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Overview

Some people wonder where their creativity has gone. They were once very imaginative, but now that they’re older and have more responsibilities, they don’t feel as creative anymore. Fortunately, everyone can be creative again by freeing up the part of their brain that was once so active when they were young.

Unfortunately, a lot of companies are trying to make their employees act normal and not creative. These key points tell you all about that hairball and how it can be avoided without leaving your company. You’ll also learn about the dangers of being too normal, as well as what’s so great about being foolish. A creative company is like a dancefloor in some ways (as compared to other types of companies).

Big Idea #1: Everyone is a creative genius, but society suppresses this talent.

I believe that we’re all artists. We just have to figure out what our medium is, whether it’s painting or writing poetry. Once you find your medium, you can express yourself and connect with others through art.

Children are often impulsive and spontaneous. They make decisions without thinking about the consequences. This is because they’re curious and want to explore their surroundings, which is a natural expression of creative genius at our core being. Everyone has this impulse to explore, but we lose it as we get older—unless we’re taught how to express that creativity in adulthood.

Many people fear that a society of “fools” who follow their creative genius can never function because it’s too unpredictable. They stifle their creativity in an attempt to be “normal.” However, this makes perfect sense from a societal perspective since we need to protect ourselves from the unpredictability of those who are following their creative genius.

Creative genius is suppressed by copyright laws.

The author asked many children if they considered themselves artists. The first graders all raised their hands, but fewer second graders did so. By the time he got to sixth graders, very few kids answered in the affirmative.

We can see that society suppresses creativity. However, we can do something about it by breaking the rules and standing up to normalcy.

Big Idea #2: Corporations are giant hairballs that pull us into their web of standards and procedures.

The greeting card industry is a huge business and Hallmark is the biggest player. It was started by Joyce Clyde Hall who had to figure out his own rules for doing business because there weren’t any other companies like it at that time. He developed policies and procedures which became the first two strands of what would eventually become a massive knot of tangled hairballs.

This knotted hairball symbolizes the conventional methods of doing things in a company. It’s a collection of procedures, policies and guidelines that define what will make a company run more effectively, quickly and cheaply.

Of course, people get sucked into the corporate normalcy as well. We know from physics that gravity pulls us toward the earth and prevents us from flying off into space. The larger something gets, the stronger its gravitational pull is on other objects around it.

In a similar way, as the hairball becomes larger and more layers of guidelines are added, so too does the pull toward it become stronger. Say you work for a new advertising company. The firm starts off by introducing one standard corporate design that every ad should have. Then they add creativity guidelines requiring brainstorming meetings and accountability guidelines instructing you to write daily progress reports. With each additional rule, you’re pulled deeper into corporate normalcy.