Giving Yourself Permission to Enter the Creative Process
“I just can’t do this.”
In the activities I propose, I often ask participants to draw.
I ask things that are apparently simple: to make a drawing that represents the role they play, that expresses what the team or organization they belong to is, what the goal they want to achieve means to them.
Most people struggle greatly to carry out the assigned task: “I’m terrible at this,” “I haven’t done it in ages,” “I feel ridiculous,” “I was never good at it”… and so on.
If then, as I usually do, I provide colored markers or pens, the situation for some (a few) tends to unlock, while for others (most) the choice of color becomes an additional obstacle.
It is interesting to observe how all this cuts across the generations I work with: from twenty‑something Gen Z “talents” to seasoned professionals or senior executives at the end of their careers.
In any case, after some effort, a bit of resistance, and many reassurances — no judgment, everything is fine, this is a way to observe and to observe yourself — something finally starts to move, and that white sheet they have contemplated for a long time welcomes the lines, shapes, or images that emerge, representing the outcome of an interesting inner process.
An inner process
Because it is precisely an inner process we are talking about.
I understood this over time: the difficulty of doing the exercise is not so much linked to the difficulty of drawing something, to shame, embarrassment, or lack of practice, but comesICALLY, comes from elsewhere — an elsewhere that has to do with the inner process.
When I choose to use this activity, my aim is exactly this: to activate, connect, and stimulate different areas of the brain; to give space to manual engagement; to go beyond mere descriptive and verbal expression; to touch the spheres of feeling, imagining, and communicating.
In the end, the result is always a discovery.
Some learnings
First of all, participants discover that it can be done, that it is a “serious” thing (sic!). Usually the comment is: “It seems trivial… right!? … but…”
This is the first learning: this exercise is not trivial, it is simple — and like all simple things, it is the result of deep and complex activities that coordinate to produce a simple and powerful outcome, anything but trivial.
The second learning is that it is not just a matter of imagination. Imagination opens worlds, supports the free production of images and scenarios, and is activated by specific brain areas related to the generation of ideas, images, and associations. But all this only partially has to do with “feeling” and with generating something that brings together different parts, that makes tangible (the drawing, precisely) thoughts, images, memories, and emotions.
For this reason — the third learning — a process is needed that connects multiple brain areas; operative connections between mind, body, and inner depth are required. In short, creativity is needed. This very simple exercise, in order to be completed, requires the activation of the creative process.
With this simple and accessible activity, I am simply asking people to give themselves permission to be creative.
The concrete result (the drawing) is of course relative: it depends on training, talent, and manual skill. But the result in terms of meaning and purpose is powerful and immediate.
Energy changes, the way of approaching the journey and the desired goal changes, the level of communication changes; overall, the “posture” of presence and participation changes.
But the surprising and powerful aspect is that, in the simple description and narration of their drawing, participants — more or less consciously — bring to themselves and to others the crucial points, the significant keywords that will become the fundamental elements (both critical and empowering) to work on and leverage in order to activate the best resources to achieve the desired goal.
An accelerator
Creativity is an accelerator, a flywheel that empowers people and teams to ground their best competencies, find the most appropriate solutions, and achieve results beyond expectations.
Giving space to the creative process means giving ourselves the opportunity to put our potential into action. Neuroscientists tell us that creativity does not reside in a single area of the brain, but in the ability to make different networks dialogue flexibly, in a dynamic relationship among neural networks.
Rex E. Jung and Oshin Vartanian, in The Cambridge Handbook of the Neuroscience of Creativity, tell us that creativity is the ability to produce an object, idea, or work that is both original and appropriate to its context. They describe creativity as the capacity to move intentionally between the free generation of ideas and disciplined evaluation, transforming “possibilities into solutions.”
According to the two researchers, creative people do not have less cognitive control; they simply have more flexible control, which they can switch on and off. They therefore have easy access to lateral thinking and are capable of critical thinking that helps them become “deep observers” of themselves and of the context.
This dismantles the idea of the creative person as disorganized, purely instinctive, and fond of wallowing in a chaotic inner world. From a neuroscientific point of view, this stereotype of the creative person is false.
In an interview, when asked, “In your opinion, what is the most important thing for creativity?” I heard the famous architect Renzo Piano answer, “Rules.” At that point, I would say this is an answer from a true creative.
A space to create
Winston Churchill loved painting so much that he dedicated a book to this passion: Painting as a Pastime — painting as a hobby, but above all as a way to reconnect, to slow down the power of the mind and allow other skills and potentials to emerge. A way to carve out space and find “appropriate” answers to life’s questions and challenges, and to savor its beauty: “Light and colour, peace and hope, will keep painter company to the end of the day…”
Giving space to creativity, training it, means allowing people to increase their capacity to know themselves, to be present, to participate consciously and fully in what they are creating — both as individuals and as teams.
This is not about “being creative” in the common sense of the term, nor about producing something aesthetically pleasing. It is about creating the conditions for different parts to dialogue, for control to give way to flexibility, for meaning to emerge even before solutions.
Perhaps, then, the real question is not whether we are creative or not.
The question becomes another: what kind of space do we allow — or deny — ourselves to “create” when we face a challenge, a goal, an important decision?
