Creativity can be learned and developed. But first, you need to be in the right frame of mind, what Factry calls “the creative posture”.
“La Factry’s entire pedagogical model is based on the fact that creativity can be learned and developed from a posture, an internal disposition,” sums up Joëlle Sarrailh, Director of Pedagogical Experience at La Factry.
“Creativity can be worked on in many ways: you can learn creativity techniques, you can also create an environment that encourages the emergence of ideas, but above all, you can develop your creative posture. For us, the creative posture is the basis for reaching full creative potential”, she continues.
This is why La Factry has coined a phrase that serves as a sort of motto: adopting a creative posture.
To define the concept, the school drew on scientific literature. In the book Psychology of Creativity, written by Todd Lubart, professor of psychology at Université Paris-Cité, creativity is a central part of human functioning. And it can be learned.
The Factry has named the six practices essential to maintaining a creative posture. It’s by practicing them that we learn to see things from different angles, and more easily achieve a state of mind of openness to change from which ideas emerge.
- Accept the unknown
Don’t try to control everything. Learn to tolerate ambiguity and be flexible in the face of the unexpected. - Sweaty hands
Don’t be afraid of making mistakes. Stress is normal, so don’t let it intimidate you. - Explore the unexplored
Give yourself the right to be curious and seek out new experiences. - Play the game
Play the game. Have fun. Allow yourself to make associations you wouldn’t normally make. - Be on your X
This is what stimulates us, makes us want to get involved and do something great. - Break a rule
Dare to be new and unexpected. Don’t repeat what’s known or what already exists. To find new ideas, you have to take a new path.
According to Factry, the person who “embraces the unknown” has a tolerance for ambiguity and an ability to move forward in a process, even if they don’t have all the answers. The person who “explores the unexplored” is curious. The person who “plays the game” puts themselves in an optimistic frame of mind, and therefore inevitably more creative. The person who “breaks a rule” is not afraid to question the established order, business as usual. Those with “sweaty hands” can take risks. Finally, those who are “on their X” have the ability to find what stimulates and ignites them.
In everyday life, the creative posture can manifest itself in a variety of ways. For example, it could mean choosing an unusual place to hold a meeting (playing the game), asking more questions (exploring the unexplored), or trying to say “yes” more often rather than “yes, but” (embracing the unknown).
In short, to move forward and take on professional challenges, you need the right attitude. “If you try to think about a problem from a position of closure, pessimism and seeing all the possible constraints… the ideas that come out of it will surely take a hit!”. That’s why the creative posture is essential to creativity,” points out Joëlle Sarrailh.
At La Factry, in addition to being explicitly taught to customers, notably in lunch-and-learn sessions, the creative posture is embedded in all its teaching practices. “Every moment of our training courses is an opportunity to develop your creative posture: in the breaks in the form of an exploratory walk, in the ice-breaker in the form of a game, in the lunch in collaborative mode, in the challenges that invite you to rapidly prototype an idea, etc.”, she says.
This state of mind can be found everywhere at the School of Creativity, whether named or not.
Evaluating the impact of training courses
Against this backdrop, La Factry commissioned Société des demains, an organization specializing in foresight, to develop a model for measuring the impact of its training courses on the creativity of its customers.
“The idea is to evaluate the impact of Factry training on organizations, but above all on the use of creativity in these organizations. In other words, how the Factry’s passage has produced results in their processes”, explains Catherine Mathys, co-founder and partner at la Société des demains.
Results that apply “over time”, since “you don’t become creative overnight”, she stresses. “These are mechanisms that have to be put in place. Our model requires follow-up, a long-term presence on the part of Factry”, she continues.
Last summer, for example, the organization reviewed the literature on creativity and met with Factry customers to see if the knowledge had been applied internally. “They told us what it had brought them, how they had lived through the experience and what remained of it,” explains Catherine Mathys.
These customers include manufacturers, cities, ministries, non-profit organizations… In short, customers “who aren’t necessarily what you’d expect”, she points out. “Creativity isn’t the prerogative of advertising agencies, for example, and that’s what’s interesting. The premise of the Factry is that everyone benefits from creativity. It’s not limited to artistic skills,” explains Catherine Mathys, who is also a columnist for Radio-Canada.
For her, the creative posture is “fertile ground” for creativity, enabling us to approach the unknown and new ideas with openness. “It’s a way of presenting yourself in a team, an organization. Are we open to exploring a new way of doing things? A change? In short, it’s the preparatory phase,” she says.
“You don’t jump into a swimming pool with your clothes on”, she illustrates.
On a day-to-day basis, adopting a creative posture might manifest itself in a gesture that takes us out of our comfort zone. “There’s a company we’ve always wanted to work with? Throw it a bone. Try something you’ve always wanted to do. We approach an unknown. It can be very, very simple,” she notes.
Creative thinking is essential to his own organization, the Société des demains, which works to develop and explore plausible future scenarios. Or, in its own words, “to use the future to better deal with the present”.
“We too need this creative posture to imagine ourselves in certain possible futures. When we launch a foresight exercise, we can get caught up in the constraints of the moment. But when you adopt a creative posture, you free yourself from those constraints,” she says.
For the associate of la Société des demains, creativity and a creative posture will be essential in the years to come. In a context of accelerated technological transformation and perpetual change, she believes you need to be creative if you want to hold your own in the job market.
“We’re experiencing more and more change. There will be other pandemics, other upheavals, and each time, what we’ve taken for granted will be called into question. Our ability to revise models, to adapt, to answer new questions is going to depend on our creative skills,” she continues.
