Overcoming creative blocks

Organizations are faced with increasingly complex challenges and rapid change. This makes creativity an important asset for innovation. But creativity is not always easy to put into practice, because of certain creative blocks.

Marine Agogué, a management researcher at HEC Montréal, has explored what causes creative blocks. She studied the impact of “social labeling” on a sample of around 20 face-to-face and 480 online participants. After being given a task to perform or a questionnaire to complete, some subjects were told that they had been creative, and others that they had not. Finally, they were given a new task or questionnaire.

Agogué found that there was virtually no effect on creativity when the label confirmed the subject’s self-perceived creativity, for example when labeling someone as “creative” when the person already perceived themselves as creative. Conversely, when the label contradicted the subject’s self-perceived creativity, their performance improved. Individuals with low self-perceived creativity will be encouraged when told they are creative, while creative individuals labeled “not creative” will want to prove the label wrong.

The researcher also identified, as part of a collaboration with the Institut de recherche d’Hydro-Québec, certain blockages linked to cognitive bias. One of the main biases was the fixation effect, which occurs when one idea or perspective monopolizes our attention and hinders the search for original solutions. This is why our first ideas in a creative process are often lacking in innovation.

Marine Agogué's work shows that we need to rethink the way we manage creativity in organizations. Her findings have been published in the renowned journal Plos One. 

To find out more:

Anna Yström & Marine Agogué & Romain Rampa, 2021. "Preparing an Organization for Sustainability Transitions—The Making of Boundary Spanners through Design Training", Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(14), pages 1-17, July.

Rampa, R., & Agogué, M. (2021). “Developing radical innovation capabilities: Exploring the effects of training employees for creativity and innovation. Creativity and Innovation Management", 30(1), 211-227.

Rampa, Romain, et Marine Agogué. « Quand un contexte de crise rend légitime l’innovation managériale : le cas des pratiques de conciliation famille-travail en pleine pandémie », Innovations, vol. 68, no. 2, 2022, pp. 165-198.