The truth is in the details

I believe that creative people – or those who are not creative but want to innovate – can only do so in conducive environments, in places where ideas can be born, mature and culminate in the necessary time, not too much, not too little… while improving along the way.

A clear example of this is the story a chef told me who had worked at Bulli for many years.

Bulli bet on culinary innovation, on creating a different cuisine. One of the most important things they did, which was pioneering in the world and perhaps was the decision that allowed them to make the definitive quality leap, was to remove some chefs from the production kitchen (the everyday kitchen for lunches and dinners) and have them work separately, solely thinking about new dishes.

It was the first restaurant in the world that had chefs who did not cook for their customers. Their job was to innovate, to get inspired, to experiment, to make mistakes, to test, to rethink, to consider whether what was always done was truly the best or simply because no one had ever doubted it before…

I do not wish to defend Bulli’s cuisine, nor even analyze whether it was good or not. But it is clear that it was innovative and made a mark on the world.

Creativity reaches its maximum when you take it out of the production chain; it is an art in itself. If those chefs had to deliberate on different, fresh, surprising ideas… it would have been much more difficult to do so while dealing with the hustle and bustle of serving customers day after day.

You must understand: if you work 10 hours a day like a madman to meet deadlines, to look good, to be on time… then it is very hard to have high levels of creativity.

For me, creativity can only appear if 4 factors are produced, to a greater or lesser extent:

A high technical mastery of the specialty in which you want to innovate (that is, many hours of prior practice)

A dose of innate talent

A very high dose of passion for what you do

Moments of catharsis when time can stop and our ideas can flow freely, to play, essentially.

I believe that point 4 is the one that many people are not very clear about. In our culture even less so. That is why we are not a very innovative culture. Play does not usually form part of our learning, and for me, play is always the beginning of any creative project.

Play is the mother of inventions.

In fact, a phrase by Einstein sums up what I explain here:

"Creativity is intelligence having fun"