Many organisations treat creativity as a resource, something to be tapped into that will somehow fuel their profits.  As recently described in Collective Spirit, we often view creativity as a sometimes volatile spirit that can help power our progress. 

This perspective can often lead to businesses seeing creativity as a finite reservoir that will run out at some point, and can only be replenished by attracting new talent.  However, the search for new talent can soon escalate into a War for Talent with the price of talent increasing in proportion to its perceived scarcity.

This is a similar concept to Marion King Hubbert’s Peak Oil theory, and its contemporary descriptions by activists such as Richard Heinberg.  It is also reflected in attempts by large corporations to capture and secure talent rich territory through mergers and acquisitions, sometimes involving hostile action. 

However, instead of releasing long term creative energy to drive sustainable profit, the talent that has been won is usually burned out very quickly.  Either that, or a corporate takeover will work in a similar process to the initial formation of oil where talent becomes crushed by the pressures of corporate stratification and is soon indistinguishable from long dead dinosaurs and rotting vegetable matter.

Some enlightened organisations experience creativity as a way of working, rather than a fossilised and jealously guarded resource.  Instead of trying to continually trying to purchase and secure creative potential, they create possibility spaces where the human spirit of their workers can shine through.