ABSTRACT
Creativity is a million-dollar business. A Google Internet search in March 2009, for example, results in more than 27,500 Web sites offering “creativity coaching” and more than 60,000 offering “creativity training.” Creativity may be popular in part because we all feel that creativity matters and that improving creativity might be desirable. Indeed, our children follow special artistic creativity classes, and after school we drive them to drama lessons. As managers we subscribe to courses and sessions that putatively stimulate our creative thinking, and our organizations spend large amounts of money to refurnish meeting rooms to stimulate employees’ creative thinking and innovative practices. Help books on creativity abound, as are the herbal teas, gemstones, and shampoos that are sold under the pretense that they break us free and stimulate our creativity.
