The Relevance of the Creative Process

ABSTRACT

In order to address the challenge of leadership engendering the transition to a sustainable city, the creative processes of design used by architects and the methods used by leaders were investigated. This was done in order to determine the extent of common ground and to shed light on whether the architectural creative process and the associated skills, competencies and attributes can inform the process of leadership. These processes were investigated through the theoretical lens of back casting and phenomenology and within the framework of the four stages of the creative process, i.e., preparation, incubation, illumination and verification stages.

To address the primary data requirements of the study, semi-structured interviews were conducted with an architect, a business leader and a sustainability leader. Secondary data were collected from writings and interviews of architects and biographies of leaders, together with a wide variety of published material pertaining to leadership in the sustainable city arena. Data were then analysed based in terms of critical attributes related to the creativity process in relation to leadership.

These processes were investigated through the theoretical lens of back casting and phenomenology and within the framework of the four stages of the creative process, i.e., preparation, incubation, illumination and verification stages.

The key findings are that although architects follow a specific design methodology, there is no explicit reference to the creative process in their explanations of their design process. Furthermore, architects’ creative processes accord with the creative process as described in the fields of psychology and neuroscience and as experienced phenomenologically. There are similarities in the manner in which architects and leaders envision new solutions, even though their methodologies differ. The study concludes there are similarities in the way in which architects and leaders experience the process of creating and pursuing their visions. However, they manifest differently across the two domains.

The findings and conclusions suggest that the well-developed methods used by architects could have relevance in the practice of leadership in the pursuit of sustainable cities. These methods could be adapted towards developing leadership competencies in enabling the transition to sustainable cities