Systems. And What Does Creativity Have to Do With It?

On systemizing the conditions around creativity

Creativity was never just “making things”

In the 13th to 19th century, long before science had modern laboratories, some of its most important discoveries were actually made possible by systems built inside religious institutions. In 1702, Pope Clement XI commissioned astronomer and cleric Francesco Bianchini to install a meridian line inside Rome’s Basilica of Santa Maria degli Angeli and soon enough, a church became a solar observatory through a hole in its ceiling and a line across its floor. This allowed astronomers to measure the movement of the Sun. Similarly, popes also commissioned mathematicians to correct the calendar, supported scientific academies and connected thinkers whose ideas might otherwise have remained isolated.

Surprising? We have this perception in society that religion and science belong to opposing worlds, yet for long periods they were not even separate practices.

We make a similar false separation today: there’s a perception of systems belonging to hard science, technology and economics, while creativity belongs to the fine arts—a mysterious act that we all should take care it remains untouched by structure. But the thing is, creativity has ALWAYS had systems: in the constraints of a poetic form, the repetition of rehearsal, the stages of an editorial process, the rituals that return an artist to the work and the methods that allow one experiment to inform the next.

Systems thinking does not make creative work mechanical. At its best, it protects the conditions creativity needs, produces more opportunities to learn and allows isolated moments of inspiration to develop into a strong, consistent body of work.

Every idea is shaped by a particular arrangement of people, tools, references, rituals, timelines and limits—and that arrangement makes some outcomes more likely than others. Creativity does not happen in spite of a system. It emerges from it! From cave drawings to art pieces in the intersection of art and technology, creativity has meant bringing something new into being: an idea, a solution, a connection, or a new way of seeing that helps you move forward.

It’s an innate way of thinking in humans that inevitably shows up over and over again in our work; in judgment, problem-solving, invention, reframing, and the ability to connect things that did not previously seem connected.

We’ve spent years reducing creativity to output

In creativity, as in it seems almost every other aspect of the human experience as well, AI has come in to reevaluate (or clarify) what it means to be productive and produce more: write more! Design faster! Brainstorm MORE ideas!

But these phrases are inherently at odds. Output is only the visible end bit of the alchemic process of creativity. Within everything that leads up to that end goal (and artists, the people who interact with creativity on it’s most explicit level, will know this) there is interpretation, synthesis, pattern recognition, and the simple good judgement that is deciding what’s worth actually bringing to life.

So what do we do within our modern work culture that often undervalues creativity as separate from the Actual Work Being Done?

AI has increased the value of creativity (because output is getting “cheaper”)

I’ll confess right now, with my work as an operator in businesses, I still don’t use AI to help me draft my emails, generate ANY images, and it’s not the end-all and be-all of my research. I love being able to dive into my unique human abilities of judgement, connections, and ideation. I find the challenge is knowing which answers I come up with that are interesting, useful, and true (enough).

In an AI world, creativity becomes less about producing and more about discerning. And we need that in our reality where plans don’t always agree with constraints of the real world.

Every job is a creative job!

I’ve always stood by the saying that every job is a creative job. When you’re working with an operator there’s a lot of creative problem solving even in deciding how to simplify a messy handoff process to a client. Similarly, a CEO needs to find a new way to position an offer or recognize that it’s typical “standard” process is nowhere near the quality of output it should be creating in the time it takes.

So where do systems fit into all of this?

Systems are often positioned as the opposite of creativity because we associate them with repetition, rules, and predictability. I think the better question is whether the system is consuming creative energy or protecting it.

In systems thinking, much of what ends up getting optimized is the natural process of an “upwards spiral”. In contrast to the more popular phase the downward spiral, in which bad habits, negative thinking, depressive thoughts leads to a chain reaction of negative events, an upwards spirals builds systems that compounds on our natural good habits, motivations, etc. that help us think differently, problem solve creatively, create in our minds a stable environment for the creative process and finally iteration when there’s an output.

Often, what makes sense to be optimized is the relationship between the different parts: the people involved, the information available to them, the tools they use, the order in which decisions are made and the feedback that returns to the system. Change one of those relationships and you can change what the whole system is capable of producing.

A good system creates a stable container around work that needs to remain variable. The brief is clear. The relevant information is accessible. Responsibilities are understood. Repetitive steps are supported. Feedback arrives while it can still improve the work. Within that structure, the people doing the work have room to experiment, interpret and make decisions that could not have been prescribed in advance.

And it’s not a system that emphasizes efficiency as we traditionally apply to every process possible. It’s a creative process that benefits from slowness, constraint, uncertainty, iteration, and even discomfort. If the value of a task is created by the thinking that happens while doing it, removing every ounce of friction can also remove the conditions that produced the insight. That is where systems and creativity stop being opposites. A good system to build is one that protects the attention, relationships and possibilities from which a creative novel idea can emerge.

Want to learn more about how systems thinking and creativity can work for you in your business?