MBA Creativity

Since my last entry in this blog, I have moved from being a faculty member at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health to the Vice Dean for Education at the Johns Hopkins Carey Business School.  Last Friday, we had the Student Resource Fair at the Business School's Harbor East campus in Baltimore.  There was one organization called Creativity by Design that represents the efforts of students in a joint program that includes the Business School and the Maryland Institute College of Design.  I introduced myself to many of the student organization leaders that afternoon and this organization's leaders were no exception. So, I asked the person with whom I spoke to tell me what his organization was trying to promote.  He said that one of his biggest goals is for other MBA students not to introduce themselves as not being creative.

I found this an interesting comment.  Clearly, not everyone is artistically creative.  Not everyone is musically creative. Not everyone likes to write creatively.

But I found it hard to imagine that anyone in training in a business school (particularly in an MBA program with a goal of being entrepreneurial) could be uncreative.  Everyone who wants to be an entrepreneur has to have some type of creativity.  To invent a product.  To bring the product to market.  To market the product.  There are just so many ways to be creative.

In the process of producing and selling a product, the person who is not creative would either (a) never have a product to offer, (b) never be able to figure out a unique angle from which to market in the crowded marketplace that exists today, or (c) never be able to develop a new way to deal with age old business problems that include how to address the customer or client in the most effective way.

Would some people likely have more creativity than others?  Of course.  But no creativity?  Not likely.  And if a person truly had no creativity they likely would not be very successful and someone who is more creative would likely adapt an idea and take it to market in a way to make a lot of money.

So, I agree with the assertion that no one in the MBA program we offer ought to be introducing himself or herself as not creative.  Instead, each student should find a way to make the most of the creativity they have in benefitting themselves and benefitting humanity.