Creativity: On the perils of pursuing originality

Creative ideas, of course, must be original in some way. But they also aim to provide some sort of value to people, whether that value is aesthetic, entertainment, practical, or financial

By George E. Newman

Published: Jul 24, 2024 10:59:35 AM IST

Updated: Jul 24, 2024 11:04:39 AM IST

When people seek to be creative, they tend to overemphasize the novelty piece Image: Shutterstock

In any creative pursuit, there is a delicate balance between novelty and convention. Creative ideas, of course, must be original in some way. But they also aim to provide some sort of value to people, whether that value is aesthetic, entertainment, practical, or financial. Therefore, would-be creatives face a dilemma: in deciding where to dig for that next great idea, how much should they prioritize originality versus areas of proven success?

Sometimes we get that balance wrong. Consider a recent review of a Michelin-starred restaurant name Bros. The popular food blogger, Geraldine DeRuiter, describes an excruciating three-hour affair. Twenty-seven courses of what sound more like exhibits at a haunted house than elevated fine dining. Some highlights include an oyster loaf that “tasted like Newark airport,” a squirt of gelee infused with droplets of meat molecules, a tasting of 12 different kinds of foam, “frozen air” and several pieces of flavoured paper. The coup de grace? A dollop of citrus-flavoured foam served in a plaster cast of the chef’s mouth. Absent utensils, diners were instructed to lick the foam out of the plaster cast prompting a scene that the blogger described as something “stolen from an eastern European horror film.”

In the case of Bros. the mistake is rather clear: in striving to create a dining experience that is totally unique and one-of-a-kind, the chef seems to have forgotten the most important element of all: making the food actually taste good. But it turns out that this mistake is a lot more common than you might think. Indeed, when most people think do something creative, their mind races to what’s never been done before: ‘Where is the wide-open space, the untouched soil?’ In turn, they begin digging in areas that seem totally new. But what the science suggests is that rather than looking to what has never been done before, it can be far more advantageous to consider the areas in which successful ideas have been found in the past. In other words, if people’s intuitive ratio is that creative ideas should be mostly novel and only a bit conventional, the science suggests the opposite: they should seek topics and pursuits that are mostly conventional and only a bit novel.

In some of my own research on this topic, my colleagues and I have investigated just how prevalent this bias toward originality might be. We looked at a domain in which most people regard themselves as quite skilled: making sandwiches. Participants in these studies (we called them, ‘chefs’) were asked to brainstorm new sandwich recipes for a chain of sandwich shops. One group of chefs was asked to design a tasty sandwich, while another group was asked to design a sandwich that was both creative and tasty. The chefs were told that they would earn bonuses based on how appealing their sandwich recipes were to others.

Before we passed off the recipes for evaluation, we asked the chefs a bit about their process. How much had they focused on making the sandwich original? How much had they focused on taste? As you might expect, chefs in the creative and tasty condition said they prioritized originality more than chefs in the tasty condition. However, when it came to taste, all chefs said that tastiness was their primary criterion, regardless of which prompt they received. In other words, all of the chefs told us that they cared primarily about taste, and those who were asked to focus on creativity did not perceive any tradeoff between the originality of their sandwich and the tastiness of the sandwich.

However, when we gave those recipes to a sample of potential customers, we found that the “creative” sandwiches were significantly less appetizing. That is, although chefs in both conditions said that they focused on making their sandwiches tasty (to the same degree), the reality was that when chefs received the instruction to “be creative,” they seemed to have prioritized originality at the expense of taste. Given that our chefs seemed to be somewhat ‘blind’ to the tradeoff between originality and quality, we dubbed this phenomenon the Originality Ostrich effect.

Interestingly, the Originality Ostrich effect also seems to exist even for true experts. With the help of a team of research assistants, we coded data from 10 seasons of the popular cooking competition show, Top Chef. The coders noted, in each episode, how the contestants talked about their food. Specifically, they looked at mentions of creativity and originality: e.g., Did the chef say they went with an established recipe, or did they try something new? Did they say they tried to be original in some way? Interestingly, we found that instances in which contestants focused on originality dramatically increased their chances of being eliminated. In fact, when contestants explicitly said they tried to be original they were twice as likely to have the worst-rated dish and be kicked off the show.

Also read: Why creativity is important for success in business

Other researcher teams have observed a similar pattern in very different domains. For example, research by Brian Uzzi and his colleagues at Northwestern University examined the extent to which unconventional ideas have a big impact in science. In their analysis of nearly 18 million scientific articles, they find a surprisingly robust pattern: the highest-impact science isn’t the most novel. Instead, the most influential work tends to be research that’s largely conventional, but features one new, unusual combination. Kind of like an unexpected spice on your favorite food.

In closing

Of course, originality and quality are not always at odds. Apple’s iPhone, Einstein’s theory of relativity, or the paintings of Mark Rothko are all instances in which a person devised something that was truly novel, while also providing an immense source of value to people. But oftentimes when people seek to be creative, they tend to overemphasize the novelty piece, concocting unheard of recipes that come at the expense of taste, or creating avant garde films that most audiences can’t (and don’t want to) follow.

In my forthcoming book from Simon & Schuster, Digging for Fire, I show that arriving at great ideas is not a natural gift bestowed upon us at birth. Instead, creativity should be viewed as a process—an adventure of ideas. And like most great adventures, it requires a method, a map, and a well-honed sense for where to dig. One of the key takeaways from the book is this: By focusing on the conventional—on areas of proven success—we can draw from what has come before us. Then, when the time is right, we can bring in disparate ideas and approaches. But ideally, only a sprinkle at a time.

George E. Newman is an Associate Professor of Organizational Behaviour and Human Resource Management at the Rotman School of Management. This article is an excerpt is from his forthcoming book, Digging for Fire: The Science of Surfacing Great Ideas (Simon & Schuster), which seeks to provide a scientific approach that consistently leads us toward good ideas.

[This article has been reprinted, with permission, from Rotman Management, the magazine of the University of Toronto's Rotman School of Management]