be hugely energetic. Nor is creativity an anonymous societal engine. It is a result of specific people doing new things. Most research-based models of creativity differentiate between the Four Ps: Person, Process, Product, and Press (environment). People, processes, and products can be creative in themselves, but they are also often involved in creative interplay with one another. Significantly, they are dependent on their environment regarding them as creative. This means that a process can be just as creative as a product.
ON THE EDGE!
Most creativity researchers argue that divergent thinking lies at the core of creativity. By this, they mean the ability to see a problem in new ways, to thrive in disharmonious situations, and to look at things from 180°.
Some use this to say that creativity is about “thinking outside the box”. We disagree. Instead, we say that creativity is about moving “along the edge of the box” (see also Bilton, 2007). Creativity is renewal that stands on the boundaries of the box, explores them, and further expands them. The box’s boundaries arise between new and existing products, when we stand on the shoulders of others, and between different trades and areas of knowledge and skill. We do not step outside the box. Doing so would leave us helpless, and products that lie outside the box risk being impossible to sell.
As Thomas Lykke, who redesigned the classic Koppel-kanden, a pitcher that has recently been relaunched by the luxury product company Georg Jensen, says in an interview: “We humans really like recognisable things – if design becomes too radically different, we often react with scepticism.”
BLUE FLUTED ALONG THE EDGE
A good example of a product that has succeeded in its balancing act on the edge is Royal Copenhagen’s Blue Fluted Mega dinner service, designed by Karen Kjældgård-Larsen in 2001.
The blue-fluted service’s history stretches all the way back to the porcelain factory’s founding in Copenhagen in 1775. During that period, the Chinese were extensively producing blue-fluted porcelain, and inspiration was also found in Germany. The Danish royal family supported the project financially, and this coincided with the discovery of large quantities of cobalt in Norway, which was then part of the kingdom of Denmark. 2001’s Blue Fluted Mega design is, in reality, just a magnification of the original design, thereby encompassing aspects of both novelty and familiarity. It is still blue fluted, but in an updated edition, which speaks to a current segment of the company’s customer base yet nevertheless gives the feeling of purchasing and writing oneself into a piece of valuable Danish history.
Blue Fluted Mega stands on the shoulders of the old design but also moves along the edge to become sufficiently different. The Danish industrial giant Danfoss does the same. In an April 2011 interview in Refleksion magazine, CEO Niels B. Christiansen said that there is no point winning prizes for innovation if the products do not subsequently find their way to customers. Danfoss thus works to be innovative close to its core business. It is easier to be creative and innovative in an area where one already holds a strong global position than in one where one does not know the customers, channels, and competitors.
We do not become creative just by being different. We also need to create something of value to others. That is why we speak in this book of moving along the edge of the box rather than merely thinking outside of it. In addition, the image of moving along the edge of the box provides a number of positive associations in terms of what creativity requires: namely, the courage to walk on the edge, to be on the edge and look down – without necessarily falling as a result. It is not enough to engage in lateral thinking. Creative ideas are also capable of moving others: they make us want to have them. As a result, creativity includes not just thinking, understood as the ability to intellectually combine things in new ways. There is also an important emotional component involved, where the decisive thing is to move others.
We would thus like to heavily underline the key rule that creativity requires domain-specific knowledge. You can only renew a tradition when you know it. Many might believe that creativity can blossom of its own accord, but divergent thinking or the courage to go to the edge are only interesting when there is something to think about or something from which to take a point of departure or from which to distance oneself. This, at any rate, is the case if we maintain that creativity is not just about the new but also about the meaningful.
It is, in other words, when we know the script by heart that we can improvise. As we shall see in the following section, this point comes up in our interviews as well.
OPPORTUNITIES WITH EDGE
Michael Christiansen – former theatre manager at the Danish Royal Theatre and current chairman of the board at DR and Aarhus University – explains that his secret to being a good leader of creative processes and products has been to build up a deep familiarity with the practice he is leading. “I watched 120 plays and 40 operas per year in my time as theatre manager,” he says, “because I wanted to be interesting to speak with when I met directors and walked around at the theatre.”
Kenneth Bager, the world-famous Danish DJ, went out and visited all the discos in Jutland when he was 17 to learn from the various DJs. “A bit professorial,” as he puts it. The professional skills, even how the other DJs looked, were regarded as points of departure for the quality and substance of new ideas. As the saying goes, you cannot improvise before you know the instrument. Once you master the technique behind dribbling, you can dribble the ball in creative ways when the game gets underway.
And it may not be smart to try to go it alone. The world-famous Danish footballer Michael Laudrup would have been nothing without his teammates in Barcelona as well as without the whole “setup” and the financial resources that made it possible to purchase expensive players. The Danish architect Bjarke Ingels explains in the present book that a significant condition for his success as an architect has, naturally, been his acquisition of the technical, administrative, and financial skills for his bureau, allowing him to enter and win big competitions.
A creative team is often composed so that there is interplay between the various skills. No one needs to do the same thing all the time, and no one should necessarily need to be creative at a moment’s notice. As Bjarke puts it, “My CEO is the sort of consultant type who gets a kick out of black figures on the bottom line. I’m not that kind of person, but I know that this focus is necessary if we’re to be able to realize our projects at all.”
You need to ensure that you have met demands that you cannot fulfil on your own. For many creative people, this is where things can go wrong. In his 2007 book Management and Creativity, Chris Bilton notes that it is paradoxical that few artistic educations teach students about financial issues. This is because we often think in terms of oppositions. Creativity is soft and finances are hard. Emotions are one thing and rationality is another. The mind is opposed to the body.
This dichotomization of the world is problematic. Creativity is a hardcore business too. Finances are also about feelings: just think of the housing and stock market bubbles, in which people trade too high without thinking things through. These splits prevent us from using creativity constructively. If we listened to Bjarke, he would say that creativity does not flower of its own accord but requires that we can manage its essential preconditions – including the financial ones.
NURTURE THE CREATIVE BREAKTHROUGH
Creativity is neither about waiting for the big ideas to arrive nor about working like a maniac and forcing oneself to spend hours and hours in front of the computer screen. The Danish poet Jørgen Leth explains that he is constantly seeking the best possible conditions for creativity. He lives abroad during the winter: every morning when he is writing, he takes a walk along the steep cliffs of Haiti’s north coast, and every evening, he only stops working after he has written a good sentence. This makes it easier for him to begin again the next morning. Einstein was said to get his greatest ideas while shaving, and Picasso thought up Cubism in the bathtub. In other words, the small breaks in the daily work process are important ingredients in the creative process itself.
It is also said of Picasso that he was a perfectionist and used his notebooks to make countless notes and produce hundreds of sketches for his best works. That is, he was not only good at making creative breakthroughs but he was also good at the preparation that made the creative breakthroughs effective. Jørgen Leth also speaks of the notebook as an important creative tool.
So how does one get more of these effective creative breakthroughs? One answer is that we must do something that diverges from that which exists and provides us with experiences that break from the usual. When you get stuck in a rut in front of the computer, you need to go for a walk or do something different. On a more organizational level, businesses and municipalities could benefit from considering how they can best organize work for those tasked with being creative. Perhaps they need to honour the best idea of the month or – as Christian has decided in his businesses – the best idea of the year. If we learn from the present book’s empirical basis, it is important not to forget to involve lateral thinkers from other branches and trades. Bjarke Ingels says that he heartily seeks new inspiration. Peter Stenbæk and Jørgen Leth sample experiences from all sorts of sources and place them in their own products and works.
We need to nurture divergence, the crossing of boundaries, deviations from the standard. This can help us periodically forget that which we know to explore new landscapes and new opportunities.
WORK RATIONALLY
Creative breakthroughs, continual work, and a willingness to take risks are basic elements of creativity. We stress that creativity does not arise of its own accord, but this does not mean we need to work irrationally hard. Instead, we need to work rationally.
In the book Talent, Claus Buhl describes research by the Swedish Professor of Psychology K. Anders Ericsson into expertise among violinists at the Berlin Conservatory. Ericsson sets out to study whether top violinists are more naturally talented than others. His studies show that this is not the case. Their ability is grounded in countless hours of practice as well as good help and feedback from instructors, advisors, and mentors. The violinists seek out others who can lift them further and assist them in entering the learning zone. It is not just about practising for many hours; it is also about practising the right things – the difficult and the challenging – that can help them learn more.
By getting the violinists to write diaries, Ericsson discovered another interesting thing: it turned out that the very best violinists all take naps in the middle of the day. Why? Because it is exhausting to practise for hours at a time – and because this little pause gives them the extra energy and calm necessary to refocus and maintain perspective. When we wish to be creative, it is not about pacing oneself but about working in a reasoned manner. And this is, quite frankly, a piece of wonderful news.
SUMMARY
In this chapter, we argue that creativity is encouraged by our exploration of the edges of the box. We might move along the edge of the box through everyday breaks, sensible work practices, and the courage to do things differently. Although much of the literature on creativity describes creativity as thinking outside of the box, we argue that creativity arises when we deviate from that which exists without moving away from it.