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Do "Creativity Workshops" really work? Adrian Furnham has his doubts...

For management consultants the stress industry is a nice little earner. Everyone in IT likes to believe that they are acutely, chronically, unfairly and uniquely stressed at work. Further they are certain that all stress "comes from the outside": that it is caused by others, usually control-freak, demanding and unreasonable bosses.

Seminars on stress are hard work. There is a lot of what Americans call "negative affectivity" as well as depression, fatalism and the like. Indeed it becomes stressful for the stress consultants.

There is another more attractive and fun way to earn your daily dollar and that is running creativity workshops. In that evidence-free environment beloved of trainers, people are told that everyone is creative and that they can be taught quite simply to explore and exploit their talents.

The language of creativity-cultivating workshops is particularly interesting. There seem to be five related models.

The muesli model

People need to unblock their creativity. They are in some curious way constipated and unable to let go and express themselves. In this sense creativity courses may be seen as laxatives.

The dominatrix model

Here we are told to unleash our creativity. Somehow one has been bound up, tied down, physically constrained from that most natural and normal of tasks namely being creative. So courses are liberators.

The arsonist model

Creative consultants and trainers aim to spark ideas and light fires. They see people as dry tinder just waiting for the right moment. Their job is to find ways of facilitating fire-setting ideas.

The kindergarten model

The problem appears to be that we have all forgotten how to be playful. Playfulness is apparently not only a lot of fun but it is also very productive. So our trainer helps us regress to a time when we were happy and quite unabashed to draw pictures, sing songs, etc.

The gaol-liberator model

The problem, you see, is that we have all been boxed in a sort of cognitive gaol that has stopped us…..wait for it…thinking outside the box! And here, our happy consultants throws open the doors of our prison and out pops our creative jack-in-the-box.

The talent-and-perspiration model

You will have noted that each of the five creativity-cultivation models assume that somewhere and somehow our natural creativity is suppressed. Quite contrary to all that we know about individual differences and human abilities, the assumption is that creativity is not normally distributed: everybody is (potentially) very creative.

Clearly not everyone is musical, or good with numbers, or a natural sprinter. Certainly people can be taught skills and they can become better at almost everything they do. The question is how much and with what effort.

Studies of genuinely creative individuals show both considerable talent but also sustained effort. Whilst it is true that 'good ideas' emerge often in times of relaxation (called the incubation period), a great deal of work has gone into thinking about the problem at hand. Creatives are talented, driven, hard-working….and perhaps rather odd people (Ed. Note: see Phil Factor's Two Stop Short of Dagenham article for some wryly amusing thoughts on this subject).

Most creativity courses are fun, whether they are led by arsonists or kindergarten teachers. Most aim at 'fun and games' and are more about self-concept and self-esteem than anything else. Many people are neither gaoled nor blocked, though given the right circumstances they may all display some levels of creative thinking.

Alas, Edison was right: it's all about 99% perspiration and 1% inspiration. Learning to "thought-shower" – the new PC term for brainstorm – in a nice hotel at the company's expense may be lots of fun but is unlikely to do much more than persuade people - rightly or wrongly- that they are very creative.