Originality is Overrated

As someone who works in the world of creativity in business you might expect me to say that originality is the touchstone that we should all be fondling, but I'm here to tell you that originality is overrated. Or, at the very least, overrated as a goal. 

I used to be very concerned about being original. When I was a child I learned to play the guitar and I started to write songs. I wanted my songs to be completely original and whenever I found out that there was already a song that used a similar riff, the same progression or lyrics reminiscent of mine I would be frustrated and abandon that song to try again. I did not go on to become a rock and roll star. 

Later, when I got interested in business, I would dream up companies I would like to start. But every time I did I found that somewhere in the world someone was doing something that was similar, after a fashion, to what I had in mind. These discoveries made me feel like I'd missed the boat. I didn't want to be second. I wanted to be the first! Again, this would push me to move on and give up on that insufficiently original idea. 

Why was it so hard? Of course the problem is that there's really nothing much that's new. Not in the truest sense. In a world of over seven billion people with thousands of years of history the chances of coming up with something utterly new, even predominantly new, are vanishingly small. 

What's more, even if you do manage to stumble across a truly ground breaking idea, something paradigm shifting, it won't stay unique for long. We're so connected, it's so easy to learn about and copy something great, that if you place inordinate importance on being unique you're certain to be quickly disappointed as fast followers pick up on your innovation and imitate it. 

So originality is both an unrealistic ideal for which to strive, likely to cause you to feel discouraged, and a short term win on the off chance you actually achieve it. So what exactly should we be aiming for?

Creativity begins not with the desire to be different for the sake of it but with the desire to be both useful and authentic. When we solve a problem through the application of creative thought the questions we need to ask ourselves do not concern uniqueness or originality for their own sake but rather whether or not our solution is a genuine improvement and whether or not it really reflects us.

A truly creative way of working requires us to constantly question our choices: 

"Are these choices meaningful or arbitrary?"

"Have we gotten to the root cause of our problem or are we treating a symptom?"

"Is this direction authentic or are we trying to be something we're not?"

Since starting Sabre Tooth Panda I've come across a number of practitioners and academics who are thinking along similar lines to me. They, like me, believe that applying a coaching, from the inside out, perspective to achieving creativity in the workplace is the only real path to sustainable change. They realise that one-size-fits-all processes or skills based training without context haven't been shown to deliver change. In the past I would have found the existence of these people discouraging! But now I take a different view. 

I will likely never do anything truly, utterly unique and original. But by the same token, if I follow the creative process and remain authentic and useful, I won't ever be exactly like anyone else either. My own approach, while not existing in some kind of strange isolation, will always be mine as long as I don't fall into the trap of trying to be like anyone else. I can't always control what others do. I can't always be unique and original. But I can be authentic.