ISSUE 80 /

A BULLETIN FOR
BIG IDEAS AND
BETTER BUSINESS.

OPINION / CREATIVITY

How many
creative leaps
will you have
made in 2025?

💬 Sir John Hegarty 

Nobody has noticed – but we’re allowing a major milestone to slip past. Where the English language is concerned, ‘creativity’ is a recent addition. Its first recorded use is thought to appear in a book written by the historian Adolphus William Ward in 1875. In A History of Dramatic English Literature, Ward refers to William Shakespeare’s “poetic creativity”. We are more than halfway into 2025, and no-one has observed (much less celebrated) that this year marks the 150th birthday of creativity.

Or at least its definition. On such an anniversary (by the way, 150 years is known as a sesquicentennial), it’s only right that we remember how much we owe to creativity. It drives culture. It energises business. It captures imagination. It also increases empathy and deepens ties in our communities. It gives meaning to who we are – helping us to care, enjoy, and value our time on the planet. I am convinced that it is the most important component of our civilisation. Creativity is life.

Creativity is also responsible for propelling us into the future. Humans perform poorly when trying to predict what’s around the corner. (Don’t believe me? Remember that the US Postal Service thought rocket-propelled letters would become a thing.) But we are exceptional at building the new and the next – with whatever we have access to in the now.

This is why the team and I have become preoccupied lately with the notion of the creative leap. There have been moments in history when humanity witnesses a sudden, audacious, and uproarious bound into tomorrow. The Renaissance, the Enlightenment, the Sixties. The printing press, the spinning jenny, the internet. Galileo, Picasso, Elvis Presley. Baroque, rock, hip-hop.

Creative leaps don’t need to be huge in size or scale. They can occur in the life of an individual, or be initiated by a business determined to take charge of its future. At The Business of Creativity, recent years have represented a figurative run-up to our own vault into the air. We began with a single masterclass – Creativity for Growth – and have built this into a global roster of events, seminars, and academies. The impetus for our leap comes from a simple idea: that creativity is oxygen for growth and as essential for business as breathing is for athletes.

This week’s newsletter – as you can discern from the announcement above – is a special edition, centring on a landmark study that we have just (digitally) put to press. It’s an examination of creativity in 2025. We tried to gauge just how many leaps are in progress around the world, and take a reading of the state of creativity at the midpoint of the decade. Our research saw us delve into the studies that have already approached this subject. We conducted a global survey exploring how leaders view and leverage creativity. We also assembled a panel of 20 virtuoso creatives to get a more human perspective on how ideas are changing the world.

The below stories represent some of the choicest cuts from the paper. If you haven't downloaded it yet, you'll find a link down-page.

We hope you enjoy these findings, and that, on the 150th anniversary of the first recorded use of the word creativity, you are winding up for a leap of your very own.

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CREATIVITY / GROWTH

The creative
growth engine

The world is in a prolonged state of uncertainty (when isn’t it?). Against this backdrop, our study reveals that rather than a vague ‘nice-to-have’, respondents view creativity as being imperative. For instance, 82% said creativity is important for driving innovation in products and services. Then 81% thought the same of spotting new opportunities in the market. When it comes to improving employee engagement and enthusiasm, 82% think creativity is important. And 82% said it was important for generating or growing revenue – reassuring that such a high proportion of business leaders agree with the over-arching hypothesis of the report. Creativity equals growth.

CREATIVITY / CULTURE

Cultural
signals

What are the signs of a truly creative organisation? Our findings expose a nuance in how we think about imagination, innovation and intuition. When asked which business attributes are the strongest indicators of a healthy culture of creativity, the most chosen answer was “a culture that celebrates idea generation and innovation from all areas of the business” at 29%. The second highest indicator of a creative culture was “high levels of employee engagement and enthusiasm” at 26%. Even as DEI initiatives are being mothballed in the face of political pressure (and an array of other factors), the answer “a culture that solicits and values diverse perspectives” scored highly, with 22% overall selecting this as the strongest indicator of a healthy culture of creativity.

CREATIVITY / LEADERSHIP

But who’s
in charge
of it?

Surely a person with the word ‘creative’ in their job title? Or a company’s legions of young team members who are plugged into culture and immersed in the new and next? Nope: the individual most responsible for delivering and fostering creativity across an organisation is the CEO. Forty percent of all respondents chose the inhabitant of the corner office, while the next highest category, creative director, was a mere 25%. Of course it is the CEO. Creativity is a leadership issue, a tool for those in charge, a core capability. Such a vital component of a business should surely be directed by the boss. What about the chief marketing officer? The CMO is often considered the most creative of the C-suite, responsible for commanding attention, capturing imagination, and altering the behaviour of audiences. Given marketing’s prominence as a creative discipline, a surprisingly low number of respondents (9 in total, or 16%) said that the CMO or head of marketing should be most responsible for creativity.

CREATIVITY / AI

AI – augmenter
or replacer?

The big question surrounding creativity is to do with AI. Will it emerge as a tool for us to enhance our efforts – or simply render human effort redundant? Of our panel, 69% think that the rise in artificial intelligence (AI) tools in businesses will make creativity more important for business success (those in the US are most likely to take this view). While many believe that AI will support humans’ imaginative efforts, some foresee a future where the technology supersedes it. A small majority – 65% – expect the technology to eventually replace human creativity. Again, the US is the most pronounced in this view, with 77% of respondents int that market agreeing. In comparison, 57% of those in the UK and 61% of those in Singapore believe that AI will one day serve as a replacement for human ingenuity. It is clear that a battle of ideas is under way.

CREATIVITY / THE WHITE PAPER REPORT

You’ll find the full version of The Business of Creativity white paper, here.

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