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chapter_12_creativity-1.pptxCREATIVITY
CHAPTER 12
Creativity and its characteristics
Creativity can be defined from the standpoint of a person, a product, or a process
Creativity is something that creative people do, some things or ideas are creative, creativity is a process that produces creative things or ideas
Creativity and its characteristics
Most research examines creativity from the person perspective, trying to find out who is creative by using personality tests or other psychological measures
Creativity varies in degree and is not simply a personality trait that some people have and others do not
In other words, people are not creative in all areas
Creativity and its characteristics
From a teamwork perspective, it is more useful to define creativity in terms of its products and processes than in terms of personality
This shifts the focus from the individual to the team
Dual Nature of Creativity
Creativity is the search for novel and useful ideas as well as the balancing of divergent and convergent thinking
In the generation stage, people or teams use divergent thinking to develop novel ideas, in the application stage, they use convergent thinking to make those ideas useful
Creativity and its characteristics
Something is creative if it is novel and it is appropriate, acceptable, and useful
A creative solution must also effectively solve the problem
Creative solutions often occur to people when they are not thinking about the problem
Ideas need to be combined, modified, and played with to encourage creative alternatives
Individual creativity
People are creative when they have domain-relevant skills, creativity-relevant skills, and appropriate task motivation
Domain-relevant skills are the skills, knowledge, and talent people have in a particular application area (creative in areas in which they are skillful)
Creativity-relevant skills are the appropriate cognitive styles that encourage creativity and knowledge about creativity techniques
Individual creativity
Cognitive styles include the ability to break out of established mental sets, appreciate complexity, suspend judgment, and use broad categories to view issues
Creative techniques are approaches to help people play with ideas and view problems from alternative perspectives
Task motivation includes intrinsic motivation and attitude towards the task
Individual creativity
Extrinsic rewards can hurt creativity in several ways
Being rewarded to perform a task may sometimes reduce the intrinsic motivation for the task
A person may enjoy the creativity of painting, but being paid to paint all day may reduce his or her desire to paint
Communication issues
When someone talks in a group, the listeners are often thinking about what is wrong with what is being said rather than actually listening to the ideas
Individual creativity
When group members are concerned about appearing stupid, outrageous, or inappropriate, their anxiety limits their creativity
Evaluation apprehension hurts creativity
It has a more detrimental impact on people with low skills and low self-confidence
Internal mental sets limit creativity, it is difficult to view a situation from a new perspective
Group creativity-problems
Conformity and domineering members can hurt creativity
When people try to creatively solve a problem as a group, they typically produce fewer ideas than the sum of individuals working alone
Groups may develop negative or critical communication climates that discourage creativity
Interpersonal conflicts in groups may discourage creativity
Groups consume more time than do individuals working alone, making it no faster or more efficient to use groups
Group creativity-problems
Cognitive interference and social inhibitors are the main reasons groups interactions leads to less creativity than when individuals work alone
The disruption of thinking that occurs while one is waiting a turn to speak in a group
During the wait, creative ideas are forgotten, time runs out before the member has a chance to present the idea, and group discussions may drift to irrelevant topics
Social inhibitors relate to anxiety about how others will evaluate one’s ideas
Group creativity
The best-known and most widely used group creativity technique is brainstorming
The four basic rules of brainstorming
Criticisms are strictly forbidden, free thinking and wild notions are encouraged, numerous ideas are sought, combining and building on the ideas of others is good
The primary benefit of brainstorming is separating the generation of ideas from the evaluation of ideas
This reduces criticisms of new ideas and encourages the participation of those who would remain quiet
Group creativity
The chief problem with brainstorming is that group discussions force people to wait their turn
Members must take turns speaking, rather than stating ideas when they first pop up
Group creativity-strengths
Compared to single individuals, groups are able to develop more ideas
The social interaction of working in groups can be rewarding
Groups can create supportive environments that encourage creativity
Diverse groups are more likely than homogeneous groups to develop creative solutions
Groups provide support for the implementation of creative ideas
Group creativity-strengths
One key to encouraging group creativity is dissent
A group with creative conflicts produces ideas that are more creative
Dissent stimulates divergent thinking and encourages the group to view an issue from multiple perspectives
It encourages more original and less conventional thoughts about the issue
These effects occur even when the group does not accept the minority’s opinion as correct
Group creativity-strengths
Diversity in background, training, and perspective increases group creativity
Diverse groups generate more ideas, try out more novel ideas, and view issues from multiple perspectives
Teams that have direct experience (learn by doing) working in an area are more creative than teams with little or indirect experience
Organizational environment and creativity
Organizational leaders claim they want to encourage creativity, their actions often do not match their words
Creativity is required for organizations to adapt to the changing environment, but organizations tend to encourage consistency and stability rather than innovation
Organizations can either encourage or discourage creativity through factors such as management orientation, availability of resources, recognition for risk taking, and a cooperative climate
Application: group creativity techniques
Creativity techniques are useful in all stages of problem solving
The techniques help clarify objectives, define and analyze problems, generate alternative solutions, and prepare for implementation
Application: group creativity techniques
Brainstorming
Besides classic brainstorming, alternatives include procedures that force team members to combine the ideas of others, use of pictures to comment on ideas, and role-playing alternative perspectives such as viewing the problem from the perspective of historic or fictional characters
Application: group creativity techniques
To start a brainstorming session, the team leader clearly states the purpose or issues to be discussed and reviews the guidelines for brainstorming
Brainstorming session should be 20-30 minutes in length
The leader acts primarily as facilitator and recorder
After ideas have been generated, the leader helps the group prioritize the list into a manageable size for further consideration
Application: group creativity techniques
During the brainstorming session, all team members should try to suggest as many ideas as possible
Every idea is accepted by the team and written down by the recorder
No one is allowed to criticize ideas (it is up to the leader to ensure that no criticisms occur)
Application: group creativity techniques
Nominal Group Technique
Each participant spends 20-30 minutes writing down ideas
After this stage has been completed, the ideas are listed for all participants to see, and the group is able to ask clarifying questions about the ideas
Brainwriting
Members write down an idea on a sheet of paper, pass the paper to the person on the right, the next person is required to write a new idea that builds on previous ideas. This cycle is repeated until either time is up or the team has exhausted all ideas
Application: group creativity techniques
A problem with creativity activities such as brainstorming is that they generate many possible options and no easy way of selecting the best one
Multiple voting- team reviews the alternatives generated by the brainstorming session and combines items that seem similar. Each team member then selects two to five alternatives that he or she would like to support. When all team members have completed their selections, the votes are tallied and items that received zero to one vote are removed.
Application: group creativity techniques
The alternatives that have been selected are discussed, and the team considers new ways of combining or synthesizing alternatives
These steps are repeated until only a few options remain from which the team can select, at which stage the team may use consensus to select the final alternative
