Chapter 1 Creativity and its Importance in Business

1. Chapter 1Creativity and its Importance in Business • Definitions of creativity • How ideas arise • Importance of creative thinking in business • Paradigm shifts • Characteristics of creative thinking • Acquiring creative skills

2. DEFINITIONS OF CREATIVITY (1) • Creativity is an ability to come up with new and different viewpoints on a subject. • It involves breaking down and restructuring our knowledge about a subject in order to gain new insights into its nature. • Defining creativity is complicated because the concept has many dimensions.

3. DEFINITIONS OF CREATIVITY (2) • Wertheimer…’restructuring our knowledge’ • Kelly and Rogers…’understanding how we think’ • Maslow…’primary versus secondary’ • Rickards…’personal discovery process’ • Gilliam…’making new connections’ • Amabile…’novel and useful ideas’

4. DEFINITIONS OF CREATIVITY (3) ‘Being creative is seeing the same thing as everyone else, but thinking of something different’ Charles Cave http://members.ozemail.com.au/~caveman

5. INVENTION AND CREATIVITY Invention is an act of creativity that results in a device, process or technique that is novel enough to produce a significant change in the application of technology.

6. HOW IDEAS ARISE • Generating ideas is not a chance process. • Ideas appear to arise when people are actually looking for them. • It happens to people who are • Curious or inquiring. • Engaged in a search for opportunities, possibilities, answers or inventions.

7. IMPORTANCE OF CREATIVE THINKING • Logical thinking is a series of steps that extend what we know already, rather than being truly new. • The need for creative thinking arises from the inadequacies of logical thinking. • It is a method for producing insights that might not be obtained through conventional or traditional methods of logical thinking.

8. CREATIVE THINKING IN BUSINESS • Increasing number of problems have few or no precedents • Fewer tried and tested ways of approaching them • Creativity is a vital asset for leadership • Business problems are usually open-ended • Planning, organising, leading, controlling

9. PARADIGM SHIFTS • The need for creative thinking often becomes paramount when a paradigm shift occurs or is likely to occur. • A paradigm is a set of rules and regulations that guide our actions when solving problems. • Transport – train, airplane, spaceship

10. CHARACTERISTICS OF CREATIVE THINKING • Intelligence measures do not explain creativity. • Creative thinkers form novel combinations. • Making juxtapositions between dissimilar subjects. • Thinking productively rather than reproductively.

11. PEOPLE WHO EXHIBIT CREATIVE BEHAVIOUR (1) • Challenge the status quo • Confront assumptions • Exhibit curiosity • Like to investigate new possibilities • Take the initiative • Are highly imaginative • Are future oriented

12. PEOPLE WHO EXHIBIT CREATIVE BEHAVIOUR (2) • Tend to think visually • See possibilities • Are not afraid to take risks • Are prepared to make mistakes • Are adaptable to different environments • Are adaptable to changing circumstances • See relationships between seemingly disconnected elements

13. PEOPLE WHO EXHIBIT CREATIVE BEHAVIOUR (3) • Distil unusual ideas down to their underlying principles • Synthesise diverse elements • Are able to spot underlying patterns in events • Are able to cope with paradoxes • Look beyond the first ‘right idea’

14. ACQUIRING CREATIVE SKILLS • Fluency - ability to produce many ideas • Flexibility - ability to produce a varied mix of ideas • Elaboration - ability to add detail, depth, mixtures of viewpoints or perspectives • Originality - uniqueness, novelty, newness