Chapter Ten

I have been teaching two courses on innovation and creativity, and one of the texts for both courses is Warren Bennis's Organizing Genius. I would like to expand on a single passage in that book, to develop some of its implications.

• These three tasks are indeed essential to the healthy functioning of any organization, and to creative accomplishment in general. Let me expand on the concise observation contained in this quote, and unfold some of its implications.

In my own work, I have argued that Creativity with a capital “C”—the kind that changes the way we see or understand the world—never happens in the mind of a person exclusively (Csikszentmihalyi, 1996, 1999a, 1999b, 2000). It can be observed only in the interrelations of a system made up of three main elements. The first of these is the domain, which consists of information—a set of rules, procedures, and instructions for action.

What we call a culture is a collection of thousands of such domains. They include, for instance, the domains of religion, mathematics, poetry, recipes for making BBQ sauce, the rules of basketball—you name it—our thoughts and actions are ordered and directed by the information contained in domains we absorb from the culture we belong to. Creativity does not happen in a vacuum; it always involves a domain of some sort. One is never creative in the abstract; instead a person may be a creative musician, or a creative scientist, or a creative basketball player. To do anything creative, one must operate within a domain. In fact, creativity can best be understood as an idea, product, or action that changes a domain.

A corporation such as GE could be thought of as a culture in a microcosm. It too contains information organized within domains—the concerns and procedures specific to the various divisions of the organization. If the firm wants to be creative, the first step is to make the information contained in these domains accessible to everyone in the company, since most creative ideas arise when previously unrelated material becomes connected. This is why Welch is right to say that ideas must circulate in an organization with the speed of light.

• The second component of a system is the field, which includes all the individuals who act as gatekeepers to the domain. It is their job to decide whether a new idea or product should be added to the domain. New ideas and products are constantly being thought up, but few are worth remembering or implementing because they are no improvement on the status quo. According to Peter Drucker (1985) only one out of five hundred new patents ends up making any money, and the same proportion holds for works of art or music. It is therefore important for any organization that aspires to creativity to have gatekeepers who can choose well among the many innovations the ones that are worth supporting. At General Electric, Jack Welch is the highest representative of the field who must “allocate the right number of dollars” to transform ideas into reality. If the field is too permissive and accepts novelty indiscriminately, or if at the other extreme it is too conservative and does not stimulate and reward worthwhile novelty, the organization will suffer as a consequence.

• The third component of the system is the person. Creativity occurs when a person makes a change in the information contained in a domain, a change that will be selected by the field for inclusion in the domain. This is where Jack Welch's “right people” come in. How does one recognize the right person, that is, the person who wants to innovate and who is likely to come up with something creative?

There are many characteristics that mark someone as a candidate for creativity. I will only mention a few that I feel to be the most important ones. In the first place, a person should enjoy pushing the envelope of a particular domain. Someone who loves to make music and delights in coming up with new tunes has a reasonable chance of coming up with something new that others will also appreciate. The same is true for an engineer or a marketing executive: nothing is more important than wanting to do one's job for its own sake. Too much concern for making money or for acquiring power and fame are warning signs that the person's priorities are not really promising as far as creativity is concerned. On the other hand, promising signs are interest, curiosity, and an almost childlike naïveté that questions everything, that is dissatisfied with the answer: “But this is how things have always been done.”

• But creative individuals alone do not make creativity happen. They need access to the right information, and they need access to resources. If any of these three elements of the system are not functioning properly, the system—whether it is an organization or a larger institution such as a nation—will not adapt creatively to its environment. For instance, if the field (for example, management) in a company is bent on compartmentalizing knowledge so that workers in production do not know what people in sales or marketing are doing or what suppliers and customers want, and no one has a clear idea as to what the leaders of the organization are thinking about, chances are that even the potentially most creative employees will not come up with ideas for any useful new process or product.

• To see how this systems model explains creativity on a large scale, we may turn to a historical example. In a critical span of barely a generation, between 1400 and 1425, a startling number of masterpieces were produced in the city of Florence. The Western world's notion of beauty has ever since then been compared against the benchmark set by a band of young men that included the architect Brunelleschi, who designed the stupendous dome of the cathedral; the sculptor Donatello, who carved the proud images of the Orsanmichele chapel; the goldsmith Ghiberti; the painters Masaccio and Gentile da Fabriano, to name only a few. How could such a small city produce so many great artists all at the same time? Did the waters of the Arno river suddenly get filled with some chemical that changed the brains of average Florentines into creative geniuses?

Without trying to take away any of the credit that rightly belongs to these superb craftsmen, it should be pointed out that they alone did not make the Renaissance happen. The sudden creative spurt that later began to be seen as the “rebirth” of Western civilization was the result of the confluence of many favorable forces that created a unique window of opportunity for the flowering of the arts. Of special importance was the development of an able field of supportive patrons and the rediscovery of knowledge that had been forgotten for almost a thousand years.

• According to the sociologist Arnold Hauser, “In the art of the early Renaissance … the starting point of production is to be found mostly not in the creative urge … of the artist, but in the task set by the customer” (Hauser, 1951, p. 41). He is echoed by many others; for instance: “the patron begins to assume a very important role: In practice, artistic production arises in large measure from his collaboration” (Heydenreich, 1974, p. 13). To understand why the customers and patrons became so involved in artistic production at that time, one must look at the broader context in which the city operated.

Florence had become one of the richest cities in Europe first through trading, then through the manufacture of wool and other textiles, and finally through the wide-ranging investments of its rich merchants. By the end of the fourteenth century there were a dozen major bankers in the city—the Medici being only one of the minor ones—who were getting substantial interest every year from the various foreign kings and potentates to whom they had lent money.

But while the coffers of the bankers were getting fuller, the city itself was troubled. The population was divided into the “fat people” and the “skinny people” who owned only their labor. Men without property were ruthlessly exploited, and political tensions fueled by economic inequality threatened at any moment to explode into open conflict. In addition, the struggle between pope and emperor, which divided the entire continent, was reproduced inside the city in the struggle between the Guelf and Ghibbeline factions. To make matters worse, Florence was surrounded by Siena, Pisa, and Arezzo, cities jealous of its wealth and always ready to snatch away whatever they could of Florentine trade and territory.

It was in this atmosphere of wealth and uncertainty that the urban leaders decided to invest in making Florence the most beautiful city in Christendom—in their words, “a new Athens.” By building awesome churches, impressive bridges, and splendid palaces, and by commissioning great frescoes and majestic statues, they must have felt that they were weaving a protective spell around their homes and businesses. And in a way, they were not wrong: When more than five hundred years later Hitler ordered the retreating German troops to blow up the bridges on the Arno and level the city around them, the field commander refused to obey on the grounds that too much beauty would be erased from the world—and most of the city was saved.

The important thing to realize is that when the Florentine bankers, churchmen, and heads of great guilds decided to make their city intimidatingly beautiful, they did not just throw money at artists and wait to see what happened. They became intensely involved in the process of encouraging, evaluating, and selecting the works they wanted to see completed. As a result they developed a refined taste that made them expert at recognizing good work, and thus enabled them to be true collaborators in the creative process. It was because the leading citizens, as well as the common people, were so seriously concerned with the outcome of their work that the artists were pushed to perform beyond their previous limits.

• But having money—and the willingness to spend it—still does not a Renaissance make. It also took know-how, skill, knowledge—the information contained in the domain. The contribution of the domain was the rediscovery of ancient Roman methods of building and sculpting that had been lost for centuries during the so-called Dark Ages. In Rome and elsewhere, by the end of the thirteen hundreds, eager scholars were excavating classical ruins, copying down and analyzing the styles and techniques of the ancients. This slow preparatory work bore fruit at the turn of the fifteenth century, opening up long-forgotten knowledge to the artisans and craftsmen of the time.

The dynamics of this increase in knowledge are well illustrated by the building of the cathedral's dome. The cathedral of Florence, Santa Maria del Fiore, had been left open to the skies for eighty years because no one could find a way to build a dome over its huge apse. There was no known method for preventing the walls from collapsing inward once the curvature of the dome had advanced beyond a certain height. Every year eager young artists and established builders submitted plans to the Opera del Duomo, the board that supervised the building of the cathedral, but their plans were found unpersuasive. The Opera was made up of the political and business leaders of the city, and their personal reputations were at stake in this choice. For eighty years they did not feel that any proposed solution for the completion of the dome was worthy of the city, and of themselves.

But eventually humanist scholars became interested in the Pantheon of Rome, measured its enormous dome, and analyzed how it had been constructed. The Pantheon had been rebuilt by the emperor Hadrian in the second century. The diameter of its 71-foot-high dome was 142 feet. Nothing on that scale had been built for well over a thousand years, and the methods that allowed the Romans to build such a structure that would stand up and not collapse had been long forgotten in the dark centuries of barbarian invasions. But now that peace and commerce were reviving the Italian cities, the knowledge was slowly being pieced back together.

Brunelleschi, who in 1401 appears to have visited Rome to study its antiquities, understood the importance of the studies of the Pantheon. His idea for how to complete the dome in Florence was based on the framework of internal stone arches that would help contain the thrust, and the herringbone brickwork between them. But his design was not just a restatement of the Roman model—it was influenced also by all the architecture of the intervening centuries, especially the Gothic models. When he presented his plan to the Opera, they recognized it as a feasible and beautiful solution. And after the dome was built, it became a liberating new form that inspired hundreds of builders who came after him, including Michelangelo, who based on it his design for the cupola of St. Peter's in Rome.

Another illustration of how the field and the domain of art came into a particularly fruitful alignment in Florence at this time concerns the building of the north and especially the east doors of the baptistery, one of the uncontested masterpieces of the period, which Michelangelo declared was worthy of being the “Gate of Paradise” when he saw its heart-wrenching beauty. In this case also a special commission had been formed to supervise the building of the doors for this public edifice. The board was composed of eminent individuals, mostly the leaders of the guild of wool weavers that was financing the project. The board decided that each door should be of bronze and have ten panels illustrating Old Testament themes. Then they wrote to some of the most eminent philosophers, writers, and churchmen in Europe to request their opinion of which scenes from the Bible should be included in the panels, and how they should be represented. After the answers came in, they drew up a list of specifications for the doors and in 1401 announced a competition for their design.

From the dozens of drawings submitted the board chose five finalists—Brunelleschi and Ghiberti among them. The finalists on the short list were given a year to finish a bronze mock-up of one of the door panels. The subject was to be “The Sacrifice of Isaac” and had to include at least one angel and one sheep in addition to Abraham and his son. During that year all five finalists were paid handsomely by the board for time and materials. In 1402 the jury reconvened to consider the new entries and selected Ghiberti's panel, which showed technical excellence as well as a wonderfully natural yet classical composition.

Lorenzo Ghiberti was twenty-one years old at the time. Just as Brunelleschi had been influenced by the rediscovery of Roman ruins, Ghiberti studied and tried to emulate the Roman bronze sculptures that were beginning to be excavated at the time. And he also learned to combine the rediscovered classic style with the more recent Gothic sculpture produced in Siena and elsewhere. He spent the next twenty years finishing the north door and then another twenty-seven finishing the famed east door. He was involved with perfecting the baptistery doors from 1402 to 1452, a span of half a century. Of course, in the meantime he finished many more commissions and sculpted statues for the Medicis, the Pazzis, the guild of merchant bankers, and other notables, but his reputation rests on the Gates of Paradise, which changed the Western world's conception of decorative art.

It was this synergy between newfound knowledge, a wealthy community with good taste, and able artisans that made the Renaissance possible. Nowadays we believe that all it takes to produce creativity is to get people to “think outside the box,” to be more imaginative and original. But without the other ingredients—the right kind of information and a supportive community—creative thinking alone has no chance of producing anything worthwhile. This is as true of contemporary corporations as it was true of fifteenth-century Florence. And thus we return full circle to Jack Welch's observation that Bennis highlighted: For a firm to survive in a competitive environment that requires constant creative adjustments to changing conditions, it is necessary to choose the best people, to have the best information, and to recognize and support the best ideas.

What does this way of looking at creativity suggest for those who aspire to become leaders of business and polity? In many ways, the recipe is simple. Leaders who want to support creativity do not themselves have to be creative. But they have to become connoisseurs who can recognize good new ideas and good people. It is better if such leaders are not merely specialists but have a wide horizon of interests and competencies. Most often creative new ideas arise at the interface of domains, markets, technologies. Too narrow a horizon will blind the leader to many opportunities.

As to recognizing the right people who may contribute creatively to one's organization, the best tip-off is interest bordering on obsession. It takes a person genuinely in love with a branch of work to push beyond what is known, beyond where it is safe. Of course you want to make sure that the person is competent, and honest, and so forth; but what differentiates the potentially creative worker is intrinsic motivation—the willingness to do the work for its own sake. Naturally, if one wants the organization to remain creative, such people should be listened to, given credit, and rewarded; whenever possible, their ideas should be taken seriously and implemented.

The important thing to realize is that without necessarily being creative, a leader plays an indispensable role in the process of creation. As a crucial member of the field, a gatekeeper to the domain, the individual in a leadership position holds the keys for turning wild ideas into practical reality. To call such individuals patrons is to misunderstand their role; they are an essential part of the creative process. Just as without the Medici and their compatriots Florence would not have known the Renaissance, without enlightened leaders our creativity will stagnate.