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Creative Jolts: Responses to feedback from early-stage entrepreneurs

  • Written byKatie Moss
  • Published date 03 October 2022
Helen Elizabeth, 2021, MA, Fine Art: Printmaking, Camberwell College of Arts

New research from UAL has uncovered a novel phenomenon in creative work and entrepreneurialism – the ‘creative jolt’.

A ‘creative jolt’ is described as an episode of cognitive and emotional upheaval, through which creators let go of their original ideas and allow new ones to emerge - so that their ventures are shifted in dramatic ways. This is usually in response to feedback and criticism from mentors and other individuals the creator’s respect.

Researchers followed a group of London-based early-stage entrepreneurs in digital, sustainable, social and creative industries over a one-year period. The resulting paper focuses on unexpected instances where feedback sets up an existential threat condition for the creator, requiring them to respond in a potentially radical way.

The outcomes of this project suggest that disruptive episodes of such existential feedback should be incorporated into our wider understanding of the dynamic relationship between feedback and creativity over time.

The research has recently been published in the Academy of Management Journal. You can read the whole paper here.

The creative jolts process offers one explanation for how creatives manage to let go of some of their dearest ideas, opening up space for the emergence of new, and potentially more successful, alternative ideas and projects. We hope this article will resonate with the creatives as it articulates a dimension of the creative journey that most creatives are familiar with - but that has not yet been analysed in depth or even named in the research literature. This article may be useful to educators and creative ecosystem leaders who wish to understand how emerging ideas and projects shift quite radically in response to the creative jolts or shocks that creators experience after receiving destructive, jarring feedback.

— Dr Tuukka Toivonen, Reader at CSM and lead researcher on Creative Jolts project

Creative Jolts: how entrepreneurs let go of ideas during creative revision