Carolyn Jack

Editor and CEO, Geniocity.com
A project of The Genius Group LLC

Creativity smackdown? Europe vs. the U.S.

Happy Monday! It’s the start of a new business week and here, to kick things off in an interesting direction, are a few words from an interview with Edward de Bono, described as a leading authority on creative thinking  and the European Community’s  recently appointed ambassador for the European Year of Creativity and Innovation 2009:  

What are the main hurdles to unlocking creativity and innovation in Europe?

“There needs to be someone who takes it seriously. I think businesses ought to take creativity as seriously as they take finance and legal affairs. We need someone in every organisation who is directly responsible for creativity and new ideas, who organises training and puts together lists of new thinking, who listens to new ideas, who transmits them and stands behind them. Otherwise you risk having an individual innovator who doesn’t have the political muscle to make things happen and nothing happens.”

Sounds like a good idea to me. But I get the feeling de Bono thinks the United States wouldn’t have the chops to make the concept work within our own borders. Here’s what he has to say about American creativity:

“In America, they have quite old-fashioned ideas about creativity. They think it is just about feeling good and sitting around and brainstorming some answers. And it is not.”

Zut alors, a challenge! What do you think? Is he right? Read the rest of the interview here.