Can You Really Learn To Be Creative?

Good morning. My name is Anne Laure Sellier, I'm a professor at HEC Paris and a behavioral scientist. 85% of my time is spent in a lab studying human behavior and decision making. It's a privilege for me today to be spending the next hour with you to talk about human creativity, one of the fields I'm an expert in.

The reason I gave this topic—can we learn creativity, can we teach creativity?—is that there is still doubt today that it is even possible. I'd like to spend the next 20 minutes discussing this with you. I hope you'll have many questions, remarks, and perhaps criticisms.

Why are we questioning whether we can learn creativity today? I invite you to send your questions right now if you already have some on the chat. Otherwise, let's embark on that conversation. One thing I notice when I teach creativity:

I do a creativity class at HEC Paris. I've done it for about 10 years. Before that, I did it for seven years in the United States, at New York University first, and then at Columbia University. Those courses are still rare, but they exist. What's really interesting is to see students' reactions at the beginning of the course.

Typically I ask students: who here feels creative? About a third of the classroom raises their hand. When I ask the reverse question—who feels not creative?—about half of the classroom raises their hand. That's highly problematic today.

We are in the business world where big problems have arisen. We need big, radical solutions. We need to rethink our economic and social systems. We need people who feel entitled to being creative, to coming up with novel ideas that are also useful.

If you lose half of your pool at the start—students at HEC Paris, who are smart and well-educated, or students at New York University or Stanford—the unease is palpable in every group I've come across.

Let's converse about why that is. A first explanation is historic. The idea of creativity comes from the Greeks. In ancient Greece, the word “creativity” did not exist. People who came up with novel, useful ideas were thought to be visited by the gods. Some of us get visited and some do not. In ancient Greece, who gets visited was not a function of the individual. It was capricious, and the individual had no contribution to creativity.

This idea lasted a long time. Until the Renaissance, creativity was seen as divine intervention. Then came the first “super egos” as creators: Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, top creators whose names we still know. Unlike previous creators who didn't sign their work, painters began taking ownership. There was still the idea of being visited by gods, but Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo were able to repeatedly come up with radical ideas.

A few creative people on one hand, the rest on the other—a dichotomy that persisted. The idea that only a few are creative was challenged much later, practically by Sigmund Freud and psychoanalysis. Freud revealed the unconscious mind, the tension between unconscious and conscious mind as the source of creativity. Since all of us have an unconscious mind and a conscious mind, any of us can create.

Freud still focused on geniuses like Einstein and Leonardo da Vinci, illustrating ideas with extraordinary people. It wasn't until after World War II that scientists began seriously studying creativity. Psychology developed as a field around 1880, yet by 1950, only 0.5% of research asked questions about creativity. Creativity, the highest human cognitive function, was ignored. It's the only human function AI cannot fully replicate yet.

Scientists avoided studying creativity partly because it was seen as divine intervention and partly because it's hard to study. Today, there is consensus: creativity is defined as ideas or solutions that are both novel and useful. Novelty alone is not enough; it must have usefulness. For example, Vincent Van Gogh: thousands of people spend time in front of his paintings, allowing them to resonate within themselves. Creativity requires a market, in managerial terms.

Since the 1950s and 60s, researchers slowly developed measures and tests of creativity. It took decades to get to a point where we can make claims about increasing creativity in individuals or groups. The image I use is an iceberg: we see only the visible part, but it's important.

Can we teach creativity? Yes. Can you learn creativity? Absolutely. There are things you can do to become better at generating good ideas, to be productive creatively, and to create the right cognitive disposition for novel ideas. Creativity is also a function of the environment. Company culture, for example, can be critical to whether individuals thrive creatively.

Recruiting creative people is a challenge. Many HR directors have no processes to actively manage creative capital. How do you identify a creative person? And even if you do, how do you provide an environment for them to thrive instead of dying out? One individual can flourish or wither depending on context.

The classes I teach don't make you a Leonardo da Vinci in 18 hours. Instead, the work takes conversation, experimentation, and applying things that work on average. We build bridges between students' personal stories, their environment, and what works optimally for them. Creativity is critical to impact the world. Seeing the right problem, defining the creative field, and trusting your ideas are essential. Convey your ideas forcefully to others.

Creativity is a social experience. You are not creative alone. Across history, an idea was deemed creative because a group recognized it. Ideas must be original but also validated by a population: students, coworkers, experts. Creativity courses also teach leadership, organizational behavior, and individual progress.

A LinkedIn questionnaire asked if teaching creativity is a scam. 427 votes: 44% are convinced creativity can be learned, 33% intrigued, 23% think it's a scam. Even in Fortune 500 companies, a third did not think creativity could be taught. Behavioral scientists work to prove the contrary using data.

Time and creativity: there is a link. Time pressure can help creativity; constraints can be beneficial. Deadlines provide closure for pitching and prototyping. Too little time prevents creativity; too much unstructured time can delay the creative process. Mindfulness helps focus, builds confidence, and creates good emotional states, which are associated with better ideas. Happiness supports creativity.

Self-esteem is critical. Entrepreneurs often succeed because they are confident and willing to convey ideas. At a company level, trust, kindness, and limited competition create environments where creativity thrives.

Practicing anything is critical. Repetition builds competence. Activities like art, music, writing, or even cooking can support creativity. Small daily exercises, like writing poems or haikus, strengthen self-confidence. Creativity training is useful, but practice is essential.

Modern environments differ from Leonardo da Vinci’s. Stress, family, and repetitive work create constraints. Mindfulness and freeing time are essential. Organizations that protect creative time allow for better idea generation. Researchers spend time experimenting, prototyping, and failing in protected environments.

AI has not replicated human creativity yet. AI-generated art has market value, but AI is a tool to explore new creative domains. It helps break the ice at the start of creative processes but does not replace human creativity. It should be celebrated as an aid.

Recruiting creative people: linear interviews are insufficient. Creativity is social and environment-dependent. Evaluate creative process, not just output. Collective intelligence often surpasses individual intelligence. Groups with gender balance tend to perform better due to equal participation and emotional reading.

Data-driven decision making is essential, but data is imperfect and humans interpret it imperfectly. Extrapolation and taking leaps of faith enter the creativity domain. Training students to combine data rigor with creative risk-taking is critical for business practice.

Thank you for this exchange this morning. It was incredibly interesting to see your questions, and I hope we'll meet again in the future. Goodbye.