I would like to do a follow-up to yesterday’s post about innovators and creators, because I recently stumbled up the following quote:
“We think of creative people in a heroic manner, and we celebrate them, but the thing we celebrate is the after-effect,” says Barry Staw, a researcher at the University of California–Berkeley business school who specializes in creativity.
It is taken from a Slate article called: Inside the Box – People don’t actually like creativity. And it’s supported by a bunch of research, including a 2010 study conducted by professors at Cornell University, the University of Pennsylvania, and the University of North Carolina.
The key finding was that people generally hold a bias against creativity, and it’s activated when we become motivated to reduce uncertainty. This might be because we fear rejection or because we’ve come to learn that reducing uncertainty and promoting the status quo is often better for career advancement.
There’s less perceived risk.
But here’s the thing: celebrating creativity after the fact is meaningless. There’s no genius in that. Everyone now knows this truth. The heroics come into play when you’re both willing to be misunderstood and willing to be dead wrong.
Of course, talk is cheap.
Here are 5 suggestions for promoting greater creativity at your company taken from Tom Tunguz’s blog, who himself is borrowing from Barry Staw (author quoted above):
1. Hire people who’s skills aren’t precise matches for the needs of the company.
2. Encourage employees not to listen blindly to corporate policy and conventional wisdom; not all to speak with the same voice.
3. Those in power should go as far as possible to encourage active opposition to ideas. (Similar to Drucker’s obligation to dissent).
4. Optimize for adaptiveness. Have extra labor capacity and explore side projects. (How many creative companies started or were reinvigorated by side projects? Twitter and Slack are two that immediately come to mind).
5. Lead rather than follow. Take risks.
My friend Dan just introduced me to a terrific podcast called, How I Built This. It’s all about “innovators, entrepreneurs, and idealists, and the stories behind the movements they built.” As soon as he told me about it I immediately pulled out my phone and hit subscribe.
You will recognize many of the brands and entrepreneurs featured on this podcast. The companies span everything from Whole Foods and the Corcoran Group (real estate) to Kate Spade and Instagram.
I’m not that up on podcasts. I think it’s because I don’t really drive that often and I don’t have much of a commute. Podcasts are great when you’re sitting in traffic, which is something people here in LA obviously do a lot of.
But I’m going to make time to listen to this one. I have so much respect for anyone who has built something from nothing. Building and creating is what moves us forward.
PitchBook recently published a report looking at which universities produce the most funded founders.
What they did was track founders of companies that received a first round of venture funding between January 1, 2006 and August 15, 2016. They then looked at which school they graduated from and sliced the data to find companies valued over $1B (”unicorns”), big exits, Ivy vs. non-Ivy league alumni, and so on.
The full report can be downloaded here for free. However, you’ll need to enter your email. Below are some of the key highlights.
Top 10 MBA:
Top 10 MBA by female founders:
For all of you Canadian readers, the top undergraduate schools include:
University of Waterloo (#20)
McGill University (#32)
University of Toronto (#33)
University of British Columbia (#49)
McGill does quite well in the unicorn department, placing in the top 10. However, it is clear that Canadian universities need to step up their game.
Of course, the question remains: what is it that is holding us back? How much of it is the school itself and how much of it is external and perhaps cultural?