Creativity Introduction 2007

FOSTERING CREATIVITYTudor Rickards

At the heart of culture lies creation myths …

Creativity invades all walks of life

Creativity has been allied to ..

• Madness• Mystery• Muses

Definitions of creativity

• Discovery processes leading to new and unexpectedly valuable ideas

• ‘Looking where all have looked, and seeing what no one has seen’

Theories of creativity

• Insight theories • Self-actualization • Transcendence • Cognitive reframing• Darwinism• Creationism

Theories of creativity

Creativity in business

• Creative leadership• Creative strategy• Design, discovery and

innovation• Problem-solving• Organizational

change and transformation

• Entrepreneurship

Creativity: The big questions

• How can I become more creative?• How can my team become more creative?• How can my organization become more creative?• How can my society or culture become more creative?

The creative individual

• The elitist view: Special and gifted people are born creative (The gifted and talented school)

• The developmental view: Everyone has the potential to fulfil their creative potential (Carl Rogers)

The creative team

• Teamwork is increasingly seen as the organizational structure for focusing and targeting collective creativity

Team development: Tuckman’s model

Form

Storm

Norm

Perform

Unanswered questions of Tuckman’s model

• What if a team never escapes from the ‘storm’ stage?

• What if team performs beyond the norm (beyond targets and expectations?)

• Where does creativity come into teamwork?

Answering the questions

• Researchers at MBS have studied a modification to Tuckman’s stage model

• It proposes two barriers to creativity which teams must overcome

• Only a minority of teams do so

The Two-barrier model of team development (MBS)

Form

Storm

Unexpectedly good (creative) performance

Performance barrier

Behavioral barrier

Norm and Perform

The creative organization

• Creative industries, and their organizations have increased in importance

• They are fast-growing economically• They include architecture; arts & antiques: Design,

Performing Arts, Electronic games and media

The creative organization: Toyota

The creative organization: Haier

The creative organization: WordPress

• WordPress is a good example of an entrepreneurial and creative organization …supplying an easy-to-use service for bloggers

• Its growth supports ‘infection’ theories of creativity

The creative organization: Ideo

• IDEO created Apple's first mouse; Microsoft's second mouse, and the Palm V PDA. Other major clients include Procter & Gamble, PepsiCo, and Eli Lilly

The creative culture

• Culture has always developed around creative hotspots of artistic and scientific discovery

• Athens, London, Cambridge(s), Silicon Valley, ‘Madchester’ ..

The creative climate and Intrinsic motivation

• Teresa Amabile proposed a theory of intrinsic motivation.

• A creative climate allows intrinsic motivation to flourish. • ‘The play’s the thing’ (contrary to economic theories).

Creative Clusters*

*Source: Richard Florida

And finally

• When all else fails ..

• there must be other ways..

• there might be better ways

To go more deeply• Journals• Creativity Research Journal• http://www.questia.com/library/jp-creativity-research-• Creativity and Innovation Management

http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/journal.asp?ref=0963-1690&site=1

• Journal of Creative Behavior http://www.creativeeducationfoundation.org/jcb.shtml

• On Line reference sources http://leaderswedeserve.wordpress.com/ explores creativity and creative leadership

• http://www.buffalostate.edu/creativity/pucciogj.xml?username=pucciogj The international center for studies in creativity