This is a valuable discussion of creativity, rather unexpected in relation to product management (unless you know the author). I appreciate thinking about creativity as “an approach” as Miharia does here. Connecting that approach to agency adds a whole other layer. When systems appear overwhelming, when human agency seems sidelined, this idea of a creative approach resonates. A creative approach, an acceptance of questions and messiness and uncertainty and ambiguity may be exactly what we need in these anxious times. Our humanity depends upon it.
This resonates deeply, especially connecting creativity-as-approach to agency under constraint.
What I’ve been circling is the idea that when systems grow large enough (technical, organizational, or even cultural), creativity quietly shifts from being about novel outputs to being about moral orientation. It becomes less “what can I make?” and more “how do I choose to show up inside something I don’t fully control?”
Seeing creativity as an approach seems to legitimize uncertainty rather than resolve it. It allows questions, ambiguity, and messiness to be features of responsible action, not symptoms of confusion. In that sense, creativity isn’t opposed to rigor; it’s what keeps rigor from hardening into rule-following detached from human meaning.
I also propose this is why agency feels so fragile right now. When systems signal that optimization, prediction, or automation are the highest goods, the space for judgment narrows. A creative approach reopens that space, not by rejecting systems, but by reasserting the human chooser within them.
If our humanity depends on anything, it may be on preserving that space where questions are allowed to remain open long enough to matter.
This is a valuable discussion of creativity, rather unexpected in relation to product management (unless you know the author). I appreciate thinking about creativity as “an approach” as Miharia does here. Connecting that approach to agency adds a whole other layer. When systems appear overwhelming, when human agency seems sidelined, this idea of a creative approach resonates. A creative approach, an acceptance of questions and messiness and uncertainty and ambiguity may be exactly what we need in these anxious times. Our humanity depends upon it.
This resonates deeply, especially connecting creativity-as-approach to agency under constraint.
What I’ve been circling is the idea that when systems grow large enough (technical, organizational, or even cultural), creativity quietly shifts from being about novel outputs to being about moral orientation. It becomes less “what can I make?” and more “how do I choose to show up inside something I don’t fully control?”
Seeing creativity as an approach seems to legitimize uncertainty rather than resolve it. It allows questions, ambiguity, and messiness to be features of responsible action, not symptoms of confusion. In that sense, creativity isn’t opposed to rigor; it’s what keeps rigor from hardening into rule-following detached from human meaning.
I also propose this is why agency feels so fragile right now. When systems signal that optimization, prediction, or automation are the highest goods, the space for judgment narrows. A creative approach reopens that space, not by rejecting systems, but by reasserting the human chooser within them.
If our humanity depends on anything, it may be on preserving that space where questions are allowed to remain open long enough to matter.