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Creativity is Change

17th Feb 2007 by Marian Way in Creativity

Musing about creativity and wondering what it might be, since it is not a thing, it occurred to me that there are aspects of the creative process that are similar to the process of change in general.

There are, I suppose, many models of change – one that I am familiar with is known to me as ‘The Stages of Change’. James Prochaska, John Norcross and Carlo DiClemente developed this model, identifying 6 stages of changing fully described in their book Changing For Good. Many people find this a useful roadmap in evaluating where they are in the process of making changes. Have a look at this website to get a potted description of the model: http://www.proactive-coach.com/resolutions/theory/index.htm

I decided to play a game: assume that creativity is a change process – how might it map on to the Stages of Change model? This is the result so far:

It’s not a serious attempt to create a model of creativity (it’s too conceptual). However what it gave me was the sense that:

Creativity is not just about a ‘eureka!’ moment, it’s about developing that idea and doing something with it.
Much of creativity withers on the vine because we don’t follow through on that great idea that occurred to us.
Creativity is a skill that can be learned.
Once the creative process has been followed through, something has changed.

Photo by Chris Lawton on Unsplash

About Marian Way

A highly skilled facilitator and trainer, Marian, who founded Clean Learning in 2001, has developed and delivered training across the world. She is the author of Clean Approaches for Coaches, co-author, with James Lawley, of Insights in Space and co-author, with Caitlin Walker, of So you want to be… #DramaFree.

Marian is an expert Clean facilitator, an adept modeller, a programme writer and an inspirational trainer. She has a natural ability to model existing structures, find the connections between them and design new ways for people to learn. Marian was a leading innovator within the Weight Watchers organisation, which included developing the “points” strategy, a local idea that went on to become a global innovation. She is a director of both Clean Learning and Training Attention CIC, world leaders in clean applications for corporate, educational and community development. She designs our programmes and workbooks, leads workshops and teaches on all our courses. She’s trained people in Great Britain, Russia, Sweden, Germany, Australia, Japan and the USA. Marian is also a recognised Clean Assessor.