If the paradox and mystery are dispelled, our sense of wonder is not*
(Boden 2003)
In many ways, this thesis can be read as an exercise in the ontology of creativity. Earlier chapters established creativity as an act of discovery9' and this in turn enabled further ontological claims about the nature of creativity to be sustained. Categories of creativity including creative potential. unrecognised and un-actualised creativity were shown to have the possibility of existence and it was also demonstrated how it might be that the human powers and capacities for creativity can move between contexts. The previous chapter used empirical research to provide evidence for the existence of these categories and detailed a complex interplay between a person’s creative potential and the actualisation and recognition of it in organisations and across contexts.
Some of the participants hinted at what can be called the 'the politics of creativity’. Such political commentary is not alien to creativity studies (e.g. Prichard 2002; Sietz 1999); indeed they add to a long history of commentary from within the Humanist tradition (e.g. Oilman 1976; Meszaros 1975). I would like to conclude, then, by speculating briefly on how' future research might move on from the ontology o f creativity to the politics o f creativity. Such a move is, of course, entirely in keeping with critical realism’s emancipatory concerns. It also demonstrates that despite its abstract nature, ontology has lessons for politics. In fact, there are two broad political implications: those relating to the politics of creativity research and those surrounding the politics of creativity p er se.
8.1 The politics o f creativity' research
We know from recent developments in the sociology of science that all sciences have political biases built into their assumptions, arguments and conclusions - and there is no reason w hy creativity studies should be immune from this. Consider one such example. The dominant view of many creativity researchers is that some of us (the minority) can be creative and some of us (the majority) cannot. There is, however, very little conclusive evidence to support claims like this. The ontology of creativity developed in this thesis provides researchers with a meta-theoretical framework to explore the validity of such claims, by providing the means to think through the possibility that the creative potential (of the many) can turn into actual
performance (of the many). Without meta-theoretical and especially ontological clarity, claims that may appear to have ‘scientific objectivity’ are difficult to refute.
8.2 The politics o f creativity per se
If creativity can exist as a potential, unrecognised, unexercised and un-actualised, and the human power for creativity can move between contexts, then the fact (and this research lends support to the idea that this probably is a fact) that we rarely see creative activity displayed in contemporary organisations should not (mis)lead us into believing that millions of people simply lack creative potential. Such misleading ideas fuel elitist policies aiming to make intellectual education available only for those deemed to be ‘creative’ and vocational education available for those deemed to lack creative potential. Rejecting these deceptive ideas should lead us to ask far more searching questions, not just of people qua agents, but of the class, gender, and race-based social structures, institutions and organisations that people find themselves interacting with.
If people are potentially creative, as my empirical research suggests, future research should enquire into what it is about these social structures, institutions and organisations that not only prevent workers’ creative powers being exercised and actualised, but also prevent their exercised and actualised creativity from being recognised. This clearly means that issues of politics and power need addressing. For example, we might address the social, political and economic nature of the organisation. The possibility that the over-riding need to meet financial objectives (like maximising profit, sales or shareholder value) sets in motion strong tendencies (rooted perhaps in exploitation, alienation and commodification) that prevent workers’ creative powers being exercised and actualised, could be a useful explanatory tool when considering the comments of participants in this research.
Consider another example. Rather than suggest people lack creative potential if they are not acting creatively, we should first explore whether it is something in the nature of the wider political power structures that actively prevents them not only from being able to be creative, but also from wanting to be creative. Should they manage to overcome these structural barriers, many contributions may well be ignored regardless of their merit. Structures of class, gender and race have previously been shown to negatively influence the achievement of certain groups in organisations and wider society, so let us first consider these influences on creativity before rejecting the potential of people to be creative. Future research should urgently seek to ascertain whether there are indeed widely prevalent countervailing tendencies in organisations and wider society, and seek to address them. Whilst explaining such scenarios was not the aim of this research, future research might fruitfully consider these lines of investigation
Although my empirical research did not explicitly set out to explore political implications arising from the constraining effects of social structures, institutions and organisations, many respondents mentioned this in passing. The effect of these constraining factors is not, of course, a new discovery. Organisational theory is littered with accounts (e.g. Sennett 1998; Walton 1985; Braverman 1974) of the effect of management control on employee performance and motivation. Indeed, in their own way, many creativity researchers are often attempting to explore ways to minimise the effect of such factors. The empirical work reported in Chapter Seven supports this literature, and strongly suggests that several constraints and restrictions are in play. Three examples - role restrictions, time pressures and financial pressures, should serve to illustrate the point:
Role restrictions
Many of the participants referred to their lack of creativity in-work as a consequence of the role they were asked to perform. Several examples were given which showed that, either through overt restrictions or an implied attitude towards their roles, participants felt they could not use all their creativity. Or in the words of the participants:
people do know I've got ability but they don't <longpause> they don't let me use it.
Well I've been doing most o f what I do now fo r about a year and you know literally, I'm just going over the same stuff.
Time pressures
Time pressures took on two guises in their affect on the creativity of the participants in this research. The first was the lack of time they felt they had to get the job done. For example:
there are so many things that could be done that there isn't time for.
There ju st isn't the time to think creatively which is a bit o f a shame.
but you'll come up with a better thing if you had a lot more time to spend on it.
it gets to a point where you're just working all the time to urgent deadlines and you never actually get to slowing down to normal pace you're just
running all the time and you're swimming hard just to get your head above water.
The second guise is the attitude managers reveal they hold towards giving time to be creative (often mirrored with the participants). Respondents often reported that the time for being creative was either on the way to work or outside of work, because there was no thinking time
in work. There is also evidence to suggest that they did not even expect the organisation to offer creative thinking time. For example:
if I can have ideas then I should do, I should think o f them in my own time and then come back and put them into practise
I mean I would always like to be more involved in the creative work and 1 do - do that in my own time.
Financial pressures
Most organisations, especially profit-seeking organisations, are strongly influenced by financial pressures. These pressures subsequently exert a degree of pressure on employees. For example:
and I think the whole company is suffering at the moment because we're trying to make money as opposed to doing work we enjoy,
and it’s just because I'm tired I'm stressed_<I struggle93> to go to sleep and I wish I could just come home and be fresh as a daisy, cook myself a nice meal and then go and see what I can create whether that be music or on the computer or with some wood. But I'm too tired to do it and even at the weekend even if I get up early I'll still sit in my dressing gown until two or three because I'm just shattered.
These examples are just a few of the many I encountered during my field work.
In summary, by demonstrating that creativity can exist unrecognised and un-actualised, and by developing a framework for studying creative potential and how it moves between domains, we can begin to seek out the creativity not only of the few, but of the many. Until
93 This section of the text was changed as it revealed some personal feelings which were not necessary to develop in order for the evidence to be of use.
such time that access to wealth and resources and the subsequent power and political consequences are proven not to hinder creative potential, the position of assuming all members of the population who do not display creativity, do not have any creative potential should be abandoned. Future research exploring and explaining exactly how creativity fails to actualise is very necessary indeed.