Blogg

Innovation is one of the strongest and most powerful concepts of our time. We admire it and constantly try to achieve it. Yet, research shows that we are intuitively sceptical towards creative ideas.
Innovation comes from creative thinking and therefore requires a state of not knowing. It demands a sincere questioning of standard procedures, and it often embarks beyond habit and norms. During the past years creative ideas have been praised on a broad scale – while researchers note that our admiration for creativity and people thinking outside of the box is mostly theoretical, not actual.

We want to stay in control

The PSYblog writes about how we constantly seek control and instinctively turn against ideas that challenge our comfort zone. We like when we can assume that we know the state of things, and thus feel threatened when something indicates that we don’t. In order to provide room for creativity even the most fundamental assumptions must be questioned – which means that we must accept a state of not knowing, or at least hypothetically assume that we may be wrong in our understanding of the world.

The limits of creativity

We often come across this tendency when meeting with our clients. Many are afraid to take the step towards digital education and have a hard time accepting that whatever was a smart solution ten years ago, is simply not a smart solution today. The problem in these cases is not our product, but rather that the client’s worldview is not on par with the methods we are working with.
At such times it is essential to face the fears and deconstruct them till they make sense and can be understood for what they are. Our production process includes a series of meetings where issues like these are discussed. The client’s previous experiences are mapped out and compared to the transition to digital methods. Many times this process is equally important for the client as the final production – since the major step is often to decide on change and start to question old routines, rather than the actual shift from one method to another.