Chapter 2: Creativity, innovation, opportunities and entrepreneurship Flashcards
Creativity
The use of imagination or original ideas to create something
Features of creativity: associations
Coming up with ideas while we sleep is often an important part of the story; these are times when the unconscious brain is able to relax and forge new and unexpected links. Creativity is the ability to produce work that is both novel and useful.
Features of creativity: incremental and radical
Creativity is about breaking through to radical new ideas, new ways of framing the problem and new directions for solving it. But it’s also about the hard work of polishing and refining those breakthrough ideas, debugging and problem-solving to get them to work
Features of creativity: divergent and convergent thinking
Convergent thinking is a style of thinking which emphasises focus, homing in on a single ‘best’ answer. Divergent thinking is a style of thinking which is about making associations, often exploring round the edges of a problem.
Features of creativity: left and right brain thinking
The brain is made up of two connected hemispheres and for a long time neuroscientists have known that different parts of brain function relate to these different areas. The left hemisphere is particularly associated with activities like language and calculation. While our ‘left brain’ seems linked to what we might call ‘logical’ processing, the role of the ‘right brain’ was, for a long time, much less well understood. Gradually it became clear that it is involved in associations, patterns and emotional links; people with damage to the right hemisphere are often incapable of understanding humour or of feeling moved by painting or music. Our ability to think in metaphors and to visualise and imagine in novel ways is strongly linked to activity on this side of the brain.
Features of creativity: pattern recognition
Creativity is particularly about patterns and our ability to see these. In its simplest form if we see a patter, which we recognise, we have access to solutions which worked in the past and which we can apply again
Features of creativity: individual and group creativity
We are all different in personality, experience and approach, and these differences mean we see problems and solutions from different perspectives. Combining our approaches, sparking ideas off each other and building on shared insights are all-powerful ways of amplifying creativity.
Creativity as a process
- Recognition/preparation
- Incubation
- Insight
- Validation/refinement
Creativity as a process: recognition/preparation
Creativity starts with recognising we have a problem or puzzle to solve and then exploring its dimensions. Working out the real problem, the underlying issue, is an important skill in arriving at a solution which works. Redefining and reframing are key skills here, being able to see the wood for the trees, the underlying pattern of the core problem.
Creativity as a process: incubation
It needs to allow new connections to be made, and typical ways of helping this include relaxing, doing something different, going for a walk, sleeping on the problem, etc. What’s going on underneath is a fascinating process of association and connecting in ways which may appear to be illogical.
Creativity as a process: insight
The most common picture of creativity is the light bulb moment — and it’s an apt description for what it often feels like to come up with a new insight. It’s not just the awareness of a solution; there is often a strong emotional charge, a deep sense of the answer, and certainty.
Creativity as a process: validation
This is the stage at which the idea, the core insight, becomes refined and developed. It involves trying the idea out — prototyping — and using feedback from that to adapt and develop it. Prototyping can be done in various ways and forms the core of design methods aimed at bringing new ideas into widespread use. A key point here is that this represents the end of one cycle and the beginning of the next.
Developing personal skills
Building confidence in our own ideas and then developing skills in communicating them and handling the feedback we get on them is another area where we can develop our creative capabilities. Successful entrepreneurs are not just able to come up with creative insights; they are also resilient in the face of feedback, using this to help shape and adapt thier ideas. hey have a strong sense of vision and can communicate and engage others in sharing that insight. And they are skilled at ‘pitching’: communicating the core idea to others in ways which get past their critical comments and engage their interest.
One key point is to understand the nature of the creative process as we have described it and to recognise that it isn’t entirely rational, that emotions, intuitions and odd insights are a valuable part of it, and that ideas which emerge can be useful stepping stones or valuable in their own right.
Developing group-level creativity
People differ in their experience, their personality and their perspectives on the world, and this diversity is a rich resource for helping creativity to happen. Social pressures can act as a damper on individual sparks of ideas. Diversity can lead to conflict. Simply throwing people together does not make them a team and the wrong mix can easily lead to the whole performing much less well than the sum of the parts.
Advantages of group-level creativity
- Diversity (more different ideas)
- Volume of ideas (‘many hands make light work)
- Elaboration (multiple resources to explore around the problem)
- Rich variety of prior experience
Disadvantages of group-level creativity
- ‘Groupthink’ (social pressure to conform)
- Lack of focus (‘too many cooks spoil the broth)
- Group dynamics and hierarchy
- Political behaviour, people following different agendas
3 components of creativity: creative thinking skills
Creative thinking is how people approach problems and solutions. It depends strongly on the individual’s personality, as well as how a person thinks or works. People are more creative if they feel comfortable disagreeing with others
3 components of creativity: knowledge
Expertise or knowledge encompasses everything a person knows and can do. Knowledge can be acquired through formal education, practical experience, and interaction with other people
3 components of creativity: motivation
Motivation determines what a person will actually do. Two types of motivation exist:
- Intrinsic motivation (motivation from inside, such as enjoyment of work)
- Extrinsic motivation (motivation from outside, such as financial rewards)
Creativity techniques: problem reversal
Problem reversal is the action of viewing a problem from an opposite angle by asking questions such as ‘What if we did the opposite?’ and ‘What is everyone else not doing?’ To stimulate our creativity, we have to learn to see things backwards, inside out and upside down.
- State the problem in reverse. Change a positive statement into a negative one
- Figure out what everybody else is not doing
- Change the direction or location of perspective
- Turn defeat into victory. If something turns out badly, think about the positive aspects of the situation
Creativity techniques: forced analogy
Forced analogy (also called forced relationship) is the action of making an association between two unlike things in order to obtain new insights.
Forced analogy between a matchbox and a corporation
Attribute of a matchbox: stirking surface on two sides
Analogy with the corporation: the protection an organisation needs against strikes
Attribute of a matchbox: six sides
Analogy with the corporation: six essential organisational divisions
Attribute of a matchbox: sliding centre section
Analogy with the corporation: the heart of the organisation should be ‘slidable’ or flexible
Attribute of a matchbox: made of cardboard
Analogy with the corporation: inexpensive method of structure, disposable
Creativity techniques: attribute listing
Attribute listing is the identification and listing of all major characteristics of a product, object or idea.
Attribute listing - improving a torch
Feature: casing Attribute: plastic Ideas for improvement: metal Feature: switch Attribute: on/off Ideas for improvement: on/off low beam Feature: battery Attribute: power Ideas for improvement: rechargeable Feature: bulb Attribute: glass Ideas for improvement: plastic Feature: weight Attribute: heavy Ideas for improvement: light
