Covid-19: A battle of David versus Goliath

By Mark Simmonds 

So, let’s predict what happens next. Covid-19 remains obstinate and sticks around for a couple of years at least, although the after-shock will be felt for the next decade at least.

Governments across the world encourage those people with jobs to remain working from home, with Zoom and Microsoft Teams calls becoming the order of every day. Millions of people will not be quite so lucky. They will lose their jobs, and for many, this will be the beginning of a long, painful, and sometimes fruitless search for new sources of income.

The hospitality industry will be decimated, the entertainers will all need to re-train, and graduates, saddled with £30k to £40k of debt will sit around twiddling their thumbs, wondering what to do next. It wasn’t meant to be like this.

In this chaotic environment, what kind of ‘brain’ do we need to have in our organisations, both large and small? Is it the logical, rational, ‘step 1, step 2, step 3’ commercial brain…. or the exploratory, ‘let’s see where this idea takes us’ creative brain? At the moment, it seems that the former is very much order of the day, and it has been so for some time.

COVID-19: GENIUS YOU helping creativity to thrive

In 2020, GENIUS YOU carried out a study involving over 2000 respondents from 17 multi-nationals across 10 sectors. The study analysed information extracted from a psychometric survey completed by respondents in the period 2015-2020 which explored the creative strengths of individuals.

Were they at the more generative front end of the creative process, characterised by the Explorer and the Detective, or were they at the evaluative, decision-making end of the creative spectrum, characterised by the Judge? The results were conclusive.

31% of respondents scored highest as the logical, analytical Judge character – making this the dominant behaviour. This compared with 21% for the Explorer, the generator of ideas, and only 9% for the Detective, the spotter of ideas with potential. The pattern of results was consistent across the vast majority of companies surveyed.

So, why is there such a strong bias towards the more rational Judge character in the majority of organisations?

1) Is it a product of our education system? Are we knocking that child-like curiosity and ‘can do’ attitude out of people in their formative years? By the time, the younger generation tiptoe into the world of employment, their creative genes are lying dormant in deep hibernation.

2) Or maybe ‘Judges’ are what companies are looking for when they recruit individuals? Do employers view commercial rigour as a more critical competency than creative flair? The former is certainly more understandable, less unpredictable, easier to manage than the latter which is often viewed with suspicion in the best of times.

3) Alternatively, are the realities and pressures of day to day work simply not conducive to the more experimental end of the creative process? Is there insufficient space for Explorers and Detectives to weave their magic in the workplace? In the GENIUS YOU study, there were two factors that conspired against the more generative front end of the creative process in organisations.

The first was time poverty and the second was an over-abundance of stifling systems and structures. Both seem to be conspiring to suffocate creativity.

The question that companies should be asking themselves during the Covid-19 era is this: Which competencies should they be championing? In a period when everything is going to be in a state of flux when nothing will be certain and everything will need to be questioned and re-examined, do they want logic or magic? Do they need people with the ability to look for imaginative solutions or people to look after the profit and loss statement?

The answer is surely both, but the balance needs to be 50:50 rather than the current 80:20 or 70:30 in favour of the logic.

If this is the case, then the implications for companies are threefold.

• Firstly, ensure that they are recruiting Explorers and Detectives and that the recruitment process itself is designed to uncover those people who excel at both.

• Secondly, they must work hard to create an environment that tackles time poverty, corporate process overload, the two key killers of a creative culture.

• And finally, they should put into place development programmes that encourage every individual in the company to strengthen all their creative muscles.

Covid-19 will take no prisoners and it has already demonstrated to the world that it is a formidable enemy. If we are going to succeed in our role of David against this Goliath, then we must find ways of being nimble, fleet-footed.

The creative gene may well be in deep hibernation with many of us, but it is still there, and it’s now time for it to come out and play. The world needs it now more than ever.

Prepared by Patrick O’Brien

About the author: 

Mark Simmonds is a creativity, insight, and innovation expert and the founder of GENIUS YOU – a company that helps teams develop winning ideas by strengthening creative muscles.

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