QUESTION: Do we get more or less creative as we get older?

ANSWER: I just read a section on blocks to creative problem-solving in “Developing Management Skills” (1998). According to authors D. Whetten and K. Cameron, it has been estimated that most adults over 40 display less than 2 percent of the creative problem-solving ability of a child under five years old. That’s because formal education usually expects “right” answers and experience in a job leads to “proper” ways of doing things. As we grow older we seem to lose the ability to experiment, improvise, or take mental detours. When we do encourage creativity in ourselves and others, some really valuable results can occur.

Do you know the story of Spence Silver’s glue? In the process of research and experimentation, scientist Spence Silver created a substance that failed all the conventional 3M tests for adhesives.

It didn’t stick. It was a now-it-works, now-it-doesn’t kind of glue. For five years, Silver went from department to department within the company trying to find someone interested in using his newly found substance in a product.

Silver had found a solution; he just couldn’t find a problem to solve with it. Logically, 3M showed little interest.

One day, Art Fry, another scientist with 3M who knew Silver, was fumbling around with the slips of paper that marked the various pages in his hymn book during choir practice in North Presbyterian Church in St. Paul. The thought came to him that a little adhesive on his little paper bookmarks would be a great idea and there it was, the first idea of a temporary glue for paper on paper.

It’s a longer story, of course, involving the commitment of others, but between them, the two scientists initiated the unique product called Post-It Notes, which has resulted in a half-billion dollars in annual revenues for 3M.

The lesson for adults, who are parents, grandparents, and teachers of children, is reflected in these comments by John Gardner, author of “Self-Renewal:” “All too often we are giving our young people cut flowers when we should be teaching them to grow plants. We are stuffing their heads with the products of earlier innovation rather than teaching them to innovate. We think of the mind as a storehouse to be filled when we should be thinking of it as an instrument to be used.” Whether it’s us, or our kids, it’s good to think “outside the box” some of the time.

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