In our management and radio programming consulting archives there exists a mythical file found under Creativity. It reads, “a core characteristic of the creative human being when given new information or data, he or she will invariably choose a course exactly opposite from the majority.”
Think about it because it matters: creative people walk the sands along at midnight. They bring us humor and light commingled with occasional low moods and frustration. “Creatives” are the proverbial Drum and Bugle Corps marching to the cadence of something different, often unconventional. In ancient medieval times they were burned at the stake. In 2020 they are critical to any organization’s success, media at the head of the list. Sometimes entering a client’s market for the first time, I may hear, “Trisha is okay but has some really strange ideas and is sometimes hard to read.” But then asked, “Well, how’s her performance?” we’ll sometimes hear, “Oh man…she can be great, but…”
And where do we find such people-sales or performing-and how do we cultivate them? Are they men and women “just like us” separated only by their hanging on to something we lost a long time ago? Or, are truly of different DNA?
University of Chicago behaviorists probed this question by testing two control groups; one selected by their apparent level of high creativity, the other chosen as “just average.” From volumes of data, project leaders were only able to select two essential differences: (1) the creative people tested were seen as having an extremely high level of “work obsession” (albeit often unconventional) and (2) they often tended to be more asocial than “social.”
So today, in looking for a way to mine the creative potential up and down your hallways, here are Audience Development Group’s un-researched and unscientific views on “creative people.”
Creative people tend to be more sensitive. (2) He or she may not be automatically comfortable with being a joiner. (3) They are independent, sometimes overly assertive, often (but not always) right-brained, (4) they prefer ideas and concepts to relationships, and (5) they possess the capacity to be puzzled and to “specialize in the unknown.” (6)They are often spontaneous, excitable, competitive, and complex. (7) They are sometimes a leadership challenge but an incalculable asset assuming they’re understood and cultivated.If you see yourself in this circle or are simply hoping to better manage them, like all things behavioral be it your morning show kingpin or a high producing seller, it helps to get “why?” before we can address “what?”
Here’s to the Creative. No radio group can be exceptional without them.
