Creativity matters: The human superpower in an increasingly digital world
All this week, we have been celebrating World Creativity & Innovation Week (WCIW), a worldwide event designed to inspire and celebrate all forms of creativity. Creativity plays a vital role in both our personal and work lives. On a personal level, it helps us overcome challenges and be more resilient to change. On a business level, it enables us to design solutions that make a difference for our clients. At a societal level, creativity can have a positive impact in building a more sustainable and inclusive world.
Ingenuity is a core value at Atos, and despite the recent trend towards automation and artificial intelligence (AI), we firmly believe in the Power of We — and that human creativity remains essential.
In an increasingly digital world, creativity is truly our human superpower. Earlier this week, I had the opportunity to talk about this with three of our most experienced thought leaders: Emma Roberts, Global Change Manager, Andy Wallace, Client Innovation Manager, and Mischa van Oijen, CTO for Generative AI and Head of Platform Engineering.
In a far-ranging discussion, the four of us talked about the impact of creative thinking in our personal and work lives. Here are a few of the most important lessons my guests shared with me.
The importance of creativity in the workplace
Both Andy Wallace and Mischa van Oijen shared some interesting ways that their own creative pursuits have played a role in their career journeys. While Andy dove deeper into a topic that he is very passionate about, Mischa has been able to draw some practical business lessons from his creative pursuits outside of work.
Recently, I took a year-and-a-half out from Atos to go back to University for a Master’s degree in marine and coastal environment management. Now I’ve returned to Atos to combine that lifelong experience in the IT industry with my passion and interest for environmental issues. I’m currently the technology and the science lead for a partnership that Atos has with WWF, the World Wildlife Fund. So, I have the unique opportunity to combine my passion and experience to deliver artificial intelligence solutions for biodiversity monitoring, disease prediction and wildlife protection.
We're working with some absolutely brilliant people from WWF, many of their affiliates, other conservation organizations, NGOs and universities around the world who work in technology, public policy and other areas. By building these amazing teams of people and encoding their thinking into digital platforms, we can bring together environmental data, demographic data, climatic, wildlife, animal disease, and start to build a capability that others can develop further.
— Andy Wallace
About a year ago, I had to build a team to build a generative AI platform. The technology was very young at that point, so there was nobody with experience yet. It was all new for everybody. We had to build a team of creative thinkers because we needed to iterate on each other’s ideas.
I’ve been at Atos for 25 years, and a lot of the things I do in my daily work actually come from my personal life. I’ve been a DJ for over 30 years and it’s all about reading the room, feeling the energy of the people. You always have to be curious, learn and understand what you bring next to your audience, and there is an instant feedback loop. When you play the wrong music, the room will react.
Doing that for 30 years built an almost unconscious habit to feel the energy when presenting. If you are about to lose that energy, you can apply techniques to actually bring that meeting back to life. I think that everybody that plays music for an audience already has the essence of creative thinking, because you have to understand the people that you’re playing for. You have to be very flexible to adjust to every situation. You have to be confident taking risks, and it teaches you that by influencing a small group, you can make a big group do something. There’s only one person that needs to start to dance. I think that also applies to business.
— Mischa van Oijen
The importance of bravery and empathy in creative thinking
Emma Roberts had some very interesting things to say about the creative thinking process and what drives her to create. She talked at some length about the idea of “creative bravery,” how she applies it to her work, and how to create an environment where creativity can thrive.
I absolutely love to be told that something can’t be done. That really ignites the fire inside me. I’ve noticed that the more brave I’ve been with my sharing ideas — even if it’s a bit weird and wacky — the more people value that and the more people search for it. I think [bravery] is underlined by a great amount of trust. If we don’t have trust, we might feel judgment or fear. If we’re empathetic and we are great listeners, people are more likely to share the innermost, most weird and wonderful ideas. It can help them step outside their comfort zone and start to share. But we need to make sure that we understand the people.
We understand what they’re good at, what their skills are and what they’re passionate about. I also think you need to allow a lot of space and time. Creativity for some people can just happen at the drop of a hat, but for others it's really challenging. Working as a team, you can bounce ideas off each other and that can really help. And we need to acknowledge, reward and recognize when people start to share their ideas.
— Emma Roberts
In life, we all start out as creative thinkers. Children live in a nearly boundless world that is only enriched by their own creative thoughts. Much has been written by neuroscientists about the importance of creative play and its ability to create new neural connections and pathways within our brains.
Unfortunately, we often unlearn this superpower in school and at work. If you take one thing away from this article, I hope it will be that it’s never too late to regain that spark. As World Creativity & Innovation Week comes to an end, there’s no time like the present. This is a great opportunity to emphasize the importance of being creative, celebrate our creative thinkers and inspire and encourage others to explore their inner creativity.
The insights above are just a sample of what these experts shared during our session. If you need more inspiration to fan your own creative spark, you can watch a replay of our entire conversation online.
Posted on: April 19, 2024
Marianne Hewlett
Chief Storyteller, Head of Brand Strategy
Applied Research Community Member
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