Componential Theory (Episode #53)

TRANSCRIPT:

Today we’re talking about the 3 components of awesome creativity. 

So there’s a lot of ways to talk about what makes really creative people so creative. We’ve already talked about the Geneplore Model, which is what’s called a “Stage Model of Creativity.” Stage Models describe creativity as “A leads to B, leads to C, leads to D. So it’s a step-by-step process.

Today we’re talking about a Componential Model of creativity, which which describes the components that go into great creativity. Today’s topic comes from research done by Teresa Amabile (1990). According to this creativity theory, there are 3 main components that go into great creativity. 

1. Domain-Specific Knowledge
2. Creativity-Relevant Skills
3. Task Motivation

Componential Theory

DOMAIN-SPECIFIC KNOWLEDGE

So the first core component of great creativity is what’s called domain-specific knowledge. We’ve already talked a little bit about how domain-specific knowledge works in the episode on Henry Ford. Recall in that episode, we said that Henry Ford… he was not smart in an academic, or what we generally consider a smart way, but he had so much knowledge about how machines work… about how engines work. He was the best in the world at the time. If you had an engine problem you needed to go to him. So that is domain-specific knowledge. We don’t care what general knowledge you have, we only care if you’re the best at this specific thing. 

CREATIVITY-RELEVANT SKILLS

Part 2 of great creativity has to do with how you use that knowledge, and this is what we call “creativity-relevant skills.” Creativity-relevant skills deal with how we go about creating our ideas. It means being able to shift our perspective It means trying new things. It means going through the creative process… how good are you at getting feedback and using that feedback? How good are you at divergent thinking and thinking up a wide variety of ideas? If you think of 10 ideas, but all 10 of those ideas are pretty similar to each other… then if one idea fails, it’s pretty much guaranteed that all the other ones are going to fail, too. 

This is what we mean by creativity-relevant skills. I love the idea that we use the word “skills” here and not creativity-relevant “knowledge.” It doesn’t matter if you know what the creative process is. It doesn’t matter how many facts you know about it. The only thing that really matters here is your SKILL. It’s your ability to take that knowledge and apply it in interesting and unique ways. 

So the first component of great creativity is having knowledge. This is having a lot of idea building-blocks that you can use. The second component is the ability to take those building blocks and combine them in interesting and useful ways. The third component is the desire to actually do it. It’s what’s called “task motivation.” 

TASK MOTIVATION

 I love the inclusion of the word TASK here. Generally, when we’re talking about motivation, we look at someone and say that they’re a highly motivated PERSON. We treat motivation as if it is a character trait that is completely stagnant. As if it’s always the same. That’s the wrong way to look at it because motivation is highly task-specific. 

Your motivation goes up and down throughout the day. It also changes throughout a project. So for example, maybe you are really comfortable with elaborating on your ideas or building upon your ideas… but maybe you’re not comfortable with implementing that idea or accepting feedback on the idea. Your motivation will change throughout the creative project depending on whether there’s a good fit between your skills and the needs of the situation.

So naturally, you would be highly motivated to stay in your comfort zone, which would feel really productive because you’re still creating stuff… but you are not motivated to do what would arguably be the most beneficial thing for you, which is the thing that makes you feel more uncomfortable. 

The longer you spend hammering away at the same strategy, the more important it becomes for you to abandon that strategy and try something new. If that strategy was going to get you to where you wanted to go then it probably would have already done it by now. This is task motivation. It’s how motivated are you to do whatever is directly in front of you. 

PUTTING KNOWLEDGE, SKILLS, & MOTIVATION TOGETHER TO CREATE

So we put all 3 of these ideas together: 

Domain-specific knowledge, where we have a lot of components to work with a lot of ideas to work with. 

We have creativity-relevant skills, which is your ability to manipulate those ideas and combine those ideas in interesting ways.

Finally, we have task motivation, which is your ability to take action in this specific moment. It’s tackling what’s directly in front of you. It’s not your general motivation, but your ability to take whatever the next step is. 

Those 3 components come together to create amazing creativity. 

So how do we use Componential Theory to improve our creativity? 

For me, what I like to do is periodically take a step back and reflect on where I am in my career. So think about where you are right now versus where you expected yourself to be. 

When you do that, don’t do it in a way to beat yourself up. This is only being used as a learning tool. There’s a big difference between observing something and reacting to it. We want to observe that we are not where we thought we were going to be, but we don’t want to react emotionally to it. 

So think about where you thought you were gonna be and then look back at this Componential Theory. We have domain-specific knowledge, creativity-relevant skills, and task motivation. 

I think for most people, when we look at those 3 options, one of those is going to stand out to us or say look that’s really the area that I feel is holding me back right now. 

It’s pretty easy to pinpoint a problem. If you’re lacking domain-specific skills, then that’s a very obvious problem and it’s an obvious solution because all you have to do is jump into your industry and start learning as much as you can about it. 

Creativity-relevant skills and task motivation are a little more difficult because these are things that really depend on the situation. We can’t simply improve our creativity-relevant skills because that’s not one single thing. There’s a lot of stuff going on under the hood there and it also depends on what the project or task is at that moment. 

For example, you might be really good at using the “Do The Opposite Strategy” (We talked about it in a past episode). However, that creative technique won’t always work. There are gonna be tons of times when that strategy is not actually going to be useful to you. 

So there are a couple different parts of this. There’s figuring out what the best strategy is given where you currently are… and there is the ability to actually effectively apply that strategy. 

So for these 3 components of creativity, I highly suggest you sit down and do maybe 15 to 30 minutes of self-reflection and think about which of these 3 components of creativity would have the most benefit for you. If you were to take action on them… if you were to change something about these 3… which would you change and why? 

So hopefully this has been a useful episode for you. If it has, please consider going to iTunes and quickly rating the show and then leaving a review. 

Thank you so much for listening. Until next time, keep creating.

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