What are the Goldilocks Conditions for Creativity and Talent?

Have you ever watched “The history of our world in 18 minutes” presented by David Christian? It is one of the 11 must-see TED Talks. If you have not watched this great talk yet, here is a chance.

Have you liked it? It is really very inspiring, isn't it?

Who is Goldilocks?

Goldilocks was a little girl who lived with her family. One day, she lost her way in the forest. She saw a cottage. It belonged to three bears that were the big Papa Bear, the middle-sized Mama Bear and the tiny little Baby Bear. The three bears were not at home because they went out for a walk and left their porridge to cool. Goldilocks went into the cottage, and she saw the three bowls full of porridge. Since she was so hungry, she started eating from the big Papa Bear’s bowl, but the porridge was too hot to eat. Next, she tried the middle-sized Mama Bear’s bowl, and it was too cold. Finally, she tried the tiny little Baby Bear’s bowl. It was “just right”, and she ate it. Then, Goldilocks went upstairs. After trying the Papa Bear’s bed that was too large and Mama Bear’s bed that was too small, Goldilocks chose to sleep in Baby Bear’s bed because it was “just right” for her… (The Story of Goldilocks and the Three Bears)

What is the Goldilocks Principle?

After testing all three examples (the three bears) of two items (the porridge and bed), Goldilocks decides that one of them is always too much in one extreme (too hot or too large), one is too much in the opposite extreme (too cold or too small), and one is "just right". The Goldilocks Principle states that something must fall within certain margins, as opposed to reaching extremes.

Similarly to David Christian’s talk in which The Goldilocks Principle and Conditions are applied in history, they are also applied in many other disciplines such as engineering, economics, biology and developmental psychology.

What are the Goldilocks Conditions for Creativity and Talent?

The creative process is actually a change process by which old order and structures are changed into a new order and new items. Novelties are created. Also, the general tendency of the talent who has deep inspiration and great desire to create is to get into “creative mush” and create something new. Talents’ creative process is very similar to the one of the universe as David Christian states “the general tendency of the universe is to move from order and structure to lack of order and lack of structure in fact to mush”.

Besides, the talents’ creative process is difficult just like David Christian’s words “our universe creates complexity with great difficulty”. A talent can create only with great difficulty because in the creative process, there is nothing at the very beginning. Then, there is the creative inspiration, idea and motivation to start the process. It is like the first threshold, The Big Bang and all the thresholds in human history.

In his talk, David Christian explains the three Goldilocks Conditions for life. These are the right amount of energy, diverse chemical elements and liquids. Two of these conditions can be implemented for creativity and talent. The Goldilocks Conditions for Creativity and Talent are right amount of creative energy and diverse talents.

Right Amount of Creative Energy

In my opinion, every human being is a talent with very unique and endless creative power. It is really vital and critically important for the talent to be in the special environment that can nourish his or her creativity. As a result, by using his or her “diverse elements” such as knowledge, skills and competencies, this talent can generate “just-right” amount of creative energy to create and innovate.

In an organization where talent management and development policies are used, the organizational talent or all talents are managed. Here again the “just right” leadership and management are needed. If there is too little or not enough leadership and management, the talents’ creative potential is not managed. This is one of the extremes, and the other extreme is when there is too much leadership and management, then, there is too much control and not enough freedom to let the talents to be creative and to generate new ideas and solutions.

Diverse Talents

As I have mentioned, every human being is a talent. He or she has such special diverse talent because of her or his very individual knowledge, skills and abilities. Every talent has very diverse competencies that make him or her very unique. It is impossible to discuss the possibility of having two identical talents.

David Christian says “... now the universe is chemically more complex, and in a chemically more complex universe, it's possible to make more things...”. All employees in an organization are like “the diverse chemical elements of the periodic table” or they are diverse talents. Similar employees with similar characteristics will not generate creative energy. Only diverse talents in an organization can be creative to innovate. Consequently, diverse talents and their creative energy are needed for new product and service development and innovation.

To sum up, like studying the Big History of our world, maybe it will be very useful to examine the whole life of a talent and especially trying to understand his or her potential, creative energy, diversity, competencies and his or her thresholds moments in life. Moreover, the past thresholds of an organization should be studied and the new threshold moments of innovation should be supported. The Goldilocks Principle and Conditions for individual and organizational talent and creativity are essential. The collective human talent and creativity can lead to many small and big innovations, ordinary and very extraordinary inventions and the progress of humanity. I believe that this principle and its conditions should be provided for each and every human talent starting in childhood while formal schooling and continuing into adulthood while working. Only then, this talent can develop and release his or her creative energy and make a positive impact in human history.

I will be very happy to read your comments. Please, feel free to join the discussion. Thanks & Regards

ESIN AKAY

Talent Strategies Leader | Capabilities Development Consultant