Business creativity is shrouded in unhelpful myths. Greg Orme cuts his way through the folklore to enable some creating thinking.

1. Business creativity is shrouded in
unhelpful myths. Greg Orme cuts
his way through the folklore to
enable some clear creative thinking.
@Copyright 2014 London Business School

2. Compared with the results of brain-
storms, a famous 1958 test found
people working alone came up with
twice as many ideas and their solutions
were also of a higher quality.
To work well, brainstorming needs a
listening and skilled group leader who
understands the divergent/convergent
nature of the creative process.
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3. Malcolm Gladwell argues that success in any field is often
a matter of practising a specific task for a long time. The
magic number, according to his research, is 10,000 hours.
That is about eight hours a day for about five years.
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4. Intelligence correlates with creativity only to
a point – and a fairly modest point at that.

5. Some people are more creative than others, that is true.
Business should try to hire as many of these creative
powerhouses as they can. Meanwhile, we should all try
to develop a more creative outlook on life.
 

6. ‰
ŠŒ
Ž
It will always be a balance between
exploiting well-trodden processes
and proven products against
investing time and resources in
developing new ideas.

7. Creativity often comes
from outsiders, people
who don’t know how
things “should be done”.
The young are naturally
sceptical of the status
quo, but age is not a
predictor for creativity.
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8. The increasing
complexity of the
modern world
means creative
collaboration is
required more
than ever before.
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9. Organisational culture plays a big
part in encouraging creativity, but
there are managerial interventions
to lead the culture in the right way.
Also, management skills make it
easier for ideas to get a fair hearing
and be developed.4

10. One of the biggest barriers to break down in any
business is the one in people’s minds – the barrier
between who is creative and who isn’t.
Creativity is too valuable to be left to the experts.
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11. The divide is around the difference
between problem solving - applied
creativity- and pure creativity, what
artists do. In reality, this is not a valuable
distinction for business leaders.
Both types are highly valuable and lead
to innovation and new revenues.

12. The full article was published in
Business Strategy Review
Volume 25, Issue 4 2014.
Visit the website: www.london.edu/bsr