In their book “Art and Fear”,  David Bayles and Ted Orland tell of a ceramics teacher who announced on the opening day of class that he was dividing the students into two groups. Half were told that they would be graded on quantity. The pots they had made would be weighed.  They would get an “A” for 50lb of pots, a “B” for 40lb, and so on. The other half would be graded on quality. They just had to bring along their one, perfectly designed pot.

The results were emphatic – the works of highest quality, the most beautiful and creative designs, were all produced by the group graded for quantity. As Bayles and Orland put it: “It seems that while the ‘quantity’ group was busily churning out piles of work – and learning from their mistakes – the ‘quality’ group concentrated on perfection, and in the end had little more to show for their efforts than a pile of dead clay.”

We only see  final products – the amazing movie, the super-efficient vacuum cleaner, the beatiful painting.  What we don’t see is the deeper story of how they emerge. The tales we tell about creativity overlook this, too. We think of Archimedes shouting “eureka” or Newton being hit on the head by the apple and instantaneously inventing the theory of gravity.

Insight is the endpoint of a long term, iterative process, rather than the starting point.  People should be encouraged to experiment, test ideas, to see their flaws, and to be triggered into new associations and insights  (a precised version of an article by Matthew Syed, author of “Black Box Thinking: The Surprising Truth About Success”.)

So try and try often, dear reader.  Feel free to fail. It is good for you and you will end up with a finer product in the end.