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What is creativity and when does creativity become
innovation?
Creativity can be described as seeing the world with a
fresh pair of eyes. That means forgetting how you expect to see things, look
at them as if it is the first time you are seeing them. Look at what you do in your business as if you are
seeing it for the first time. Years ago the Toyota Motor company wanted to
improve productivity so they set up a suggestion box asking employees to
give suggestions on how to make the company more productive. They never got
one suggestion. They then thought creatively, they shifted their perspective
and asked their employees to come up with ways to make their own jobs
easier. They were flooded with suggestions that helped Toyota grow into one
of the top vehicle producers in the world. What does this have to do with your business? Does the
nature of your business need creativity? Every business needs creativity to survive and flourish
in the future. Think of the business you do and how it is done. Is it being
as done as fluently as possible? Are there not ways that you can make your
job easier?
We tend to think reproductively - when confronted
with problems, we fixate on something from our past that has worked before,
then we analytically select the most promising approach based on past
experiences, excluding all other approaches, and work in a clearly defined
direction toward the solution of the problem. Because of the apparent
soundness of the steps we become arrogantly certain of the correctness of
our conclusion.
Think productively not reproductively. When
confronted with a problem we need to ask ourselves how many ways can we look
at the problem, how can we rethink it, and how many different ways can we
solve it, instead of thinking how we have been taught to solve it.
With productive thinking one generates as many
alternative approaches as one can, considering the least as well as the most
likely approaches. It is the willingness to explore all approaches that is
important, even after one has found the most promising one. Eistein was once
asked what the difference was between him and the average person. He said
that if you asked the average person to find a needle in a haystack, the
person would stop when he or she found a needle. He on the other hand, would
tear through the whole haystack looking for all the possible needles.
Seeing what no one else is seeing
Knowing how to see - Finding a new perspective that no
one else has taken. Leonardo felt that the first way you look at a problem
is too biased towards the usual way you look at a problem. Shift
perspective, look at a problem from many different angles. Making your thought visible – Use means other than
written – diagrams etc. Visualise it in as many ways as possible.
Thinking what no one
else is thinking.
Thinking Fluently - Generate as many ideas as
possible. The only way to get good ideas is to get many ideas.
Making Novel Combinations - Permit ideas and
thoughts to randomly combine with each other: E=mc²
SKILLS
Cognitive:
Fluency (generate a quantity of ideas)
Flexibility (examine from different perspectives)
Originality (new or unique solutions/problems)
Elaboration (seeing relationships, adding to make more exciting)
Affective:
Curiosity (using inquisitiveness & wonder - who/what/how/why approach)
Complexity
(looking for different & difficult alternatives)
Risk taking (mistaken is not failure…exposing oneself to
failure)
Imagination (thinking about things beyond real boundaries)
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