A LESSON ON CREATIVITY

A 3 Part Presentation

1. The Roadblocks 2. How to Improve Creativity 3. What to do with Creativity

For Your Information… Melissa Stroklund: “Creativity can be

defined as a process of developing and expressing novel ideas that are likely to be useful. It involves looking at organizational practices in different ways, communicating these ideas to coworkers, and producing an agreement among all parties while maintaining the ability to use the ideas in the organization”

FYI... Teresa Amabile agrees: “A product or

response will be judged as creative to the extent that it is both a novel and appropriate, useful, correct or valuable response to the task at hand.”

What prevents creativity?

Thinking habits and personality types Poor team functioning Organizational culture

What Prevents cont… Too many closed questions Time pressures Lack of a clear purpose or focus

Question Time! Question #1: What prevents your

creativity?

Question #2: Do you tend towards any of the preventative behaviors?

How to Improve Creativity Environment Getting Focused Finding the Best Method Following Others And more

Environment

Tactile stimulation Music Food Use activity Change of locale

Getting focused

Warm Up Set a goal Don’t stop

Focus cont…

Allow more time Adapt, modify, steal Save the evaluation and conversation

Focus cont…

Remember the rules No wrong ideas Focus on quantity not quality Don’t stop to explain or evaluate Hitchhike on other ideas No wrong ideas

Prominent Thinkers’ Input

John Baldoni’s

Tin Tan Bee’s

Olivier Toubia’s

Baldoni Make the purpose clear and consistent- and

exciting Open up channels and include more than the

usual suspects Understand roadblocks and confront them

Bee Repetition of similar ideas can

actually have results

Toubia Incentives can stimulate creativity

and promote results

Better Methods

Freewheeling Round Robin Slips or private brainstorming

Methods cont…

Hybrid Small Groups 6 Thinking Hats

6 Thinking Hats Yellow:

Think positive Green:

Be creative Blue:

Take control

6 Thinking Hats cont… Black:

Be realistic and avoid blindsides Red:

Create room for feelings White

Analyze

Follow the Example of others

Preparation Incubation Inspiration Evaluation

Other Approaches

Look at the problem in different ways Invite other opinions Make novel combinations Make thoughts visible Think in opposites

Question Time Question #3: Which of the rules would

help you most?

Questions cont… Question #4: Is there any principle not

mentioned that you feel is important?

Questions cont… Question #5: Have you ever experienced

an environment like those described? Did it increase creativity?

Questions cont… Question #6: What is your favorite hat? Question #7: What hat should you allow

more room for?

Now What! Innovation

The 6 Gets of Innovation

6 Gets

Get aligned What are we trying to accomplish?

Get clarified What are the expected results?

Get organized What are our steps?

The 6 Gets cont… Get help

What do we need? Get focused

When can we do this? Get over them

What about my idea?

Question Time Question #8: Which step of innovation is

easy for you?

Question Time Question #9: Which step is hard?

Recap 1. The Roadblocks 2. How to Improve Creativity 3. What to do with Creativity