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Creativity & Innovation: From boardroom to classroom
Mathilda Marie Joubert Swan Christian Education Association
Outline • What is creativity & innovation? • Why is it important?
– In business – In education
• How can we enable it? – In business (Balancing innovation and operation) – In education (Where we teach, what we teach and
how we teach)
• Reflection: Lessons learnt from the boardroom and classroom
Invention Exercise • Work in groups of 3 • In your threes identify who is A,B & C • Each write down secretly the name of an object • A & B share their objects with the group and then
work with C to loosely combine the objects or their key characteristics to create a new object or product
• At the given signal take C’s object and loosely combine it with the new object to create a second new object or product
• Use all the time to develop or improve your invention – e.g. a name or slogan for your invention
• Your new invention can be illegal, immoral, impossible or totally absurd
Creativity is not...
• Only the arts • Always the arts • Only for the few (creative geniuses) • Freedom without purpose or
discipline
Creativity is …
Creativity is … • A skill, not a talent • A process, not only a product • Involves imagination, originality and value (at historic,
relative or individual level) • Can involve doing different things and doing things
differently • Is purposeful (creativity versus eccentricity) • Is a rigorous enabling device • Can be learnt, developed and nurtured • Requires practice to get better • Helps develop flexibility of mind • Can be encouraged or stifled by educators • Innovation – the application of creative thinking
Questions
• How important do you think creativity is to your school/organisation?
• How good do you think you are at it?
Does innovation matter?
• Synectics Innovation survey – 80% of companies consider innovation
important
– 4% rate their organisation superior at it
Excellence in innovation: the prizes
Stars Spectators
Annual sales increase 10.8% 5.7%
Annual profit increase 51% 15%
% having market share
increase 59% 27%
Shifting Sands
• All the knowledge available in the world today will represent only 1% of the available knowledge by 2020.
• A third of the careers that our current students will have don’t exist yet.
• Young people will have to shift careers 3-7 times in their life
• Who will create these opportunities if young people cannot think for themselves?
(Kruger)
Changing world The only certainty our young
people will have is uncertainty
The only thing we can predictably prepare them for
is unpredictability.
Creativity can empower young people to invent the future they want,
rather than having to just accept the one they get.
Innovation world
Rules Speculate Experiment
Problem solve Known
solutions
Routines
Yes/No Develop solutions
Balancing the Cycling Worlds
(Copyright Synectics)
Operational world
“The paradox about innovation is that in order to be really creative and turn your creativity into innovative new products, services and offers, you need a system to be able to manage that creativity. Without structure you simply have the kind of sporadic bright ideas which, at best may yield fruit, but at worst may actually rock your organisation because you have no means of dealing with the internal changes that those new creative ideas demand.”
(Claire Hewitt)
Excellence in innovation: some ingredients
Stars Spectators
Productive/innovative meetings 25% 2% Have CPS process 83% 35% Mission mentions innovation 59% 26% Rewards for creativity/innovation 75% 36% Specific budget for innovation 49% 21%
Spend more than competitors on
R&D 35% 12%
(Synectics research)
The ‘Creatives’
• All people have creative abilities, but some have developed these skills further (‘creatives’)
• You don’t have to be weird to be creative • There are conservative and radical creatives • Conservative creatives are often not noticed • Radical creatives can be difficult to manage
since they think differently • We call them creative mavericks
Managing Creative Mavericks
• Decision: do we want/need to cope with them?
• Do we have the mechanisms to cope? • Can we recognise, reward and
motivate them? • What are the consequences of not
doing so?
Unilever: Why does it matter?
• $40 billion international consumer products company
• By mid 1990’s the company had become a sprawling global organisation – 300,000 employees – 1,600 product brands – Little synergy, high costs – Reducing operating profits, margins and share
price • In 1999 Unilever launched its ‘Path to growth
initiative’ to turn things around
Unilever • Goals of the 5-year program were:
– Reduce the number of brands by 75% (to +/- 400) – Focus R&D on the brands that matter – Shut down 100 out of 250 manufacturing sites – Streamline business processes – Exit under-performing businesses
• Workshops were conducted all over the globe and in every function, to encourage teamwork, to train and tap the creativity of employees, to find inventive ways to reach those goals and simplify the business
• Since 1999 operating margins at the slimmed down Unilever have jumped nearly 60%, even though revenues have fallen 6%
Embedding Creativity in Education
What
Where
How
Sustainable Creativity
• Emotional climate or culture
• Teaching style or pedagogy • Curriculum
content
• Physical environment
Creative Climate (Synectics)
Energy for ideas or creativity
Energy required for emotional survival
Negative climate
Positive climate
(Copyright Synectics)
Total energy of individual or group
Discounting Game
• Divide in pairs • One person talks about a topic he/she
feels passionate about • The other person tries to discount the
speaker through verbal, tonal and non-verbal discounts
• Swap roles • How did it feel?
Engaging through Connections • Divide into two sub groups (A and B) • Group A: List some topics or concepts that we
teach from any subjects • Group B: List some things that young people
are interested in, e.g. hobbies, films, TV shows, etc.
• Now create connections between the top one of each list, then the second of each list, etc. to plan a new learning activity
• Do as many as you can in the time allowed • How can we empower students to make such
connections?
Creative Teaching and Learning • Teaching creatively (adult creativity) • Teaching for creativity (child creativity)
leads to
• Learning for creativity
(NACCCE, 1999)
Creative Teaching and Learning
• Teaching creatively (adult creativity) • Teaching for creativity (child creativity)
leads to
• Learning for creativity
Who does the original thinking?
Vincent Nolan
Creativity is like charity – it begins at home (or should). The world is full of people who have lots of creative ideas for others to implement. People who are prepared to take the risk of doing something new themselves are in much shorter supply!
What else can we do to make creativity & innovation sustainable in our schools and organisations?
Any Questions?
Thank you
Mathilda Marie Joubert Education Consultant Swan Christian Education Association eMail: [email protected]