6 interesting things about creativity

 

I read a great article by James Kaufman in the Royal Society for the Arts magazine recently.

Great because I now have a new perspective on a much-discussed ‘good thing’.

Everyone likes the thought of creativity – it’s seen as positive.  But it can be startlingly unpopular: it can mean disruption; a new way of doing things.  In short, it can mean your world changing.

In this blog, I’ve looked at the Alternative Finance industry through the prism of Kaufman’s analysis of creativity:

 

1.     “Creativity is an activity that produces something that is both new and task appropriate. If it’s just new, then it’s just noise or chaos. If it’s just task appropriate, then you are doing what other people have done before.”

New and task appropriate – like pay-as-you-use business finance; like a cost of finance based on your real-time circumstances; or like algorithms that rank and rate all the providers by how well they match your specific needs.  New and appropriate: the AltFin products that work for the customer, not just the provider.

 

2.     “The ‘mad genius’ myth – creative people aren’t crazy…. Creative people are more likely to be in better moods, be happier, be in better physical health, and be resilient in the face of trauma.”

All of these characteristics shine through in the AltFin entrepreneurs that I know – and their resilience is self-evidently one of the key reasons why we have an AltFin industry at all!

 

3.     “Creativity tends to be domain-specific as opposed to domain-general. If you are creative in cooking, then you are no more or less likely than someone else to be creative in an unrelated field.”

This is borne out by the creativity I’ve been across the AltFin sector: from SMEs being able to access finance that meets their needs and timescales; to retail investors getting access to a new asset class; and to aggregators reinventing broking as a channel for origination.  Applied domain-specific creativity bringing new products – and thus new options for customers – to market.

 

4.     Rewards don’t usually work. People tend to be the most creative when they are doing something because they want to do it.”

This is brought to life by entrepreneurs – they create new companies, create new products, and, in AltFin, created new sector.  And they weren’t doing it because someone else was going to give them a pat on the back or call it out in a meeting, but for a chance to build something new.

 

5.     “Creativity takes hard work, revision, failure, extensive knowledge, and persistence.”

I would add that the most successful creative people know this instinctively – they do indeed work hard, and they amend and adapt.  They accept failure as a chance to learn something – a chance to add to their knowledge. And they most definitely persist.  You often hear of early stage companies pivoting – starting with one product, for example, and shifting to another.   It’s interesting to think of this as applied creativity.

 

6.     “We tend not to particularly like creative people... We are trained to value conformity. We have rules for a reason, but the most revolutionary creative work tends to break the rules.”

This will resonate across the AltFin pioneers – none of whom were welcomed with open arms by the banks back in the founding years of the industry.  The AltFin industry broke the ‘rules’ which had been established over decades (or hundreds) of years.  Fresh perspectives and new approaches were not always popular…

 

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Dr Louise Beaumont is Head of Public Affairs and Marketing at , which is a leading investor in SME alternative finance.

Louise has over twenty years experience in growing companies - from initial spark, to operationalisation, results delivered, and value created. Having previously worked for organisations such as Siemens, Hewlett Packard, Microsoft, and Capgemini, Louise has focused on the UK’s fast growing alternative finance sector since 2010, including co-founding one of GLI’s investees. Louise has advised key UK government departments and units on FinTech and AltFin including; HM Treasury, British Business Bank, Government Office for Science, Cabinet Office, UK Trade & Industry, Department for Business, Innovation & Skills, and Number 10 Downing Street's Policy Unit.