Creativity Process

By
Dr. Vijay Kr Khurana

What is Creativity?
Do not go where a path may lead, go instead where there is
no path and leave a trail Ralph Waldo Emerson.

Creativity / Creative Thinking / Inventive Thinking is
thinking up new things.
According to Oxford English Dictionary Creativity
means - to use / involve ones own thought or imagination
to create something new as work of art, an invention.
Many definitions of Creativity .

What is Creativity?
According to Boden (1998), there are three main types of
creativity, involving different ways of generating the
novel ideas:
a) The combinational creativity that involves new
combinations of familiar ideas.
b) The exploratory creativity that involves the
generation of new ideas by the exploration of structured
concepts.
c) The transformational creativity that involves the
transformation of some dimension of the structure, so
that new structures can be generated.

What is Creativity?
According to Porter, Creativity has following five elements:
Fluency Fluency means the ability to provide ideas in
volumes. It means having lots of ideas, but the ideas may
not be necessarily unusual. Example: ??
Flexibility- Flexiblity means the ability to convert
familiar concepts into new shapes or jump from old
concepts to new ones. Example: ??
Originality- Originality means the ability to create
unusual ideas. It must lead to something novel or unique.
What is Creativity?
Porter, contd:
Awareness- Imagination to perceive connections &
possibilities beyond obvious.
Drive or Motivation - to think up new ideas
Few other elements of Creativity are:
Value or appropriateness or usefulness - It should have
some value according to some external criteria. It should
have some useful application.
Capable of being reduced to practice It must be more
than just an idea and feasible of being reduced into
prcatice

Features of Creativity
Creativity is not the product but the process
Creativity involves both conscious and subconscious
thinking
Creative thinking can be stimulated at individual as well
as group level.
Creative thinking can be both systematic and
unsystematic.
Creativity is about thinking something new and
whenever this new idea is implemented it brings change.
Features of Creativity
Creativity is not a one-time / isolated activity. Creativity
is somewhat regular activity. Chance / accidental
discovery of new idea does not mean creativity.
Creativity requires high degree of awareness.
Creativity involves pattern breaking.
Creative thinking involves seeking answers to questions
or problems. Open-ended questions are very helpful for
idea generation as these elicit a wide range of answers.
Some of these open ended questions are:
'Why' questions to discover the roots of the
problem
'How' questions to discover different routes to
significant improvement

Role of Creativity in
Organizational Growth
Generation of ideas for new technologies
Generation of ideas for improvement in Product / Service
Design like
for more value addition
for simplification,
for adding more features,
for standardization
for ergonomic considerations (enhancing human
convenience in use)
for improving product reliabilty
for increasing product life cycle

Role of Creativity in
Organizational Growth
Generation of ideas for improvement in Process Design
like
for smooth flow of materials
for increasing ease in manufacturing
for reducing work-in-process inventories
for reducing wastages
for improving quality
for improving process efficiency
for improving safety

Role of Creativity in
Organizational Growth
Generation of ideas for improvement in machines, tools
etc.
Generation of ideas for converting process waste into
useful byproduct
Generation of ideas for improvement in productive
capacity
Generation of ideas for improvement in Human
Resources

Role of Creativity in
Organizational Growth
Generation of ideas for finding new uses / applications
Geneartion of ideas for new marketing strategies
Generation of ideas for tapping new markets / market
segments
Generation of ideas for solving problems
Genration of ideas for tapping business opportunities


Role of Creativity in
Organizational Growth
Creative thinking in a disciplined manner can
play a real role in innovation. Creativity and
innovation are normally complementary
activities, since creativity generates the basis of
innovation, which, in its development, raises
difficulties that must be solved once again,
with creativityIt is not possible to conceive
innovation without creative ideas, as these are
the starting point. (European Commission
1998).

Features of Creative
people
According to Porter . Creative people possess following
characteristics : high degree of
a). Fluency b). Flexibility
c). Originality d). Awareness &
e). Drive or Motivation
As per Torrance Creative people possess following
characteristics : high degree of
a). Fluency b). Flexibility
c). Originality d). Elaboration adding details
e). Resistance to premature closure of thinking process
f). Abstract summary formulation


Features of Creative
people
Ralph Waldo Emerson, one of Americas greatest
thinkers, was sickly and dull as a child. Rabindranath
Tagore, Bengals bard and Nobel Laureate, was a
miserable misfit at school. Vincent van Gogh, Dutch
impressionist painter, lived a life of abject poverty,
developed schizophrenia and cut off one of his ears for
his beloved. All these people were unique in their own
ways.
If we scan the life and times of most creative people, we
would find a varied range of idiosyncrasies, habits and
tendencies that characterize them.

Features of Creative
people
Misfits: Tagore was not alone in being a misfit at school.
Many children have problems fitting in the school
framework because of their curiosity, their tendency to
question more. Creative misfits can be differentiated
from dull mischief-mongers by their basic liveliness,
awareness and individuality.

Features of Creative
people
Loners: Creative individuals often prefer being alone for
various reasons. They also have a strong tendency of
doing things in their own, slightly offbeat, way. Henry
David Thoreau, an American philosopher and writer
who spent some time in complete solitude, wrote: If a
man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it
is because he hears a different drummer. Let him keep
step with the music which he hears, however measured
or far away


Features of Creative
people
Non-conformists: The innate originality of a creative
persons thoughts and ideas often make him swim
against the current of the world. Shelley was thrown out
of Oxford University for writing a pamphlet on the
necessity of atheism, Copernicus was excommunicated
form the Church for declaring that the earth revolved
round the sun, Bernard Shaw raged against blind
patriotism.

Features of Creative
people
Original and imaginative: There is something golden
within the creative person. The creative spark, when it
files, inevitably shines in the darkness of ignorance.
Creativity is often characterized by original thinking,
sometimes laced with a sense of humor, even when things
are not going well.
Sensitive: Sensitivity fuels the creative power. Of course,
creative people are not always sensitive in the same way,
nor do they react similarly. But the quality of awareness
makes them notice things. The flutter of wings, the sound
of falling raindrops or children playing nothing
escapes the sensitive individual.

Features of Creative
people
Adventurous: A desire to explore the unknown, both
externally and internally within the mind, is also an
important ingredient of creativity. This quality is present
more in creative-minded scientists who leave no stone
unturned in their desire for knowledge. Take the
example of B.P. Sen, a chemical technologist formerly
with Hindustan Lever. According to Sen, one of his best
achievements had been building an unsinkable boat as
a child, using plastic pipes and wooden poles.
Identifying Creative People
How to Measure Creativity? Or What is Creativity
Quotient??
Guilford's Psychometric approach
Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking Torrance's
characteristics can be used to measure creativity

Creative Leaders
Factors Hindering / Blocking Creativity
A variety of factors hinder / block creativity.
National and social conditions like lack of freedom of
expression and movement, fear of dissent and
contradiction, high degree of orthodox, adherence to
traditions with unwillingness to break from customs, etc
adversely affect degree of the creativity in a nation or a
society.
Above is equally true at the organizational / enterprise
level as well. Autocratic functioning of the top
management, lack of respect for individual initiatives,
intolerance for honest mistakes, etc adversely affect
degree of the creativity in the organization / enterprise.

Factors Hindering / Blocking Creativity
At individual level, ones own thought process, attitudes and
approaches become a great barrier to individual creativity
as discussed below:
We become less creative as we gradually learn / become
older.
Between 0 to 5 years of the age we focus on learning
"why"
From 6 years of age to teenage we try to find out "why
not" i.e. why not pursue alternate / diffrent course of
action?
From adulthood to 75 + years of the age - we are
guided by "because" i.e. by our past experiences which
leads to stifling of creativity
Factors Hindering / Blocking
Creativity
Contd
We gradually develop habits / routines in our actions and
thinking i.e. we become stereotyped as we grow older.
Many a times, we are too anxious to get the "right"
answer and in the process we restrict our vision.
Sometimes, we are too willing to reject so called bad"
ideas because of our risk- averse attitude.
Sometimes, we do not have the positive attitude to believe
that a better / alternate solution exists.
As we grow older, we stop exploring discovery questions
-- what if, why not, how etc.

Factors Hindering / Blocking
Creativity
Contd
Many a times, we do not try to seek alternate solutions
because of fear of uncertainty and because we are bound by
routine.
We find it difficult to suspend logic to look for unlikely
solutions.
Our mind captures the inputs according to existing pattern
of perceptions and mind is generally not willing to go
beyond set pattern of perceptions
High IQ of the individual may act as a barrier to creativity,
as the person / thinker may be trapped in a particular way
of thinking.


Creative Process
Creative Process deals with the internal & external
frameworks & processes which facilitate creativity i.e.
generation of new ideas
Many theories / models to explain the creative process
1. Creative Process as Incubation - Incubation is a
temporary break from creative problem solving that can
result in insight. A period of interruption or rest from a
problem may aid creative problem-solving. Incubation
aids creative problem-solving as it enables "forgetting"
of misleading clues. Absence of incubation may lead the
problem solver to become fixated on inappropriate
strategies of solving the problem
Creative Process
2. Creative Process as Convergent and Divergent
thinking - J. P. Guilford - Convergent thinking involves
aiming for a single, correct solution to a problem,
whereas divergent thinking involves creative generation
of multiple answers to a set problem. Through
convergent & divergent thinking, creativity is facilitated.
Creative Process
3. Creative Cognition Approach - Finke et al. -
"Geneplore" model- creativity takes place in two phases:
a generative phase, where an individual constructs
mental representations called pre-inventive structures,
and an exploratory phase where those structures are
used to come up with creative ideas.
Creative Process
4. Conceptual blending - Arthur Koestler introduced the
concept of bisociationthat is creativity arises as a result
of the intersection of two quite different frames of
reference. Thus creativity is facilitated through their
conceptual blending.
Creative Process
5. The Explicit-Implicit Interaction (EII) theory by
Helie & Sun
The EII theory relies mainly on five basic principles,
namely i) The co-existence of and the difference between
explicit and implicit knowledge; ii) The simultaneous
involvement of implicit and explicit processes in most
tasks; iii) The redundant representation of explicit and
implicit knowledge; iv) The integration of the results of
explicit and implicit processing; and v) The iterative (and
possibly bidirectional) processing.
Thus creativity is facilitated through interaction &
blending of explicit and implicit knowledge & processes.
Creative Process
All the above theories / models suggest that
creative process occurs when we apply multi
dimensional perspectives ; which is possible
when we have high degree of awareness and
when we develop cross functional expertise.

Creativity Process
By
Dr. Vijay Kr Khurana