Progressive employers want workers with high levels of what
David Kelley calls, in his recent book of the same title,
"Creative Confidence." Kelley, the head of Stanford's
d.school and founder of the design firm IDEO, defines creative confidence as "the
natural human ability to come up with breakthrough ideas and the
courage to act on them." As a partner in the Nashville office
of
Bradley Arant Boult Cummings, that is certainly what we want
from our lawyers and staff.
However, the 2012 "State of Create" study by software maker
Adobe identified a workplace creativity gap, where 75% of
respondents said they are under growing pressure to be productive
rather than creative, despite the fact that they are increasingly
expected to think creatively at work . The study showed
that 8 in 10 people feel that unlocking creativity is critical to
economic growth, yet only 1 in 4 respondents believe they are
living up to their own creative potential, with respondents across
all
