Jack Morton celebrates three-quarters of a century in business this week by reminding you why you have so much trouble being creative at work, all via some good old-fashioned market research.
Stick with us here. Researchers conducting the study in question, titled “CREATIVITY: How Business Gets to Eureka!“, surveyed 7,000 young professionals in various industries and locales from California to Saudi Arabia in order to bring you these conclusions:
- While only 73% of all participants consider themselves “creative”, a full 85% of Jack Morton employees think so. The number even goes up by 1% when polling within the U.S.
Now click through for the why…
But first, a qualifying statement from the press release:
“Creative thought was defined as: solutions to problems that are unexpected in any field of work, not just within traditionally creative fields such as writing, design or the performing arts.”
…and some more stats with which to compare yourselves to your competitors abroad:
- In their own minds, at least, Brazilians are the most creative respondents, with 91% answering in the affirmative
- Egyptians, on the other hand, are least creative; only 48% embraced the label
Back in the U.S., we’ve reached something of a consensus:
- 91.5% think creativity “is key to business success“
- 68.3% see creative potential as “a motivator” when choosing a new position
Unsurprisingly, we share both our ideas and our frustrations on the topic:
- Only 62.5% of Americans think their work culture encourages creative thinking (and that number feels high to us)
- Only 56.9% of Americans believe that they have enough time to “think creatively”, but at least we’re ahead of the rest of the world at 46%
- We’re also running short on the “space” front, with only 52% of American respondents saying that the “physical environment” at work allows for peak creativity
Now, some of this might be due to our unusual demands:
“Americans tend to have their best creative thoughts during leisure time at home, while the rest of the world gets a large chunk of their ideas in the workplace.”
Yet we also have more confidence in the business value of creativity than respondents in any other country.
In summary, then: we know that we’re worth more to our employers when we’re free to spread our rhetorical wings, but most of us don’t feel like we have the time, space or proper encouragement to do so. In fact, we really just want to hang out at home until we have the kind of “Eureka!” moment that so often arrives during the development of elaborately pointless jokes about other people’s genitals.
And now, fair commentors, tell us why you feel creatively stifled in the workplace. No punches pulled.