« Right Brain Workouts

Too Many Notes

By Peter Lloyd

When I read the headline “People are biased against creative ideas,” my first reaction was to exclaim, “Well, duh!” I’d venture to say that most creative people could reel off stories of idea rejection long into the night. That’s not just speculation. I’ve sat around with colleagues trading war stories of new ideas discarded for trivial reasons—ideas that would later win recognition, success, and profit.

Literature and film have documented the lives of creative giants like Mozart, who encounter feeble attempts at criticism from people in positions of power utterly unqualified to judge. This kind of painful and humiliating hazard of creative life was dramatized magnificently in the “Too many notes” scene of the movie Amadeus.



The Bias Against Creativity: Why People Desire But Reject Creative Ideas, cites two experiments that attempt to illuminate this phenomenon and to reveal how and why it happens. The researchers conclude that:

  • Novelty scares people
  • People feel more comfortable with the tried and true
  • Objective evidence supporting new ideas does not overcome objections
  • Anti-creativity bias can be too subtle to identify and, therefore, to correct

Rather than simply leave us with such obvious conclusions, although they be tested and verified obvious conclusions, the researchers suggest that creativity wonks may want to focus on helping institutions learn how to recognize and embrace new ideas, rather than on how to generate more of them.

See also:

Peter Lloyd is co-creator with Stephen Grossman of Animal Crackers, the breakthrough problem-solving tool designed to crack your toughest problems.
Next Workout »
Newsletter Sign Up

Join 40,000+ subscribers who receive our Open Innovation Newsletter every other week.

Subscribe