Many people who work in creative fields feel misunderstood by those who don’t. This is often because of the way they think and behave, but it can also be because they simply don’t fit into the system. Creatives want to stand out, but in a world that rewards conformity, they can’t help but be seen as oddities. This is a shame, because the world needs more creative thinking to make it better.
Rather than being seen as threats, creatives can be highly valuable in a business setting. They bring fresh perspectives and new ideas to a problem, which can help a company get ahead. And because they are comfortable taking risks and experimenting, they can help foster innovation. But they do have one big drawback: their tendency to be overly emotional and spontaneous can lead them astray.
This can be a big problem in the workplace, where it’s important to have a clear mind and focus on the task at hand. Creatives have a habit of getting excited about a project and spending too much time in the early stages of brainstorming, which can throw off their focus. As a result, they are not always able to follow through on their ideas and may end up wasting precious resources.
To remedy this, it’s important for creatives to find a balance between their independent, rebellious streak and working as part of a team. They also need to have thick skin and be willing to take criticism, reject rejection, and stay persistent if they are going to achieve their goals.
Aside from their creative abilities, many people who are considered creative are also known for their ability to see the bigger picture and come up with innovative solutions to complex problems. But being able to step back and look at a problem from multiple angles requires distance thinking, which isn’t something most people are naturally good at. That’s why researchers at MIT ran an experiment to test whether creatives are more adept at distant thinking than non-creatives. They recruited a group of authors, filmmakers, actors, and visual artists with serious credentials—including MacArthur Fellows and Guggenheim award winners—and put them through a series of tests that measured their abilities to think about both the here and now, as well as distant events. They then compared their results to those of a control group made up of doctors, lawyers, and financial service professionals.
What they found was that those with a creative mindset were more able to process distant events through the medial prefrontal cortex—the same brain region involved in processing the here and now—than those without it. The difference was dramatic, suggesting that the creatives had an advantage in imagining future outcomes, even if they didn’t have the skills to follow through on those outcomes. This was particularly true when it came to thinking about complex, hypothetical scenarios. It’s possible that this skill set could be taught to anyone who wants to become more creative, but it’s important for people to practice it in order to develop their ability.