Future Skills

Creativity

Fourth among the World Economic Forum's core skills, and fourth among the fastest-rising. Also the skill where we are most careful about what we promise.

Why it is rising

As generative tools take over first-draft production, the scarce work moves upstream: deciding what is worth making, judging which of many cheap options is actually good, and recognizing when everything on the table has converged on the same idea.

That last one is a real and measured effect. Doshi and Hauser, in Science Advances, found access to generative AI ideas raised individual creativity, particularly among less creative writers, while making outputs across writers measurably more similar to each other. Individual quality up, collective diversity down.

What the course works on

Generating options far past the point where the obvious ones run out.
Judging output against a standard set beforehand, rather than against whatever else is on the table.
Recognizing convergence, and deliberately working against it.
Using generative tools as a starting point that must be argued with, rather than a finish line.

The evidence, including the part that is inconvenient

The largest meta-analysis of creativity training to date (Sio and Lortie-Forgues, Psychological Bulletin, 2024) reviewed 169 studies and 844 effect sizes. The unadjusted effect of 0.53 standard deviations falls to between 0.29 and 0.32 once corrected for publication bias. Only 11% of studies used randomization, an active control and a pretest together, and roughly 70% were underpowered.

We are telling you this rather than letting you find it. Creativity training has a real but modest evidence base, and any provider quoting the uncorrected figure is quoting the wrong one.

How this is sold

Course details and pricing are by quotation. We deliver this course to teams, not as an individual enrollment. If you want to bring it to your team, register your interest below.

Sources

Future of Jobs Report 2025World Economic Forum, January 2025. A survey of 1,043 employers representing 14.1 million workers across 55 economies.
Doshi and Hauser, Science Advances, 2024Generative AI enhances individual creativity but reduces the collective diversity of novel content.
Sio and Lortie-Forgues, Psychological Bulletin, 2024The impact of creativity training on creative performance: a meta-analytic review of five decades. 169 studies, 844 effect sizes.