"To be creative at work, we need to change our relationship with time and productivity”

Do you have to be a genius to have brilliant ideas? This is the question asked by Jules Zimmermann in the subtitle of his book Archimedes’ Bathtub. (French - not translated). As  a specialist in creativity, he reassures us straight away: no, you don't need to be Picasso or Einstein to be creative. So much the better, because this soft skill is regularly included in the rankings of the most valued skills by recruiters. But we still need to agree on the definition of creativity and the means to encourage it... We take stock with Jules Zimmermann, trainer, speaker and author on the subject.

In your book, you challenge the idea that only artistic activities require creativity and invoke a much broader psychological definition. You mention a “spectrum of ordinary creativity”, what is that?

Jules Zimmermann: We tend to only consider the most spectacular ideas as creative. Therefore, it gives us a very binary view of things: either you've made a great discovery, done an incredible piece of art, developed an invention so you are creative, or you are not creative at all. This view leads many people to put themselves in the category “I am not creative”. On the contrary, the notion of “ordinary creativity” counters this idea by showing that there are many activities in between that are also evidence of creativity.

Like what?

J. Z: Our daily lives are full of activities that require our creativity. Fixing up your flat requires you to be creative because you are designing something personal. Cooking with leftovers from the fridge forces us to deviate from the usual recipes and therefore to be creative, by coercion. In fact, creativity refers to any situation in which we must invent our own answers.

Does that mean we are all creative?

J. Z: Absolutely, we are all creative. And we can all be more creative if we put in time. Nevertheless, there are inter-individual differences in our creativity. And it cannot be denied that some people are particularly creative.

Like Archimedes in his bathtub, we have a vision of a creative idea imposing itself on us like an intuition. Yet you devote an entire chapter to the fact that “our intuitions blind us”. Why?

J. Z: Because creativity has been associated with spontaneity. That is to say, to say whatever comes to mind without asking questions. This is a particularly popular belief in the professional world, linked to the popularity of brainstorming - which appeared at the end of the 1930s in the world of advertising - the basic principle of which is the suspension of judgment.

Spontaneity works well to address certain issues. But it can also limit us. If we rely solely on spontaneity, there are many questions we will not ask ourselves. We will thus miss out on certain paths. But to be creative, we have to question our evidences and automatisms. We need spontaneity, but we also need to force our thinking in destabilising directions.

So, like any skill, creativity can be worked on, learned and improved?

J. Z: It's interesting to use the word skill to refer to creativity. Originally, and for a very long time, creativity was seen as a mystical phenomenon - a kind of gift from the gods. Later, it was represented as a talent, something innate, which cannot be provoked voluntarily. It was then very much associated with personality. Then we started to talk about creativity as a method - which can be provoked and activated voluntarily - particularly in the professional world. It is only in the last 10-15 years that we have been talking about it as a skill. There is a growing interest in soft skills and, in this context, creativity is acquiring the status of a skill, which can be developed and valued in a professional context.

Why is there so little room for creativity in educational programmes at all levels?

J. Z: We are slowly getting there. For the moment, we have integrated creativity in PISA assessment tests. This means that the ability to come up with original and relevant ideas will be part of the criteria for comparing different education systems on a global scale. If students' creativity is assessed, education systems must foster it. For the moment, creativity is still not very important in schools because it is in opposition to the current teaching methods which are mainly based on the acquisition of knowledge.

In its latest report, the World Economic Forum ranked creativity as one of the top five most important soft skills for 2025. But what does it mean “to be creative” in a business context?

J. Z: Being creative at work means that you don't have a task to do but an objective to achieve or a problem to solve. Creativity at work means above all that everyone should ask themselves questions rather than considering that employees are the executors of a strategy decided at the top.

Does it require creating a “culture of creativity” in companies?

J. Z: This notion of a culture of creativity is key. A rather naive way of approaching the subject would be to think that it is enough to act on a single aspect for creativity to infuse everywhere. For instance, in companies, we love to organise collective creativity workshops. These are one-off moments, during which ideas are generated, but without changing the rest of the company. In reality, if you want to introduce creativity into a company, you need to change the management culture, the relationship with time, the place given to learning, the segmentation of different activities, etc. You have to act on almost every dimension of a company. And this is something that takes a long time.

We also need to agree on the definition of creativity. Besides, what is the difference with innovation?

J. Z: Creativity is a mental process, whereas innovation makes an idea exist inside society. This means that we are going to be confronted with the constraints of reality. That's why in innovation projects, it's interesting to have one person who brings the creative side and one person who is in charge of discussing with investors, thinking about production, distribution, etc. These are very different skills. 

In your book, you criticise these start-ups, which are presented as models of innovation but which cruelly lack creativity.

J. Z: Today, a large majority of start-ups are dedicated to digitising a service – shopping  delivery, box subscription of any kind of product, etc. Plenty of services deserve to be digitised, for sure. The real concern is to set up these startups as a model of creativity! It really lacks ambition, and it's a pity because we are facing a whole bunch of social and environmental problems that need really creative projects to be solved.

You wrote: “Yesterday, creativity characterized a handful of geniuses. Today, it seems to have become an indispensable part of the citizen's toolbox.’ We can also add the employee. But do we all have to be creative because we can?

J. Z: If we agree on the idea that we are all already creative in our daily lives, there is no longer any real injunction. But the real question is: should we encourage more creativity in companies? This is something that is desirable for companies as it involves employees and makes work more motivating. So why not? On the condition that you don't accumulate contradictory injunctions.

For instance, in companies, the relationship to time is not compatible with creativity. There is a tendency to saturate people with tasks and to consider any empty time as time lost. Basically, someone who takes too long a break is seen as a slacker when it may simply be someone who needs to step back and reflect on his/her work. Don't think that when you are not actively focusing on a task, there is nothing going on in your head. We need moments of emptiness to digest the information we have just acquired. If we are not able to integrate this culture of mental wandering at work, we will not be able to be creative.

If we are overloaded with tasks when we face a problem, we look for the most immediate solution. And if we are looking for this immediate solution, we rush towards the traditional solutions and do not explore creative ones. Creativity in business therefore requires us to change our relationship to time and productivity.