When creativity is criminal
Enron’s Ken Lay
You may have caught CNBC’s re-broadcast of “The Smartest Guys in the Room,” the brilliant documentary about Enron’s spectacular rise and fall.
It’s easy to view Lay, Skilling, Fastow and the rest as a creative bunch. Again and again they came up with innovative scams to fool Wall Street into thinking the company was profitable while it was sinking into debt. They themselves spoke incessantly about “creativity” and “innovation.”
But were they truly creative?
Sure, they had ideas. But, as we painfully learned, their ideas were never realized into anything of tangible value. Their creation forever remained a fantasy land.
And fantasy is not creativity.
Of course, ideas are important. But true creativity is something more: it’s about taking ideas and realizing them. Crafting them. Making them make sense. Making them work in the real world.
Enron was able to con so many by, in part, exploiting the myth that creativity is altogether different: mystical, obscure, and by its very nature, incomprehensible.
The more we understand what creativity is, and what it’s not, the better off we’ll all be.
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What they had was big time CHARISMA; the ability to say stuff that people believe even when it isn’t true. Imagine what can be done by people who are charismatic and have good intent!
I think fantasy does require creativity and crafting. Having said that, I do know some people who are all about “the gush.” The rush that happens when an idea pops into their heads. They are more into the rush than its actual content. Although there are some occasions in which whatever’s in the rush will get the job done, the rush is mostly like a sugar high – empty calories. I like to think of the gush as the wave on which to surf my creativity, or the wind to fly my kite. It’s part of the formula, but seldom has a lot to do with content. It’s enthusiasm, lightning in a bottle. A precious commodity.
How many times have you looked at a piece of art and smugly said “I could have done THAT.” Maybe, but you obviously didn’t. So part of creativity, then is manifesting or actually DOING or MAKING something. Writing copy, playing a musical (or non musical) instrument, creating art, right on down to being creative in how you plan or execute your day or just your trip to the grocery store. Creativity can be a conscious choice.
Does the muse (divine inspiration) always show up? No. Then you’re left to hammer it out yourself. That’s absolutely fine; just another way to get something done — because there ARE NO RULES with creativity.
I try to keep my thresholds as low as possible to allow creative energy in from as many sources as possible. That requires a certain amount of energy and there are times when I just don’t have it. Usually, though, it does and results in a much bigger sandbox in which to play, or more sand or more toys.
How do I keep the thresholds low? I don’t really meditate, but there are some mental processes. Sometimes it’s a think/do thing. Other times it’s a do/think/do thing. In the former, you get an idea and do something with it. In the later, the idea isn’t there until you start doing something, then it happens and you do something with it.
Have a Creative Day!