Adam Lowther, Brooke Mitchell, Gerard Puccio, and Nathan Schwagler

Is it possible to incorporate a creative mindset into professional military education curriculum? In our War on the Rocks article, “Professional Military Education Needs More Creativity, Not More History,” we argued that it is possible, but did not explain how. Here, we offer some insight into developing a creative mindset by first explaining what we mean by creativity and then offering steps for embedding creativity education into a joint professional military education program. Our recommendations are drawn from successful creativity programs the private sector invests in for their own employees, from examples already used across professional military education, and from academic research. 

Importantly, the Joint Chiefs of Staff’s Vision and Guidance for Professional Military Education and Talent Management provides all the needed reasons to incorporate the successful elements of creativity education into a systems-level approach that weaves evidence-based creativity strategies into existing curriculum. It also does not require eliminating existing subject matter, only modifying the method of delivery. And the desire already exists among various service school faculties to do just that.

Understanding Creativity

According to Leonardo da Vinci’s thinking strategy, saper vedere, creativity entails “knowing how to see” and involves looking at a problem from multiple perspectives. A creative mindset is the driver that pushes an individual toward not only asking the right questions but also determining the fundamental problem(s) in need of concrete solutions.

In cultivating the approach, Michael Michalko emphasizes the idea of seeing what no one else is seeing and thinking what no one else is thinking. For success in military operations, the ability to out-think an adversary is as important, if not more so, than the ability to simply overpower an adversary. For the United States, overpowering an opponent has long been the easier approach, but that is an option in significant decline. Thus, following Michalko’s guidance is more important than ever.

Success in this endeavor is premised on understanding two types of thinking: reproductive and productive thinking. First, reproductive thinking occurs when an individual looks to solve a present problem by returning to similar problems encountered in the past. This type of thinking leads to doctrinal problem solving that relies on easily digestible rubrics and other how-to manuals and is limited to known solutions. Reproductive thinking emphasizes applying the lessons of the past to generate success in the future. This approach is not inherently incorrect, but it is limiting and potentially dangerous if every emerging situation pattern-matches to history while ignoring divergent characteristics that signal change. Reproductive thinking leads to refighting the last war.

By contrast, productive thinking requires an individual search for solutions from a variety of different perspectives—often without drawing upon past experience. Einstein, for example, based his theory of relativity, or the associated relationship between space and time, on a productive thinking approach. Craig Rusbult writes, “At its best, productive thinking (in science or in other areas of life) combines knowledge with creative/critical thinking. Ideally, an effective productive thinker will have the ability to be fully creative and fully critical, and will know, based on logic and intuition, what blend of cognitive styles is likely to be productive in each situation.”

With this conception of creativity and its utility in mind, the logical next step is to ask a simple question: is creativity teachable? The research suggests the answer is yes.

Evidence for the Teachability of Creativity

Although creativity may appear antithetical to the military’s systematic approach to decision-making, perhaps best illustrated in the U.S. Army’s Military Decision Making Process, creativity is absolutely necessary for winning with the lowest loss of life and least financial cost. This perceived tension does not necessarily exist in a near-peer world where the United States does not have the advantage of overwhelming technological or numerical superiority and must outthink an adversary to win.

The reality is that all humans are biologically hardwired to be creative—a key competitive advantage for our species. This unique capacity to think creatively puts humans in an exceptional position to respond in original, flexible, and effective ways to environmental threats and changing conditions. In short, humans are creative problem solvers. Human progress bears witness to the infinite potential of our creativity. No other species, for example, has gone from hunting and gathering to space travel.

This unique capacity to think creatively puts humans in an exceptional position to respond in original, flexible, and effective ways to environmental threats and changing conditions.

To some degree, creativity is a skill possessed by all humans that can be taught and learned. In short, there are teachable and repeatable strategies proven to enhance a person’s level of creativity. Within the academic and applied field of creativity studies, programs that teach the skill seek to improve individual and team creativity. A rigorous meta-analysis of 70 different studies analyzing the effectiveness of creativity education programs led to the following unambiguous observation:

Perhaps the most clear-cut conclusion to emerge from this study is that creativity training is effective. Not only was a large effect size obtained in the overall analysis, but sizable effects were observed for the four major criteria applied in evaluating training–divergent thinking, problem solving, performance, and attitudes and behavior.

However, this meta-analysis showed that not all creativity programs are equal. Researchers found that the most effective programs use cognitive models to employ intellectual activities associated with the successful use of creative behavior.

Moreover, the success of these programs is attributed to three key characteristics. First, if creativity is a complex form of thinking, then creativity education must begin by breaking this higher-order thought process into specific and discreet cognitive abilities. Second, the introduction to principles of creative thinking must be followed by illustrations of the real-world application of creative competencies. Third, learners must practice creative-thinking strategies and principles in appropriate exercises. The attributes of the most successful creativity education programs align with the aspirations expressed by the Joint Chiefs in their Vision and Guidance Statement, which calls for officers who can solve problems in such a way that they are not constrained by the limits of doctrinal norms.

What does a successful creativity education program look like? One of the most well established and researched creativity programs is called Creative Problem Solving. This program is an applied process model designed to assist individuals and teams produce and implement novel solutions to pressing problems. The creative problem solving framework breaks this higher-order thinking skill into learnable units of both cognitive skills (visualization, problem framing, ideation, solution construction, contextualizing, implementation planning) and emotional skills (dreaming, sensing gaps, playfulness, avoiding premature closure, sensitivity to the environment, tolerance for risks). The process provides learners with guiding principles that help form a creative mindset including how to be less judgmental about novel concepts, how to more effectively generate original ideas, and how to move beyond an initial solution, which is rarely the most creative.

Perhaps most crucial to a creative mindset is the ability to engage in divergent thinking. This is akin to Michalko’s seeing what others do not see. Divergent thinking is the ability to think in fluent, flexible, and original ways. It is often undermined by standard educational practices. However, divergent thinking is a major predictor of creative achievement and leadership effectiveness in the military.

Unsurprisingly, small-scale attempts to cultivate creativity at service schools exist within individual programs or classes. For example, Marine Corps University uses historical case studies to coax students into thinking creatively about alternative solutions that may have led to better outcomes. The Air Command and Staff College offers a creativity elective. The School of Advanced Military Studies teaches a course on design and incorporates science fiction, exercises, and board games into the program. Joint Special Operations University hosts a Center for Design and Innovation, which facilitates a series of short courses in design and applied creativity. And almost all of the service schools use wargaming, whether tabletop or large-scale games, to seek new insights. However, these efforts are not part of a systematic effort to develop a creative mindset.

For Service Schools and Faculty

Scientifically-validated psychometric assessments can be powerful tools for increasing self-awareness, emotional intelligence, and metacognition. For faculty, this will require investment in professional development to build needed skills through workplace training programs, conferences, and degree programs specifically designed to teach the teacher, a first step before expecting any professional military education program to systematically develop creative students.

Over time, the concepts and approaches used in the public and private sector would transform to meet the needs of a defense-oriented community of practice that incorporates new techniques into its own best practices. Such an effort may indeed catalyze a shift in how critical thinking is taught.

Creativity can never be the sine qua non of professional military education. History, theory, and doctrine are all central elements of what any graduate of a joint professional military education program must know, but as the Joint Chiefs of Staff made clear in the latest Officer Professional Military Education Policy, there must be a focus on incorporating creativity into the outcomes of joint professional military education and the applied skills that it necessarily develops.

Concerns that the educational environment does not mirror the operational environment and that students are unable to make the intellectual switch from the free-for-all of the academic classroom to the operational environment is little more than a straw man argument. Allowing the rigors of the combat or operational environment to drive joint professional military education to a reductionist soup of learning and practicing doctrine is a waste of an expensive education.

Accordingly, educators and administrators must foster an environment rooted in what creativity scholars call “psychological safety,” which creates a classroom environment where even outlandish ideas are given consideration and not dismissed out of hand—an idea championed by the founders of the Air Force’s celebrated software disruptor, Kessel Run, as well as the chairman of the Defense Innovation Board.

While it is possible to offer specialized electives in creative thinking, multi-disciplinary design methods, and innovation to the few students who may have an innate interest, the larger opportunity lies within the existing curriculum where these skills can be embedded and taught as tools for problem solving. Accordingly, a Trojan horse approach to weaving creativity into existing courses and programs is needed. This makes sense given that an innovation system is needed, not a tool.

…the larger opportunity lies within the existing curriculum where these skills can be embedded and taught as tools for problem solving.

The character and composition of existing courses are ripe for disruption. Professional military education could incorporate a workshop model into its existing seminar structure. Spending more in-class time with tools and techniques and practicing concepts in real-time on real-world scenarios is important. Re-imagining the seminar creates space to embrace cognitive diversity and invites fresh thinking.

A workshop format also confers advantage with regard to feedback and assessment. As Paula Thornhill writes, professional military education students are done a disservice by focusing their time and energy on preparing academic-style research papers, when, in practice, they need more quick turn, short-burst feedback that will prepare them for the work they will do in their next assignment. Quality writing is important, but it should be tailored to outcomes that serve an officer in the professional context in which writing is applied.

Additional ways to integrate creativity include filming a team leader facilitating a group strategy session and then analyzing the game tape just as a coach would with a professional athlete. The concept of studying the tape, making adjustments, and repeating the process the next day is impactful. Not only does this approach provide a greater return on energy, but the education itself is active and experiential.

Students and faculty need to see creative leadership behaviors if they are to believe the top cover exists to be imaginative and experimental in thought and action. Administrators can, for example, encourage a business casual uniform of the day. When it comes to thinking, the enemy is often invisible, and uniforms have a powerful way of anchoring imagination, versus setting conditions for discovery.

Lastly, service schools should create a position called “Creative-in-Residence” to serve as an on-demand resource, providing context-relevant creativity and innovation content. This individual could also facilitate where needed and coach and consult with school leadership to design and deploy institution-specific interventions appropriate for the organization’s unique culture, capabilities, and objectives. Traditional conferences and workshops, for example, hold hostage the overwhelming majority of participants in receive mode for days on end. The Creative-in-Residence can be tasked to re-imagine and re-design those experiences so they are optimized for creative thinking and the production, capture, and distribution of new knowledge.

Conclusion

If anything, this article is a call for professional military education to embrace a deeper, richer, and more thoughtful discussion on the phenomenon of creativity and its integration into curriculum. Indeed, we argue it is an essential ingredient in any equation that seeks to produce intellectual overmatch in a volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous world. The deliberate investment in creativity within professional military education is a meaningful step towards equipping the uniformed services to see beyond what the adversary can contemplate.

Creating a systematic approach within professional military education that builds creativity as an applied skill is a central part to achieving the above objectives. Embedding the Creative Problem Solving approach to creativity skill-building within existing curriculum; expanding the use of wargames, exercises, fiction writing, and other tools to growing a creative mindset; and developing faculty expertise in creativity education are all part of a broader approach to ensuring the United States continues to maintaining the intellectual overmatch discussed by the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The task is not easy, but neither are many that make the U.S. military the best in the world.     

Adam Lowther is a Professor of Political Science at the U.S. Army’s School of Advanced Military Studies (SAMS). Brooke Mitchell is a Nuclear Security Fellow at George Washington University. Gerard Puccio is Chair and Professor at the International Center for Studies in Creativity, Buffalo State, the State University of New York. Nathan Schwagler is a contractor at the Joint Special Operations University, U.S. Special Operations Command, where he designs and facilitates courses on creativity, innovation, and design. The views expressed are the authors’ alone and do not represent the official position of the U.S. Army, U.S. Special Operations Command, the Department of Defense, or the U.S. Government.

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Header Image: U.S. Marine Corps Gen. James F. Amos, the commandant of the Marine Corps, talks to Marines with Fox Company, The Basic School at Heywood Hall at Marine Corps Base Quantico, Va., March 4, 2013. (Sgt Mallory S. VanderSchans/USMC Photo)

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