Creative Intelligence

You've heard of IQ and maybe even EQ (emotional intelligence), but have you heard of CQ?  Bruce Nussbaum argues that creative intelligence will be a key driver of economic growth and an important factor in individual success in the 21st century.  ​

​In some respects his book joins a chorus of others making similar arguments.

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There was Dan Pink's Whole New Mind and Seth Godin's The Icarus Deception to name just two.  Both argued for the importance of creativity in the work world.  Nussbaum's book provides us with some concrete competencies that creative intelligence encompasses.  

Many of these will not be surprising including continuing to learn, play, and make.  But, for me anyway, hearing these arguments from different sources in different ways helps reinforce the point.

In addition to discussing the creative competencies, Nussbaum makes six other important points in the book:

Creativity is the source of economic value.
Uncertainty is the state of social and economic life.
The entrepreneur drives economic growth.
Capitalism is a social movement.
Social networks are the basic building blocks of the economy.
Creative destruction is the key to innovation-led economic growth.

We are seeing the importance of these points in many places.  Creative destruction is at work in education and medicine.  Uncertainty is still high after the Great Recession.  It is partly this uncertainty that is inspiring more and more people to focus on creativity as the source of economic value and is inspiring more and more people to adopt an entrepreneurial mindset.  

To succeed in this new economic model you have to be willing to face uncertainty, take some risks, be creative and social, and be able to adapt to continuously changing circumstances.  Building your creative competencies can help in all of these respects.