The Creativity Leap

Data-driven workplaces reward analytics over creativity.

Today’s cultural norms stifle creativity. For example, schools no longer reward creative solutions, and instead focus on rote learning and hard-and-fast answers. Business leaders rely on data and analytics for day-to-day project work and issue resolution. Yet people in most lines of work – including law, medicine, engineering, agriculture and fashion– prosper when they integrate creativity into their work. Today’s dynamic business climate needs employees who can navigate difficult problems and intricate operations with creative solutions. 

Modern workers face complicated and complex challenges. Many see these two descriptors as synonymous, but they point to differences in the amount of control people have:

• Complicated issues – Workers can, generally, address and resolve these challenges. They have a fair amount of control in the navigation of complicated issues, and, ultimately, work to find their way through them. For example, the navigation screen of an airplane presents a complicated challenge for students in training; however, many successfully learn to...