One of the greatest scientist, Albert Einstein once made a bold statement that "Creativity is intelligence having fun". However, is this principle really correct? Does it work for everyone? Historically, whether creativity has positive or negative impact on people’s lives and health is a subject of much debates. Some people suggest that most of the science achievements are associated with creativity. Without it, people may still live in caves. People often feel that adding creative elements in advertising makes products more impressive and people are more willing to buy. However, this is not the whole picture of the problem. They didn’t see the great downside of creativity. In fact, creativity is likely to do more harm than good. Basically there are three disadvantages of creativity—increasing the risk of failure, leading people to makeunrealistic plan and making people’s daily work and interpersonal relationships worse. This essay is going to use some examples to illustrate creativity is not a necessary factor for success and it actually could lead to failure.
Firstly, creativity often leads to more failures. The rise and fall of Song Airlines indicate that the effect of creativity on their product is definitely negative (Vaz). Song Airlines’ branding strategy was not the traditional strategy that any other airlines would’ve had. They positioned their business as a luxury travel experience but this marketing and branding ideas were unsuccessful and ultimately led to their demise. Song Airlines did not care about what they actually sell, but who they are in the consumers’ minds. If they focus more on how to improving traditional products, they would definitely not shut down as fast as they were. From this evidence, it can be said that it is creativity finally lead their failure. The Hindenburg disaster is another example for trouble caused by creativity (James). In the early 20th century, Zeppelin airships company had a great idea—equip an airship with a luxurious cabin but what was lessa good idea was to fill the balloons with highly explosive hydrogen gas. That finally caused the Hindenburg disaster. 36 lives were lost. Bad invention could even put people’s lives in danger. This disaster caused by reckless invention is good evidence that creativity may lead failure. Creations break the mold and inevitably bring dangers and uncertainties.
Second, creativity just help people to make plans that are always unrealistic. However, the key to success is to be pragmatism. An article called "creativity is not enough: to many idea people, too few innovators", paraphrased a metaphor made by Ted Levitt. Ted Levitt emphasized the importance of doing real work instead of seeking for creating new things. Two wannabe authors, one just has a good idea of writing, but never begin to write, the other has not only the same idea but also actually wrote the book. In the end, the latter writer became a bestseller. From this metaphor, one could feel the importance of being a doer. The author suggests that ideas are after all not deeds. all ideas need people who are doers, but not thinkers. According to the same article, the example of "creative malcontents" is also strong evidence supporting creativity is not the key to success. Some people believe that they can achieve performance simply by offer their boss with some creative new idea. Those so call "creative malcontents" are the typical types of thinkers. However, the fact is once a new idea is submitted to boss, it creates more problem for them—and they already have enough. Coming up with new ideas is simple, but the key is whether they are actually doable.
The third problem caused by creativity is it sometimes cause people lose the motivation for daily work and causing prejudice to someone who have creativity. A man even refuses to take a job because his creativity (Carry). "As talent and creative as he is", her wife once wrote in a letter, "he has never made enough money to support himself, let alone our family." Their family got bankrupt because the man is too creative to work. In common sense, this is unimaginable, but it really happened. This example remind people creativity is not always a good thing. A man could even lose the passion of working because of it. People should have creativity, but they must do the things that they are necessary to do. Making living is more important than having creativity. Furthermore, creativity could not only lead one out of normal work and life, but also could affect relationship between people. In 2010, two experiments showed people who come up with new ideas are less likely to be promoted, recognized as leaders, or deemed to be reliable teammates (Valerie). Researchers overwhelmingly found that rather than embracing those potential solutions, participants reported strong negative reactions. Teachers in schools surprisingly, discriminate against students who exhibit creativity. That is really unfair for those people or students that have creativity. This phenomenon is definitely harmful to the development of society, but in the present situation, in order to protect oneself, people really should not be overly creative. At least for individuals, to be creative is not a good choice right now.
According to all these evidences, creativity is not always beneficial and it even has some harmful effects on people. Creativity increasing the risk of failure, making some unrealistic plan, daydreaming and leading people losing motivation and courage of facing the dull reality of life as well as causing bias. People are brought up to believe inventing and being creative will lead to success, but the fact is that it actually can’t. In order to avoid misconceptions about creativity, it is important for people to notice that creativity may have bad effect. Creativity is a necessary quality for human development. But for individuals or enterprises, it is should not be equated with success. Furthermore, if people notice those bad effects caused by creativity and could correctly consider when to use creativity, they will definitely live a better life.
Works Cited:
Vza, Alexander. "A Sad Song: The Failure of Song Airlines" eloquiumblog.wordpress.com, Nov 20, 2012, https://eloquiumblog.wordpress.com/2012/11/20/a-sad-song-the-failure-of-song-airlines/#:~:text=Song%20Airlines%20was%20launched%20in,which%20was%20post%209%2F11.
Cutmore, James. "10 of the world's worst-ever inventions" sciencefocus.com, Jan 26, 2024, https://www.sciencefocus.com/future-technology/10-of-the-worlds-worst-ever-inventions.
Corporate Learning Network Editorial Staff. “CreativityIs Not Enough: Too Many Idea People, Too Few Innovators” corporatelearningnetwork.com, Aug 15, 2022, https://www.corporatelearningnetwork.com/d-e-i-b/articles.
Tennis, Cary. “My Husband is Too Creative to Work” salon.com, Apr 28, 2009, https://www.salon.com/2009/04/28/creative_husband/.
Casey, Valerie. “We Need Creativity to Survive. So WhyAre We So Suspicious of It?” huffpost.com, 2012, https://www.huffpost.com/entry/we-need-creativity-to-sur_b_12550506