How we think about creativity was decided by Michelangelos’s PR guru 500 years ago. And it’s all wrong. A story to advance the career of one man, birthed a legacy that still hurts us to this day. The PR pitch went like this: “Michelangelo? He’s been bestowed with creativity by God. And you mere mortals? You haven’t.” And the genius myth was born: lone, gifted individuals, with innate, unique talents, work feats of creative magic to produce ideas that change the world. 500 years later our infatuation with genius is as strong as ever. Enter stage left the “golden geeks’”: Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Larry Page, Sergey Brin, Elizabeth Holmes and Sam Bankman-Fried. They may not be painting ceilings but the creative whizz-kid archetype keeps showing up and as the journalist Maragaret O’Mara notes “reflects an unhealthy tendency to overstate the importance of individual genius and gloss over things critical to their success, especially connections, timings and luck”.
But what’s wrong with geniuses afterall? Who doesn’t love a good Benedict Cumberbatch genius story? He’s played three afterall. Here’s the trouble with this myth. Every minute we spend on the genius story is a minute we take away from teaching EVERYONE creativity. This is because the genius myth makes genius the preserve of…well, just geniuses. It’s an outdated blueprint that crushes the creative confidence of everyone else, makes an enemy out of any type of structure and marginalizes diverse voices. While we’re modernizing systems for everything from healthcare to finance to transportation, this broken blueprint remains stubbornly in place.
THE GENIUS MYTH KILLS CONFIDENCE.
More people in the world know how to build their biceps than their creativity. Because when creativity gets heralded as a divine gift imparted on a few souls, you can only identify genius, not build it. This happens around third grade. When we’re divided into “creative” and “not creative” people. A label that’s as inflexible as our DNA. “Not creatives” - most of us - opt out of creativity altogether, and the “creative” people don’t get taught what happens next.
THE GENIUS MYTH MAKES STRUCTURE THE ENEMY.
Because geniuses rely on innate guiding forces to magically produce ideas, it’s not a subject we teach. The genius myth has made us allergic to structure of any kind and glorifies chaos as the only place where ideas happen. When you type “no genius” into google the first thing that comes up is “no genius without madness”. Hardly a playbook for teaching a subject. We have no common language for creativity, no common set of tools and too many books with superficial advice like “have an accident”. “Creative” people are left to fend for themselves and everyone else is kept firmly on the bench.
THE GENIUS MYTH SHUTS OUT VOICES.
And the last, very real kicker? Because the genius myth kills confidence and makes structure the enemy, the microphone is only handed to the most privileged and self assured. There’s a reason all the innovation books are written by men and we hear the constant cry for more diverse filmmakers, creative directors, founders…the list goes on.
WHAT NOW?
It turns out Michelangelo’s greatest legacy is actually a terrible idea. At a time when the world is drowning in problems, the genius myth decimates the number of people who can solve them, eliminates guidance on how to do it, and makes it mostly the preserve of the privileged few. It’s time to move on from this myth, embrace creativity as a skill everyone can learn, provide structures for thinking about creativity and truly unlock the creative power of every person and every organization in the world. By destroying this genius myth we will actually pave the way for more moments of genius.