Lucky country perhaps, but not the creative country: Forget the MBA, get a MFA

The Romans used to call their sporting heroes Gladiators, and they fought to the death. The shareholders in the coliseum gestured to the Emperor with the public “thumbs-up” (or down) to signal whether fighters would live to do battle again, very similar to the circumstances in which the modern CEO must make innovative decisions and do planning. The result was and is always based on whim rather than actual performance.

The problem is the metaphor. Leaders of industry are very rarely sporting heroes. Sporting heroes are a unique minority, with a short lifespan normally based on youth and physical attributes no longer within grasp of 95 per cent of the population or senior management in their mid-40s to 50s. Their heroic images live on and swell as their deeds and actions are recalled over and over again for commercial celebrity purposes. The motivational speaker industry is littered with sporting heroes who relate nothing more than anecdotal accounts of their former days of glory - clichés used to suggest that any one of us can learn to become such a champion. There is no need for reflection or intellectual analysis. All we need, as Nike has it, is to “Just do it”.

Applied creativity and innovation facilitation do call for immersion in experiential processes just like that of the artist. However, the results of this process are built on disciplined observation and reflection with a strong emphasis on interpretation of the personal creative insight - rather than the unknowable insights of a distant champion. Both share a mental discipline, but, contrary to popular opinion, the artistic path is the far more knowable and attainable route.

Creativity across Cultures

In the US, if you express a worthy creative idea, then the American cultural value system dictates that it is embraced with enthusiasm, explored openly and confidently with rigour, and if it shows merit, through hard work, assure it is given an airing in appropriate forums. The theory is that the world is full of ideas: the modus operandi is to find good ones and implement them for the prosperity and health of the nation.

In Australia, by contrast, a good idea is initially greeted with total scepticism. "It’s been done before" is almost without exception the opening response. That comment having been made, a negative position is set, one that requires a superhuman effort to move beyond. Under these prevailing norms, a genuine and informed debate about creativity and innovation - considered soft topics at best in Australia within the corporate world - is equally as difficult to move onto the public agenda.

Robyn Nevin observed that there is "a deep sentimental streak within Australians. We feel deeply. But we are cautious about expressing it, verbalising it. Acting it out!"

Research carried out worldwide by IBM with 456 CEOs has revealed that over the next 5 years revenue raising rather than cost cutting will be business’s main goal. Asked how they intended to accomplish this, two-thirds indicated through innovation.

Over the past 12 months, creativity and innovation within Australian business has become a hot topic. As a result, Australian corporations are rushing to employ people with the word "innovation" in their titles. There is little doubt innovation is seen by employers as a pseudonym for "entrepreneurship" - a natural reversion to traditional business management school background.

What is important here is that innovation is recognised as a new necessity in business. Yet few leaders have the background to recognise or support it as an operational goal.

There is in the US, on the other hand, eagerness by senior management to embrace, explore, and experience the opportunities and processes that a formal arts and applied creative education might offer in their search for better results. As an early solution, the Singapore government has over the last couple of years spent substantial sums on developing and introducing creativity courses into the high school and tertiary-level curriculum. Australia has a history of being inventive but failing to capitalise on the invention.

The black-box flight recorder, the orbital engine, gene shears technology, and most recently, cyber technology are all inventions Australian can justly be proud of. The old argument that capital is scarce and the market small is no longer an acceptable excuse for inability to exploit the commercial potential of these groundbreaking inventions.

In his book the Rise of the Creative Classes (pdf file 35.9kb), Professor Richard Florida argues, "Venture capital dollars flow internationally into towns and places that have a bigger and better stock of talented and creative people".