Chapter 3: where has all our creativity gone?

By: Aj Sounay Phothisane

What is creativity?

• Creativity is embedded in many fields of human endeavor but limits to the field of arts and invention.

• Looking towards to these visible environment (arts and invention) our conception of creativity to us is “marketable or functional commodities” of someone else’s product value when attempting to assess the degree of creativity.

What is creativity?

• Our interest is application of creativity both working environment and life– Developing new products and services– Find opportunities for economic and personal

growthIn managerial term “surmounting (surpass) barriers to desired goals and objectives”

What is creativity?

• Carl Rogers (1954) states that “there must be something observable, some product of creation” in order for us to talk usefully of creative process having taken place”

What is creativity?• Conditions for constructive creativity: “Inner conditions” are closely

associated with our creative potential– Openness to experience

• Permeability of boundaries in concepts, beliefs perceptions and hypothesis• Tolerance for ambiguity where ambiguity exists• Ability to receive much conflicting information without forcing closure upon the

situation

– An internal locus of evaluation• A belief that the value of our creative products is established not by the praise and

criticism of others but by ourselves.

– The ability to toy with elements and concepts• The ability to play with ideas, colors, shapes, relationships• To shape wild hypothesis• To express ridiculous• Translate from one form to another• To transform into improbable equivalents

Creativity Vs. Innovation

Innovation: the process of introducing new and creative productsCharacteristics of adaptors and innovators?– Adaptors prefer to improve things by small

evolutionary modifications– Innovators prefer to throw away the mould (the

original of a product) and do things in totally new, revolutionary ways.

Continuous improvement is innovation?

The down turn in creative thinking

• As young children, we produce uninhibited drawings but technically and grammatically incorrect descriptions of the world we find ourselves in.

• In our adulthood, we develop of competencies to deal with life problem. – Our artistic endeavors become secondary

• Dealing with reality is paramount. We do something needs creativity but others are less likely to see them interestingly or creative and chances to be creative diminish accordingly.

The down turn in creative thinking

• Two major explanations of this creative downturn:– Lost control of certain thinking operations that are

fundamental to creativity• Childlike thinking operations do have a place in adult

problem solving– We have creative imagination in childhood life, but not for

adulthood life

• Existence of various psychological blocks > hinders (obstacles) our ability to get ideas– The cause are innate (natural) and maturity of human

MindSpring theory

• Prince (1976) created his MindSpring theory to show the relationship between our learning and creative problem solving skills and to show why creativity diminish by the time we reach maturity.

• Six thinking operations involved in learning and problem solving:– Wishing– Retrieving– Imaging– Comparing– Transforming– Storing

Example: MindSpring theory

• We are sitting at the personal computer trying to use a new piece of software when the machine responds with an incomprehensible error message or refuses to do what we want it to. What will you do?• I wish I had just saved all the work I have done in the

last hour.• I wish that I could back-track from this impasse.• I wish I knew how to get out of this mess.• I wish I knew what I have done wrong, so I don’t do it

again.

Example: MindSpring theory

• Meaning that we make an attempt to determine what really is our problem

“We start retrieving and past experiences of using computers. We form mental images of these situations replaying in our minds. We compare these past experiences with the present situation and transform or adapt them in line with our most recent perceptions. Finally, all of this we store away this new experiences for future reference

Brainstorming

Brainstorming is a group of people get together to produce ideas, solve problems.

– A key characteristics and benefit is the much larger quantity or ideas produced compared with individual problem solving or the use of previous group problem solving techniques. Not all the ideas produced will be brilliant, but there are usually many useful ones.

• This productivity of brainstorming groups has several factors– The power of association of the human mind is well known– The effect is a dramatic increase in the number of ideas produced

• Alex Osborn (1957) refers to “social facilitation”

Creativity revived

A good start to revive creativity back:– Welcome every ideas: no matter how wild it is, it

has some merit. If nothing else it will fire our or some else’s imagination

– Hold back on criticizing an idea – Don’t be too quick to criticize somebody’s idea. Make sure you understand another person’s idea before you evaluate.

– Remember that we always have some knowledge or experience that can help us solve a given problem

Creativity revived (Cont.)

A good start to revive creativity back:– Don’t be afraid to indulge (free yourself) in some childlike

thinking – as in wishing, imagination, mental playfulness.– Never forget that other people perceive problem

situations in ways different from you – treat this as advantage, a way of helping you get different viewpoints that help you establish which is the most appropriate one to work with

– Always think of a mistake or failures as an opportunity to learn, not as a thing we did wrong. If we just forget about it, we could do it again.

The rules of brainstorming

• No criticism is allowed – evaluation of ideas must be withheld until later

• Free-wheeling is encouraged – just let the idea flow out, the wilder the idea, the better.

• Quantity is wanted – the greater the number of ideas, the more likely is the chance of having useful, interesting or appealing ones.

• Seek combination and improvement – try to build on other people’s ideas