Creating a Pipeline of Creativity
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The innovative, creative employees that companies want start out as innovative, creative children. A study co-sponsored by the Conference Board suggests schools are not putting enough stress on an important way of developing creativity in the schools. Likewise, employers aren't doing enough inside their companies. |
The study--titled "Ready to Innovate: Are Educators and Executives Aligned on the Creative Readiness of the U.S. Workforce?"--found "85% of employers concerned with hiring creative people say they can't find the applicants they seek." Arts education in the schools, they overwhelmingly believe, would help prime the pump:
"99% of the 155 surveyed school superintendents and 97% of the 89 surveyed employers believe that arts training--and, to a lesser degree, communications studies--are crucial to developing creativity." However, most high schools provide this kind of education on an elective basis, not as a mandatory part of the curriculum.
Employers also don't do enough to foster creativity: "Of eight employee activities/training options, less than one in ten employers surveyed said they provide seven of them to all their employees. In addition, only four of the eight options are offered even on an 'as needed' basis by more than half the employers."
For more on tapping employee creativity, read the excerpt from the new book Innovation to the Core: A Blueprint for Transforming the Way Your Company Innovates, by Peter Skarzynski and Rowan Gibson.
