The outpouring of adulation that has accompanied the ascension of Steve Jobs into the pantheon of Immortal Men offers a telling testament to the irrelevance of formal education. Steve Jobs accomplished all that he achieved not by applying insights gathered from a curriculum "designed" by stuffy professors. He did things and used what he learned in those activities to do more things. He pursued a vision that grew from experience and the desire to create. Formal education had a role, but what he learned in school was a complement to an internally developed and determined direction. Jobs didn't try to find the "right" path and work hard to pursue that path. He followed a path that grew from his experience and thinking.
Much is made of innovation at Apple. It seems that management writers have a difficult time finding other companies and leaders to use as examples in their discussions on creativity and innovation. They seem to have this immediate need to type "Apple" after typing "innovative." Apple exemplified innovation because Jobs never felt compelled to reconcile his vision with "the right answer." The only right answer for Jobs was his vision. He didn't try to make Apple match the prescriptions for a successful company that are taught in business schools. His ideas came from a cache of books that he wouldn't discuss because he didn't want to offer his competition access to his insights.
Apple succeeds because Jobs created a culture that focuses on generating and building ideas that support a well-defined vision. The right answer was the answer that made the vision more of a reality. It didn't matter what the experts had to say. They ignored the nay-sayers and the media critics. You can't create when you're aiming for the same target as everybody else. I read a brilliant quote by the Dutch sculptor Theo Jansen. I'll get the exact wording later, but the gist of the quote was that most engineers come to the same solution to a problem because human minds think alike. Novel solutions are born through the combination of previously disparate ideas.
Formal education, book smarts, builds a connection of thoughts that are supposed to go together. These are the right answers that people turn to when they face a novel challenge. It's easier to flip through the book and find an answer rather than think about the problem and come up with a fresh approach. Formal education conditions the mind to seek experts, either in person or on in writing, to suggest the best path forward. There are companies that print money on the fact that executives prefer to rely on the expertise of management consultants, the people with the right answers, rather than using their teams to develop novel insights that could solve the company's problems.
Creativity is a messy, chaotic, nonlinear process that may offer solutions that defy conventional thinking. It's risky and ambiguous. It requires thinking about and learning from experience rather than falling back on the tried and true. The best solutions are usually spotted by a novice who's thinking has not been shaped by the conventional thinking of the field. It's about learning by doing, an active participation in the process rather than sitting outside of the fray and commenting on what's happening. Critics may recognize something creative, but they are hard pressed to be creative themselves.
It's easy to recognize creative genius, but the process of being creative is alien to most of us. The process looks mysterious and magical, but it only looks that way because we're all brain washed into conformity thinking as we endure years of formal schooling. The lack of a right answer usually scares people into something that's a little more well-defined. The fear that you feel when facing this kind of challenge is really just your creativity trying to get some attention. Listen to it. That's an opportunity for the next level of achievement.
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