James Taylor
International Creativity Expert
As automation and artificial intelligence upset professional landmarks, James Taylor, an international creativity expert, pleads for a rehabilitation of human imagination. In a world where execution is standardized, he recalls that original, individual or collective ideas remain the basis of any sustainable innovation.
You talk about creativity as a competitive advantage. What do you mean by that?
I am talking about creativity as an advantage because with current transformations, especially linked to artificial intelligence, its role becomes even more central. The AI will replace many non -creative tasks in our businesses. According to recent studies – World Economic Forum, Linkedin – creativity is gaining importance.
Sam Altman, the CEO of Openai, also talks about two key skills for this new era: creativity and critical thinking. We are here – at Innovate X Day – to talk about innovation. And I like to say that creativity is the engine of innovation. The first is to bring out ideas in our mind, the second to make them happen in the world.
Today, with Agentic AI, an idea can be carried by a single individual, supported by intelligent agents who assume roles formerly reserved for a team of twenty people. Ideas therefore take an even more decisive place, since execution becomes simpler.
But isn’t an AI, even not general, already creative than most humans?
I see that differently. Working with an AI is like collaborating with someone creative, but whose creativity differs from ours. She can very well write an article, but she will not invent a new genre. I do not feel threatened by another creative person, even if she thinks differently.
What worries me more is the low percentage of people who consider themselves creative. I asked the question at the hearing in Morocco, only 5% of people in the room declared themselves creative. In the United States, it is often 50%. Many associate creativity with an artistic form – architect, musician -, while for me, it consists in generating ideas likely to lead to innovation.
-How to release this creative potential in itself?
Creativity follows a journey in several times, from research to incubation, then at the moment of Insight – this fragile moment when an idea arises – before moving on to evaluation and development. Each phase, simple gestures can stimulate inspiration. If for example coffee helps to concentrate during research or execution, it tends to curb spontaneous intuitions.
These are small habits. Many ideas emerge in the early morning. During sleep, the mind continues to work in the background. Ask an open question before falling asleep – “How to improve this project?”, “How to solve this problem?” – Promotes the creativity process.
You defend a collective vision of creativity. How is teamwork essential to innovation?
Creativity is always presented in the media as an individual success story. But reality is that innovation results from collaborations, failures, improvements. My journey in the music industry taught me that a large concert is based on hundreds of people.
The public sees an artist, but behind there are mentors, managers, vocal coaches … it’s teamwork. The film “The Imitation Game” illustrates this reality well. He traces the history of Alan Turing, which made it possible to decipher the Enigma codes during the Second World War. He was brilliant, of course. But what the film does not say is that in Bletchley Park, 10,000 people worked, 78% of whom were women. Many of them then went on trade or distribution. They are the ones who thought customer journeys in stores – the location of products, the level of shelves, the way in which we circulate in a supermarket.
Even today, intelligence services have a high number of so -called neurodivergent – dyslexic, autistic profiles … because they think differently. The real leadership is to know how to bring together heterogeneous forces and to use the tensions that emerge. They are inevitable, but they also feed collective creativity.
Ayoub Ibnouldssih / Eco inspirations
