Creativity

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Creativity
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Agenda

• Questions
• Creativity topics

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Creativity

• Changing paradigms
• Use creative problem solving
• Also useful for opportunity finding

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The 4-Ps model of creativity

• Person
• Process
• Product
• Press (environment)

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Thats impossible!

• Translation
• Based on the paradigm we use today, we dont know
  how to do it

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Whats a paradigm?
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Paradigm examples
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Whats the importance of this Paradigm stuff?

• Watch example
• Bicycle example

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Definition

• To be considered creative, a solution or idea
  must
• Be new, or unique
• Have utility or value (solve the problem)

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Why are we teaching this?

• Yet another tool in your toolbox
• BUAD 100 is a first course for many
• When you were young....

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There are twenty-two creativity techniques

• Not all apply to a certain situation
• Many apply to more than one type of situation

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Creativity research

• Youll never be more creative than you are today
• Youll gain more knowledge, but youll
  continually lose your creativity

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Creativity research

• A drastic drop-off in creativity occurs at about
  the 4th grade
• Discouraged from inquiry
• Parents not as patient
• Education process tells you there are right and
  wrong answers
• Peer pressure to conform

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Creativity research example

• Architecture seniors are far less creative than
  architecture freshmen
• Taught building codes, constraints of materials,
  consumer tastes
• Narrowing our perspective

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The good news

• Creativity can be restored
• The CPS methodology can be used to bring our
  creativity back to where it was when we were
  younger
• Supported by 100s of studies on CPS and
  creativity

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Five steps common to all problems (p. 119)

• Problem definition
• Compiling relevant information
• Generating ideas
• Evaluating, prioritizing ideas
• Developing implementation plan

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Creative thinking Generative thinking Divergent
thinking
Critical thinking Evaluative thinking Convergent
thinking
Each CPS Phase
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Couger variant

• Three refinements
• Opportunity finding, not just problem solving
• Emphasis on starting point/iterative process
• Identification of creativity techniques useful
  for each phase

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Interrogatories

• An analytical technique
• Phrase a question about the problem using each of
  the 5 Ws and H
• Why, who, where, what, when, and how

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Application exercise

• Your boss asks you to help on the problem of
  reluctance of some employees to use the computer
  for their job activities
• Use the interrogatories technique (5 Ws and H)

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Application exercise
Why are people in our company reluctant to use
the computer for their job activities? Who... Whe
re... What... When... How...
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Analogy/Metaphor

• Intuitive technique
• Use an analogy, and apply that to the problem
• Recommend using nature analogies

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Analogy/Metaphor

• Apply the baby birds analogy to the previous
  problem of employee reluctance to computer use

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Baby bird analogy

• Fear of flying from the nest
• Does the organization allow employees to take
  chances?
• Pressure to behave like the other birds
• Does that pressure exist in our organization?

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No company and no organization within a company
is immune to creativity improvement
All employees need creativity as a part of their
skill-set
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1st part summary

• Twenty-two techniques
• Analytical and intuitive techniques
• Help restore the creativity we lost around the
  4th grade, and continue to lose
• CPS can restore our creative levels
• Every company/department needs improvement

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Creativity exercise

• In one minute, generate as many uses as possible
  for a paperclip

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Creativity exercise

• Using attributes association, you could have
  doubled your output
• The objective here is to improve your fluency of
  ideas
• The more ideas you generate, the more likely an
  optimal one will emerge

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Attribute association

• Identify the attributes of a paperclip

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Attribute association

• Identify the attributes of a paperclip
• Smooth edges
• Flexible
• Sharp, pointed
• Light weight
• Low cost
• Curved

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Attribute association

• Identify the attributes of a paperclip
• Smooth edges smooth paper, clean ear
• Flexible fastener, hook, jewelry
• Sharp, pointed weapon, pop balloons
• Light weight ammo
• Low cost
• Curved

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Conceptual blocks to creativity

• Perceptual
• Emotional
• Cultural
• Environmental
• Intellectual

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Perceptual blocks

• Accepting as facts data that are really
  unsubstantiated assumptions
• Difficulty in isolating the problem
• Narrowing the problem too much
• Broadening the problem too much
• Failing to use all the senses - over reliance on
  sight

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Emotional blocks

• Fear to make a mistake, to fail, to risk
• Preference for judging ideas, rather than
  generating them
• Fear and distrust of supervisors, associates, and
  subordinates
• Difficulty in changing our mind-set
• Overly strong desire for closure

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Cultural blocks

• Overly strong desire to belong
• Desire to be practical and economical
• Feeling that it is not polite to question
• Stereotyping
• Fear of asking questions that show ignorance
• Belief that problem-solving is serious

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Environmental blocks

• Lack of cooperation and trust among colleagues
• Distractions - phone, easy intrusions
• Lack of support to bring ideas into action
• Over-emphasis on cooperation or on competition
• Punishment for risk-taking that doesnt work out

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Intellectual blocks

• Strong tendency is to use only those solutions
  that worked before
• Reliance on logical thinking
• Hesitancy to use intuitive thinking approaches
• Too much faith in statistics and past experience

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Intellectual blocks

• Fear of exploring the unknown
• Mind-sets
• Paradigm fixation, where we have difficulty
  viewing things outside our normal view of the
  world

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Key objective

• Once we are aware of our conceptual blocks, we
  can begin to tear them down
• Doing so will enable us to identify a myriad of
  alternatives and possibilities that were hidden
  to us

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Torrence test of creativity

• Measures fluency
• Measures originality
• How many of your ideas were rarely mentioned by
  others taking the test

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Lotus blossom technique

• Continually breaking things down into simpler
  units
• Like peeling back the petals of the Lotus blossom

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Wishful thinking technique

• State the question, goal, or problem
• Assume anything is possible
• Make a wish
• Examine each fantasy statement, use it as a
  stimulation, and react with statements like, We
  could do that if..., or That would work if...

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How practical is this?

• Average return on investment of 300
• TQM returns 100
• RD returns 20

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Creative vs. critical thinking

• What is the difference?

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Creative thinking

• Gives us new ideas
• An exercise in imagination
• Produces various conceptions of the problem or
  issue, various ways of dealing with it, and
  possible responses to it

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Critical thinking

• Comes into play AFTER we have an idea to try, a
  theory to test, or a proposition someone wants to
  prove
• Helps us interpret complex ideas
• Helps us appraise the evidence offered in support
  of arguments

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Creativity exerciseassociation fluency

• Make up one silly or bureaucratic sounding title
  for the following occupations
• Plumber
• Disc jockey
• Undertaker

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Blooms taxonomy

• Knowledge
• Comprehension
• Application
• Analysis
• Synthesis
• Evaluation

Spending 90 of your time below this line
retains 85 of the acquired knowledge
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Knowledge

• Grasping basic facts
• List the steps in system design
• Describe a consumer preference survey
• Define return on investment

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Comprehension

• Understanding the meaning of basic facts
• Explain the purpose of a system design
• Summarize the reasons for computing ROI
• Defend the use of performance appraisal systems

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Application

• Ability to use learned material relating the
  new material in a new context
• Solve an ROI problem
• Relate the steps in designing a system to those
  for building a house

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Analysis

• Take an item apart and decide what the parts are
  e.g. take a concept apart
• Separate an employee performance appraisal system
  into its key components
• Discriminate the key elements for conducting
  effective consumer surveys

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Synthesis

• Ability to put parts back together integrating
  what is known from other areas with this subject
• Organize a consumer survey
• Generate an appraisal system for a pet instead of
  a human

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Evaluation

• Ability to judge the value of material (output,
  results) for a given purpose
• Evaluate a system design
• Support the value of use of ROI for a non-profit
  organization

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BREAK through thinking
Conventional thinker Breakthrough
thinker Technique oriented Purpose
oriented Copes with problems Finds the
right as stated
problem Demands hard data Demands hard,
copes
with soft data Insists on firm state-
Tolerant of ambiguity ment of work
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Constrained thinking

• Mind set
• Groupthink
• Delimited thinking
• Paradigm paralysis
• Brainpower is only additive
• BP1 BP2 BP3 ...

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Empowered thinking

• Mind reset --- mind unlock
• Group rethink --- synergistic thinking
• Paradigm breaking --- paradigm shift
• Multiplies brainpower
• BP1 x BP2 x BP3 ...

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Evaluating existing paradigms developing new
paradigms

• Choose the paradigm to evaluate
• Examine the purpose of the paradigm
• Delineate the parameters related to the paradigm
  being examined
• Examine the rationale for the parameters
• Question the paradigm
• Develop an improved paradigm

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Four quadrants

• Visioning
• Exploring
• Experimenting
• Modifying

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Holistic thinking

• Suboptimal results occur if we rely on one of the
  two hemispheres of our brain
• Janusian thinking, concentrating on using both
  hemispheres simultaneously, produces holistic
  results