LO4 - Creativity

• Creativity


  the development of original ideas that make a socially recognized contribution.
• Creative Process Model​

  1. Preparation
  2. Incubation
  3. Illumination
  4. Verification
• German physicist Hermann von Helmholtz


  gave a public talk describing the process that

  led to his innovations (energy physics, instruments for examining eyes, and many others).
• Graham Wallas


  built on Helmhotlz's ideas to construct the four-stage model
• Preparation


  involves developing a clear understanding of what you are trying to achieve through a novel solution and then actively studying information seemingly related to the topic.
• Preparation


  • Understand the problem or opportunity
  • Investigate information that seems relevant to the issue
• Incubation


  period of reflective thought.
• divergent thinking


  Reframing a problem in a unique way and generating different approaches to the issue.
• convergent thinking


  which involves calculating the conventionally accepted “right answer” to a logical problem.
• Incubation


  • Period of reflective thought

  • Nonconscious or low-level awareness, not direct attention to the issue

  • Active divergent thinking process
• Illumination


  • Sudden awareness of a novel, although

  vague and incomplete, idea entering one’s consciousness

  • May include an initial period of “fringe” awareness
• Illumination (also called insight)


  experience of suddenly becoming aware of a unique idea.
• Verification


  • Detailed logical and experimental evaluation of the

  illuminated idea

  • Further creative thinking
• Verification


  • whereby we flesh out the illuminated ideas and subject them to systematic and detailed experimentation and evaluation.
• Verification


  This stage often calls for further creativity as the

  ideas evolve into finished products or services.
• Characteristics of Creative People​


  1. Cognitive and practical intelligence
  2. Persistence
  3. Knowledge and experience
  4. Independent Imagination
• Cognitive and practical intelligence.


  Creative people have above-average cognitive intelligence to synthesize and analyze information as well as apply their ideas
• practical intelligence


  the capacity to evaluate the potential usefulness of their ideas.
• Persistence


  vital because people need this motivation to continue working on and investing in a project in spite of failures and advice from others to quit.
• Knowledge and experience


  Creative people require a foundation of knowledge and experience to discover or acquire new knowledge
• high openness to experience, moderately low need for affiliation, and strong values around self-direction and stimulation.
• Intelligence, persistence, expertise, and independent imagination represent a person’s creative potential, but the extent to which these characteristics produce more creative output depends on how well the work environment supports the creative process.
• Learning orientation


  one of the most important conditions for creativity
• Learning orientation


  A set of collective beliefs and norms that encourage people to question past practices, learn new ideas, experiment putting ideas into practice, and view

  mistakes as part of the learning process.
• job design, specifically task significance and autonomy.


  A second contributor to creativity
• Characteristics of Creative People​

  
• two cornerstones of creativity in organizations:

  employing people with strong creative potential and

  providing a work environment that supports creativity.
• third cornerstone consists of activities that help employees think more creatively


  Four types of creativity-building activities are: redefine the problem, associative play, cross-pollination,and design thinking.
• Creative Work Environments​


  • Learning orientation.​
  • Enriched jobs– autonomy, task significance.​
  • Communication with co-workers.​
  • Sufficient resources, job security.​
  • Leader and co-worker support (usually).
• Creative Activities​


  Redefine the problem.​

  • Revisit, involve others.​

  Associative play.​

  • Playful activities, creative challenges, morphological analysis.​

  Cross-pollination.​

  • Exchange ideas across the firm.​

  Design thinking.​

  • Human-centred, solution-focused creative process.​
• morphological analysis.​

  systematically investigating all combinations

  of characteristics of a product, service, or event, and

  then looking at the feasibility of each combination
• Cross-pollination


  highlights the fact that creativity rarely occurs alone.
• Design thinking


  A human-centred, solutionfocused creative process that applies both intuition and analytical thinking to clarify problems and generate innovative solutions.
• Four design thinking rules

  • Human rule – involve others.​
  • Ambiguity rule – avoid problem identification too soon.​
  • Re-design rule – review past solutions.​
  • Tangible rule – build prototypes, embrace learning orientation.
• The Human Rule


  Design thinking is a team activity. It depends on collaboration and co-creation among several

  people with diverse knowledge and experiences, so the issue and its possible solutions are viewed from several angles.
• Ambiguity Rule


  Creativity and experimentation are possible only when there is ambiguity in the problem

  and its potential solutions.
• Human Rule


  • Involve several people so the issue and possible solutions are viewed from several angles.

  • Include clients and end users to enable an iterative process of problem identification and solution

  development.
• Ambiguity Rule


  • Preserve ambiguity rather than seek clarity too quickly.

  • Question and refine the stated problem.

  • Develop more than one solution to the problem.
• Redesign rule


  • Review past solutions to understand how those inventions tried to satisfy human needs.

  • Use foresight tools to imagine better solutions for the future.
• Tangible Rule


  • Build several low-cost prototypes to test ideas.

  • Don’t analyze alternatives at a purely conceptual level.

  • Tolerate failure; embrace a learning orientation.