#810 Peter Drucker on Creativity

Make That… on Plodding

In our last +1, we talked about Twyla Tharp’s great book The Creative Habit. In addition to seeing who she thinks wins the philosophical tug of war on what makes people creative (effort for the win!), we also talked about establishing our own creative habit of doing some Pre-Input Deep Work every morning.

All of that makes me think of Peter Drucker.

As you may know, Drucker is widely considered one of the greatest management thinkers of the 20th century. As Wikipedia says, his “writings contributed to the philosophical and practical foundations of the modern business corporation.

Many people considered him to be a pretty “creative” guy—including one of the renowned researchers in the field of Creativity (and Flow), Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi.

In fact, when he was writing his seminal book on Creativity, Csikszentmihalyi interviewed over 100 creative luminaries.

He sent out invitations to the individuals he hoped to interview—including Peter Drucker.

Many declined for various reasons. Drucker was one of those who declined. He did so via this note:

I am greatly honored and flattered by your kind letter of February 14th—for I have admired you and your work for many years, and I have learned much from it. But, my dear Professor Csikszentmihalyi, I am afraid I have to disappoint you. I could not possibly answer your questions. I am told I am creative—I don’t know what that means. . . . I just keep on plodding. . . .

Creativity?

Drucker didn’t know what that even meant. (lol)

He just kept on “plodding.” (← LOVE that!!)

That’s Today’s +1.

Creativity?

Who knows what that is.

Let’s just keep plodding.

+1. +1. +1.

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