Can Creativity Be Learned? Lessons from Disney Institute and Research

Explore how creativity training, varied experiences, and Disney Institute’s approach can help teams practice creative thinking and build a creativity library.

10/13/20262 min read

Why does Disney offer creativity training for business leaders?

We often talk about creativity as a personality trait: some people have it, others don’t.

But if creativity were entirely fixed, why invest in training it?

Disney Institute offers Disney’s Approach to Creativity in Business, a program that combines hands-on activities, case studies, and immersive experiences to help leaders cultivate creativity and innovation within their organizations.

It raises a useful question: Are we giving our teams opportunities to practice creative thinking—or simply expecting them to be creative when we need a new idea?

Creativity involves processes we can practice

A 2024 meta-analysis of creativity training in organizational settings found improvements in learning outcomes, including creative thinking skills and confidence. Evidence for changes in actual workplace behavior was less conclusive, so how people apply their learning matters.

The review describes programs that teach processes such as defining problems, generating ideas, selecting promising possibilities, and implementing them.

These processes are useful beyond artistic work. A technical team exploring different solutions, a manager reconsidering a process, and colleagues finding a new way to communicate all face creative challenges.

Creativity has a place in everyday decisions about how to approach a problem.

Build your “creativity library”

New ideas don’t always appear out of nowhere. They can emerge when we connect things we already know in unfamiliar ways.

Think of your knowledge and experiences as a creativity library. Learning a skill, exploring a different field, or encountering another perspective can add material to that library—giving you new possibilities to draw on when approaching a challenge.

Research offers an interesting connection. In two experiments, Ritter and colleagues found that actively participating in unusual, unexpected experiences increased cognitive flexibility compared with ordinary experiences. Cognitive flexibility involves shifting between different approaches—a relevant part of creative thinking.

The finding is more specific than “doing lots of things makes you creative.” It suggests that experiences which challenge familiar patterns can help us think more flexibly.

For businesses, that raises another question: Are employees encountering fresh perspectives, or mostly drawing from the same familiar sources?

Trying an unfamiliar activity, learning from another department, or exploring how a different industry solves problems can provide opportunities to notice new connections.

A useful reflection is:

What have I experienced elsewhere that could help me see this challenge differently?

Creating opportunities to explore

At The Secret Dance Technique, this thinking informs our approach to corporate team-building and professional development.

We use accessible movement challenges to invite participants to explore something unfamiliar, experiment with possibilities, and collaborate. Guided reflection helps them consider how their approaches might apply beyond the activity.

No dance experience is needed. Participants start where they are, with opportunities to contribute ideas and learn from one another.

Disney’s program provides a recognizable example of a business investing in creativity development. The research offers evidence that creative thinking can be trained, while also highlighting the importance of evaluating what people learn and how they use it.

You don’t have to identify as a “creative person” to start practicing creative thinking.

What could your team add to its creativity library this month?

Can Creativity Be Learned? Lessons from Disney Institute and Research

Why does Disney offer creativity training for business leaders?

Creativity involves processes we can practice

Build your “creativity library”

Creating opportunities to explore

Further reading