Creativity is associated with thinking outside the box, adapting to new ideas, willingness to take risks, and listening to your inner voice. Yet, often it has been understood that creative children face difficulties in school. Creativity dominates in the right brain, whereas the traditional education system tries to turn on the left brain with a good deal of data. Creative children may throw away a great deal of it, considering it irrelevant, but constantly looking away for the new meaning from the old data or calling back in a totally different dimension. Creative kids often become frustrated in school and may produce average throughput. They might be regarded as poor students by teachers and parents, which reminds me of the Bollywood movie “Taare Zameen Par.” This movie brilliantly describes a creative child’s life and how he is treated and misunderstood by everyone, including parents, teachers, and acquaintances. When it comes to bullying, kids can go very far, and most of the time, creative kids are victimized by their classmates.
What happens with the creative people entering the workforce? If creative people don’t choose the occupation based on their special talents, they might face many difficulties and frustration at work. The job itself is not a problem, and others on the job may be doing just fine; it is just the workplace culture that is not well suited, just like they had issues during their school days.
Every workplace has its own nature, culture, and code, often influenced by the commercial enterprise model and leadership. The workplace environment may evolve and change with time. Many employees may adapt to the change well; however, creative people may have difficulty adapting and working with co-workers. Creative people always try and discover novel ways to get the task done, looking for alternatives to solve a problem, and thinking differently. This attitude may incur discomfort, fear, and uneasiness in other co-workers’ minds and respond in unpleasant ways with the creative ones. This could cause disagreements and more frustration for the creative people, and accumulative rejections from school, society, and workplace may result in negative manifestations like job/career change or adopting a negative attitude towards rules. This could cause a Lose-Lose situation for the organization and the creative person.
What is the solution then? Creative employees and outside the box thinking are the most important parameters for any organization to survive and grow. To avoid unnecessary workplace conflicts and encourage creativity, every organization should identify its creative personalities and respect all the employees’ creativity and opinion. Creative people can be easily identified by their different work styles, deliverables, and thought processes. Every organization should try to address the differences so that new ideas or perspectives could be used for the organization’s good.
Creative people also need to understand that they may need to adjust their expression methods based on the workplace environment. They should find new ways to express themselves (after all, they are ‘creative’) to align with organizational and team goals with minimal friction with the people around them.
However, creative minds need help, support, and understanding during their childhood days as those are the days when they easily feel rejected and not loved. Our education system and society should recognize the power of creativity and those special to integrate well into the community, society and contribute to humankind with their full potential.
