Since 1990, U.S. creativity has been in a downward spiral!Image: jscreationzs / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Have you ever thought about whether creativity could be measured?  It seems that in 1958 E. Paul Torrance designed a series of creativity tasks to measure creativity.  He administered his test to 400 children in Minneapolis. 

I would question how accurate this creativity index would be in predicting creativity for adults.  I read a recent Newsweek article, The Creativity Crisis, by Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman.   Apparently, Jonathan Plucker of Indiana University, validated a more than three times correlation to lifetime creative accomplishment with Torrance’s creativity index as contrasted to childhood IQ.

This year, Kyung Hee Kim at the College of William & Mary did a follow up study where he analyzed almost 300,000 Torrance scores of children and adults.  It appears that creativity scores steadily rose, just like IQ scores until 1990 and then creativity scores nosedived.  The decline is most significant from kindergarten through sixth grade.

In my prior blog post, I wrote about the CEO Survey of 1,500 CEOs who unequivocally identified creativity as the most important leadership competency for success in the future.  

What does this mean for the United States in terms of maintaining our leadership position in the world?  Our leaders understand that creativity is essential; yet at the same time our creativity scores are plummeting!

Stop and think about where we currently need creative solutions.  We are crying out for new ideas to solve our ongoing economic crisis.  We need new ideas to solve the issues of sustainability.  We need new ideas to support our changing demographics.

Creativity includes not only generating great ideas, but it also means being open to the ideas of others.  Through creative thinking we can generate solutions for a health care system as well as new thinking for moving towards a more peaceful world. We need new ideas to make our country more competitive and to identify new ways to measure success. 

Do you think creativity is important?

Author: Kirpal Singh

Back in the 1950’s, when I grew up in a tiny rural community in Texas we pretended we were all one skin color, we all spoke English and we all went to the local Christian church on Sunday.  Ours was a society that valued homogeneity.

Our world has changed dramatically since then. Our ability to travel and do business globally has significantly increased the likelihood that we will meet people from other cultures. Sometimes, we are confused by their assumptions and their behavior. It is unavoidable; we now live in a pluralistic society.

Imagine if you lost a $25 million business deal because you failed to research the cultural expectations of your potential business partner. This is a true story relayed by Kirpal Singh who spoke to the (CSTC) Creative Skills Training Council about the impact multiculturalism has on business and other aspects of our life.

Professor Kirpal Singh, the author of THINKING HATS & COLOURED TURBANS: Creativity Across Cultures, works with governments, non-profits and multinationals, on the issues and challenges surrounding the sensitive arena of cross/intercultural engagements. He is internationally renowned as a creativity guru and futurist.

Since 9-11, there is a new urgency to gain better understanding and knowledge about other cultures. We all have choices to make on how to interact with other cultures. We can demonize those who are different from us or perhaps we can invite them for a cup of tea, get to know them, and understand their perspective.

We are all invaluable as human beings; we bring many gifts from our respective cultures. We can create a world where we value multiculturalism, we can take pride in acquiring knowledge about other cultures, and we can make the choice to celebrate our differences and to live in harmony.

Kirpal Singh speaks about Creativity and Innovation – The Cross-Cultural Dimension. If you listen and learn, you may save your next multimillion dollar business deal.