Creativity and why ideas can be so stressful

Ran a workshop this afternoon for a board of directors looking at increasing creativity. Their business is research and I realised through the pre-exercise and the workshop itself what an intimidating business creativity is. In advertising we take it as read that we work creatively. Outside of advertising you can't take it for granted and creativity can be seen as indulgent and diletante though deep down everyone would like to think that there's a little creativity inside of them busting to get out. But they're scared to be pulled down  by someone else telling them that their latest gem isn't creative at all.  My favourite moment was when showing how vital it was that ideas were shaped and protected right through to implementation, someone who identified herself as a doer commented on how stressful she found brainstorms. 'Honestly' she said. 'Every time an idea gets mentioned I start to think how we could make it work but before I can work it out someone comes up with something else.' I looked at her in disbelief - Imagine going into a brainstorm thinking that you're actually going to have to produce any or all of the ideas you come up with - you'd never get started!  Which is why it is essential that we extend the application of creativity way beyond idea generation and problem solving to problem identification, optimising and implementation. Then you'd find that there's creative people literally everywhere.