John Cleese on Creativity (Transcript)
The below is transcribed from a 1991 talk by John Cleese titled Creativity in Management. I encourage you to watch the 30-minute recording on YouTube. The delivery is hilarious with great comedic timing that my transcript can’t begin to do justice. I edited the transcript for brevity, and added headings and links.
This speech was given by John Cleese to an international audience linked by satellite at the Grosvenor House Hotel London, 23rd January 1991.
What creativity isn’t
A couple of years ago I got very excited because a friend of mine, who runs the psychology department at Sussex University, Brian Bates, showed me some research on creativity done at Berkeley in the 70s by a brilliant psychologist called Donald MacKinnon, which seemed to confirm in the most impressively scientific way: all the vague observations and intuitions that I’d have over the years. […]
The reason why it is futile for me to talk about creativity, is that it simply cannot be explained. It’s like Mozart’s music, or Van Gogh’s painting. It is literally inexplicable.
Freud, who analysed practically everything else, repeatedly denied that psychoanalysis could shed any light whatsoever on the mysteries of creativity. Brian Bates wrote to me recently: “Most of the best research on creativity was done in the 60s and 70s with a quite dramatic drop-off in quantity after then, largely, I suspect, because researchers began to feel that they had reached the limits of what science could discover about it.”
The only thing from the research that I could tell you about how to be creative, is the sort of childhood that you should have had, which is of limited help to you at this point of your lives.
However, there is one negative thing that I can say, because it’s easier to say what creativity isn’t. Like the sculptor who, when asked how he had sculpted a very fine elephant, explained that he’d taken a big block of marble, and then knocked away all the bits that didn’t look like an elephant.
Creativity is not a talent. It is not a talent. It is a way of operating. […]
When I say a way of operating, what I mean is this: Creativity is not an ability that you either have or do not have. It is absolutely unrelated to IQ.
MacKinnon showed in investigating scientists, architects, engineers, and writers, that those regarded by their peers as most creative were in no way whatsoever different in IQ from their less creative colleagues. So in what way were they different?
Open and closed mode
MacKinnon showed that the most creative had simply acquired a facility for getting themselves into a particular mood, a way of operating, which allowed their natural creativity to function. MacKinnon described this particular facility as an ability to play. He described the most creative, when in this mood, as being childlike. They were able to play with ideas to explore them, not for any immediate practical purpose, but just for enjoyment. Play for its own sake.
I’m working at the moment with Dr. Robin Skynner on a successor to our psychiatry book Families and How to Survive Them. We’re comparing the ways in which psychologically healthy families function, and the ways in which the most successful corporations and organisations function. We became fascinated by the fact that we can usefully describe the way in which people function at work in terms of two modes: open and close. Creativity is not possible in the closed mode. […]
By the closed mode I mean the mode that we are in most of the time when we’re at work. We have inside us a feeling that there’s lots to be done, and we have to get on with it if we’re gonna get through it all. It’s an active, probably slightly anxious, mode. Although the anxiety can be exciting and pleasurable. It’s a mode in which we’re probably a little impatient, if only with ourselves. It has a little tension in it, not much humour, it’s a mode in which we’re very purposeful, and it’s a mode in which we can get very stressed and even a bit manic, but not creative.
By contrast the open mode is a relaxed, expansive, less purposeful, mode in which we’re probably more contemplative, more inclined to humour (which always accompanies a wider perspective), and consequently more playful. It’s a mood in which curiosity for its own sake can operate, because we’re not under pressure to get a specific thing done quickly. We can play. And that is what allows natural creativity to surface. Let me give you an example of what I mean.
Discovery of penicillin
When Alexander Fleming had the thought that led to the discovery of penicillin, he must have been in the open mode. The previous day, he’d arranged a number of dishes so that culture would grow upon them. On the day in question, he glanced at the dishes, and he discovered that on one of them, no culture had appeared. If he’d been in the closed mode, he would have been so focused upon his need for dishes with cultures grown upon them, that when he saw that one dish was of no use to him for that purpose, he would quite simply have thrown it away.
Thank goodness, he was in the open mode, so he became curious about why the culture had not grown on this particular dish. That curiosity, as the world knows, led him […] to penicillin.
In the closed mode, an uncultured dish is an irrelevance. In the open mode, it’s a clue. One more example:
Hitchcock
One of Alfred Hitchcock’s regular co-writers has described working with him on screenplays. He says:
When we came up against a block, and our discussions became very heated and intense, Hitchcock would suddenly stop and tell a story that had nothing to do with the work at hand. At first, I was almost outraged.
I discovered that he did this intentionally. He mistrusted working under pressure. He would say “We’re pressing, we’re pressing, we’re working too hard. Relax, it will come.” And, of course it finally always did.
Implement in the closed mode
Let me make one thing quite clear. We need to be in the open mode when we’re pondering a problem. But, once we come up with a solution, we must then switch to the closed mode to implement it. Once we’ve made a decision we are efficient only if we go through with it decisively, undistracted by doubts about its correctness. For example, if you decide to leap a ravine, the moment just before takeoff is a bad time to start reviewing alternative strategies!
Review in the open mode
We should once again switch back to the open mode to review the feedback arising from our action, in order to decide whether the course that we have taken is successful […], or whether we should create an alternative plan to correct any error we’ve perceived, and then back into the closed mode again to implement that next stage. And so on.
To be at our most efficient, we need to be able to switch backwards and forwards between the two roads.
But here’s the problem: We too often get stuck in the closed mode. Under the pressures which are all too familiar to us. We tend to maintain tunnel vision at times, when we really need to step back and contemplate the wider view.
This is particularly true of politicians. The main complaint about them, from their non-political colleagues, is that they become so addicted to the adrenaline that they get from reacting to events on an hour-by-hour basis, that they almost completely lose the desire or the ability to ponder problems in the open mode.
So, as I say: Creativity is not possible in the closed mode. […]
Conditions for the open mode
There are certain conditions which make it more likely that you’ll get into the open mode, and that something creative will occur. More likely. You can’t guarantee anything will occur. You might sit around for hours, as I did last Tuesday, and nothing, zilch, bupkis, not a sausage.
I can at least tell you how to get yourselves into the open mode. You need five things:
- Space.
- Time.
- Time.
- Confidence.
- Humor.
[…]
Factor 1: Space
You can’t become playful, and therefore creative, if you’re under your usual pressures. To cope with them, you’ve got to be in the closed mode, right? You have to create some space for yourself away from those demands, and that means sealing yourself off.
You must make a quiet space for yourself, where you will be undisturbed.
Next: Time.
Factor 2: Time
It’s not enough to create space. You have to create your space for a specific period of time.
You have to know that your space will last until, exactly, say, 3:30, and that at that moment your normal life will start again.
It’s only by having a specific moment when your space starts, and an equally specific moment when your space stops, that you can seal yourself off from the everyday closed mode in which we all habitually operate.
Johan Huizinga
I’d never realised how vital this was, until I read a historical study of play, by a Dutch historian called Johan Huizinga. In it, he says:
Play is distinct from ordinary life. Both as to locality, and duration. This is its main characteristic. It’s secludedness. It’s limitedness.
Play begins and then, at a certain moment, it is over. Otherwise, it’s not play.
Oasis of Quiet — Not so fast
Combining the first two factors, we create an Oasis of Quiet, for ourselves, by setting boundaries of space, and of time. Now, creativity can happen, because play is possible, when we are separate from everyday life.
So, you’ve arranged to take no calls, you’ve closed your door, you sat down somewhere comfortable. We take a couple of deep breaths and, if you’re anything like me, after you’ve pondered some problem that you want to turn into an opportunity for about 90 seconds, you find yourself thinking: Oh I forgot I’ve got to call Jim! I must tell Tina that I need the report on Wednesday and not Thursday, which means I must move my lunch with Joe, and […] I must pop out this afternoon to get Will’s birthday present, and those plants need watering, and none of my pencils are sharpened and… Right, I’ve got too much to do, so I’m going to start by sorting out my paper clips, then I shall make 27 phone calls, and I’ll do some thinking tomorrow, when I’ve got everything out of the way.
Because, it’s easier to do trivial things that are urgent, than it is to do important things that are not urgent, like thinking.
It’s also easier to do little things we know we can do, than to start on big things that we’re not so sure about.
So, when I say create an Oasis of Quiet, know that when you have your mind will pretty soon start racing again, but you’re not going to take that very seriously. You just sit there, for a bit, tolerating the racing and the slight anxiety that comes with that, and after a time your mind will quieten down again.
Because it takes some time for your mind to quieten down, it’s absolutely no use arranging a space-time oasis lasting 30 minutes. Just as you’re getting quieter, and getting into the open mode, you’ll have to stop, and that is very deeply frustrating. You must allow yourself a good chunk of time. I’d suggest about an hour and a half. Then, after you’ve gotten to the open mode, you’ll have about an hour left for something to happen (if you’re lucky).
But, don’t put a whole morning aside. My experience is, after about an hour and a half, you need a break. So it’s far better to do an hour and a half now, and then an hour and a half next Thursday, and maybe an hour and a half a week after that; then to fix one four-hour session “now”.
There’s another reason, and that’s factor number three: Time.
Yes, I know we’ve just done Time , but that was half of creating our Oasis. Now, I’m going to tell you about how to use the Oasis you’ve created. Why do you still need time?
Factor 3: Time (really)
Let me tell you a story. I was always intrigued, that one of my Monty Python colleagues, who seemed to be to me more talented than I was, did never produce scripts as original as mine. And I watched for some time, and then I began to see why.
If he was faced with a problem, and fairly soon saw a solution, he was inclined to take it. Even though, I think he knew, the solution was not very original. Whereas if I was in the same situation, although I was sorely tempted to take the easy way out and finish by five o’clock, I just couldn’t. I’d sit there, with the problem, for another hour and a quarter, and by sticking to it, would in the end almost always come up with something more original. It was that simple. My work was more creative than his, simply because I was prepared to stick with the problem longer.
So imagine my excitement when I found that this was exactly what MacKinnon found in his research! He discovered that the “most creative” professionals always played with the problem for much longer, before they tried to resolve it because: they were prepared to tolerate that slight discomfort and anxiety, that we all experience when we haven’t solved a problem. You know what I mean?
If we have a problem and we we need to solve it, until we do, we feel it inside us: a kind of internal agitation or tension or uncertainty that makes us just plain uncomfortable. And we want to get rid of that discomfort. So, in order to do so, we take a decision; not because we’re sure it’s the best decision, but because taking it will make us feel better.
Well, the most creative people have learned to tolerate that discomfort for much longer. So, just because they put in more pondering time, their solutions are more creative.
The people I find it hardest to be creative with, are people who need (all the time) to project an image of themselves as decisive, and, who feel that to create this image, they need to decide everything very quickly, and with a great show of confidence. This behaviour, I suggest sincerely, is the most effective way of strangling creativity at birth.
Please note, I’m not arguing against real decisiveness. I’m 100% in favour of taking a decision when it has to be taken, and then sticking to it while it’s being implemented. What I’m suggesting to you, is that before you take a decision, you should always ask yourself the question: When does this decision have to be taken? And having answered that, you defer the decision until then, in order to give yourself maximum pondering time, which will lead you to the most creative solution.
And if, while you’re pondering, somebody accuses you of indecision say: Look babycakes, I don’t have to decide till Tuesday and I’m not chickening out of my creative discomfort by taking a snap decision before then; that’s too easy!
To summarise, the third factor that facilitates creativity is Time: giving your mind as long as possible to come up with something original.
Factor 4: Confidence
The next factor, number four, is Confidence.
When you’re in your space-time Oasis (getting into the open mode) nothing will stop you being creative so effectively as the fear of making a mistake. If you think about play, you’ll see why.
To play, is to experiment “what happens if I do this”, “what would happen if we do that”. What is the very essence of playfulness, is an openness to anything that may happen; a feeling that whatever happens, it’s okay!
You cannot be playful if you’re frightened that moving in some direction will be “wrong”, something you “shouldn’t have done”. You’re either free to play, or you’re not.
As Alan Watts puts it: “You can’t be spontaneous within reason.”
You’ve got to risk saying things that are silly, and illogical, and wrong. The best way to get the confidence to do that, is to know that, while you’re being creative, nothing is wrong; there’s no such thing as a mistake, and any drivel may lead to the breakthrough.
Factor 5: Humour
Now the last factor, the fifth, Humour.
I happen to think the main evolutionary significance of humour, is that it gets us from the closed mode to the open mode quicker than anything else.
I think we all know that laughter brings relaxation, and that humour makes us playful. Yet, how many times have important discussions been held, where really original and creative ideas were desperately needed to solve important problems, but where humour was taboo, because the subject being discussed was “so serious”? This attitude seems to me to stem from a very basic misunderstanding of the difference between serious and solemn.
Serious does not mean solemn
A group of us could be sitting around after dinner, discussing matters that were extremely serious (like the education of our children, our marriages, the meaning of life, … not talking about the film) and we could be laughing, and that would not make what we were discussing one bit less serious.
Solemnity, on the other hand, I don’t know what it’s for. What is the point of it?
The two most beautiful memorial services that I’ve ever attended, both had a lot of humour. It freed us all, and made the services inspiring and cathartic. But solemnity? It serves pomposity. The self-important [people] always know, at some level of their consciousness, that their egotism is going to be punctured by humour. That’s why they see it as a threat , and so dishonestly pretend that their deficiency makes their views more substantial, when it only makes them feel bigger.
Humour is an essential part of spontaneity; an essential part of playfulness; an essential part of the creativity that we need to solve problems, no matter how serious they may be.
When you set up a space-time Oasis, giggle all you want!
And there, are the five factors which you can arrange to make your lives more creative:
- Space,
- Time,
- Time.
- Confidence,
- and Lord Jeffrey Archer.
Practicing the open mode
Pondering
Now you know how to get into the open mode, the only other requirement is that you keep your mind gently round the subject you ponder. You’ll daydream, of course, but you just keep bringing your mind back, like with meditation.
The extraordinary thing about creativity is: if you just keep your mind resting against the subject in a friendly but persistent way, sooner or later you will get a reward from your unconscious. Probably in the shower later, or at breakfast the next morning, but suddenly you are rewarded, out of the blue a new thought mysteriously appears. If you’ve put in the pondering time first.
Play requires trust
I think it’s easy to be creative, if you’ve got other people to play with. I always find that if two or more of us throw ideas backwards and forwards, I get to more interesting and original places than I could ever have got to on my own.
But, there is a danger, a real danger: If there’s one person around you who makes you feel defensive, you lose the confidence to play, and it’s goodbye creativity. Always make sure your play-friends are people that you like and trust. Never say anything to squash them , either. Never say “No”, or “Wrong”, or “I don’t like that”. Always be positive, and build on what’s been said: “Would it be even better if …”, “I don’t quite understand that can you just explain it again?”, “Go on!”, “What if ….?” Let’s pretend.
Try to establish as free an atmosphere as possible.
Japanese meetings
Sometimes I wonder, if the success of the Japanese isn’t partly due to their instinctive understanding of how to use groups creatively. You know, Westerners are often amazed at the unstructured nature of Japanese meetings.
But maybe it’s that very lack of structure, that absence of time pressure, that frees them to solve problems so creatively. And how clever of the Japanese, sometimes to plan that unstructuredness by, for example, insisting that the first people to give their views are the most junior. So that they can speak freely, without the possibility of contradicting what’s already been said by somebody more important.
Connect two ideas in a new way
The very last thing that I can say about creativity is this: It’s like human. In a joke, the laugh comes at a moment when you connect two different frameworks of reference in a new way.
For example there’s the old story about a woman, doing a survey into sexual attitudes, who stops an airline pilot and asks him when he last had sexual intercourse. He replies “1958”. Now, knowing airline pilots, the researcher is surprised and queries this. “Well”, says the pilot, “it’s only 21:10 now”.
We laugh at the moment of contact between two frameworks of reference: the way we express what year it is, and the 24-hour clock.
Having an idea, a new idea, is exactly the same thing. It’s connecting two separate ideas in a way that generates new meaning. Now, connecting different ideas isn’t difficult; you can connect cheese with motorcycles, or moral courage with light green, or bananas with international cooperation. You can get any computer to make a billion random connections for you, but these new connections or juxtapositions are significant only if they generate new meaning.
As you play, you can deliberately try inventing these random juxtapositions, and use your intuition to tell you whether any of them seem to have significance for you. That’s the bit the computer can’t do. It can produce millions of new connections, but it can’t tell which one of them smells interesting. Of course, you’ll produce some juxtapositions which are absolutely ridiculous. Absurd. Good for you!
Edward de Bono, who invented the notion of lateral thinking , specifically suggests in his book Po: Beyond Yes and No , that you can try loosening up your assumptions by playing with deliberately crazy connections. He calls such absurd ideas “intermediate impossibles”. He points out that the use of an intermediate impossible, is completely contrary to ordinary logical thinking, in which you have to be right at each stage. It doesn’t matter if the intermediate impossible is right or absurd, it can nevertheless be used as a stepping stone to another idea that is right. Another example of how when you’re playing, nothing is wrong.
If you really don’t know how to start, or if you’ve got stuck, start generating random connections and allow your intuition to tell you if one might lead somewhere interesting.
That really is all I can tell you, that won’t help you, to be creative. Everything.
How to kill creativity
[…] The important part. And that is: How to stop your subordinates becoming creative — which is the real threat.
Believe me no one appreciates better than I do what trouble creative people are, and how they stop decisive hard-nosed bastards like us from running businesses efficiently. We encourage someone to be creative, the next thing is they’re rocking the boat, coming up with ideas, and asking us questions.
If we don’t nip this kind of thing in the bud, we’ll have to start justifying our decisions by reasoned argument. And sharing information, the concealment of which gives us considerable advantages in our power struggle.
So, here’s how to stamp out creativity in the rest of the organisation, and get a bit of respect going.
Allow no humour
One: Allow subordinates no humour.
It threatens your self-importance, especially your omniscience. Treat all humour as frivolous or subversive. Because subversive is, of course, what humour will be in your setup, as it’s the only way that people can express their opposition, since if they express it openly you’re down on them like a ton of bricks.
So, let’s get this clear: Blame humour for the resistance that your way of working creates. Then, you don’t have to blame your way of working. This is important, and I mean that solemnly: your dignity is no laughing matter.
Undermine confidence
Second: Keeping ourselves feeling irreplaceable, involves cutting everybody else down to size.
Don’t miss an opportunity to undermine your employees confidence. A perfect opportunity comes when you’re reviewing work that they’ve done: Use your authority to zero in immediately on all the things you can find wrong.
Never, never, balance the negatives with positives. Only criticise, just as your school teachers did.
Always remember: Praise makes people uppity!
Demand urgency
Third: Demand that people should always be actively doing things.
If you catch anybody pondering, accuse them of laziness and/or indecision. This is to starve employees of thinking time, because that leads to creativity, and insurrection.
Demand urgency at all time. Use lots of fighting talk and war analogies. Establish a permanent atmosphere of stress, of breathless anxiety, and crisis.
In a phrase: Keep that mode closed!
Now, in this way, we no-nonsense types can be sure that the tiny, tiny, microscopic, quantity of creativity in our organisation will all be ours!
But, let your vigilance slip for one moment, and you could find yourself surrounded by happy, enthusiastic, and creative people whom you might never be able completely to control, ever again.
So be careful! Thank you, and good night.
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