Creativity and creative thinking

Creativity and creative thinking

What I learned about creativity that I didn’t know.

What was new to me about creativity was the fact that it has to include some aspect of relevance. In this case, I thought that creativity does not have to solve the problem at hand. All I thought was that it should just be a unique way of thinking to a problem, which must not arrive at the solution. Apart from that, I also thought that creativity could be borrowed from old ideas and ways of doing things. This is unlike the manner in which it is indicated, whereby it is highlighted that creativity should revolve around what is not expected or what has never been in existence before. To this end, it is, therefore, evident that two lessons were learnt as far as the definition of creativity is concerned, and one of them is that it had to solve the problem at hand. The other thing is that it should be a new concept or phenomenon(Griffiths & Conti, 2019).

The myth that most surprised me and why

The myth that surprised me the most is on the examples of creativity in various industries in the economy. For instance, it is indicated that software companies do not just want employees who can write codes, as they want someone who can dream up new software to fix a problem. This is a myth as software development is basically all about writing codes. Without writing codes, it would be difficult to come up with a software in the first place, and this is the reason as to why this myth surprised me (Cox, 2013).

The other myth that surprised me the most is on the example given of accountants. In this case, it is indicated that many organizations don’t just need accountants who can crunch up numbers. They want people who can think of creative solutions based off what the numbers tell them. The application of creativity in the field of accounting is not a requirement as the accountants basically do their work by following the predetermined accounting standards. Therefore, I am surprised to find out that creativity is needed in the field of accounting as this will lead to malpractices such as errors of omission, commission, just to mention a few, so that the books may balance and that the figures may look good before the investors. Therefore, creativity is not a requirement in accounting.

Why creativity is important to all companies and organizations

One of the reasons as to why creativity is important to companies and organization is based on the fact that the current business environment is ever-changing. The implication of this is that there are always new challenges and new needs to be met day-in-day-out. As a result, there is need to come up with new solutions to respond to the new challenges and needs. An example, in this case, is given of the newspapers whereby it is noted that news is dispersed electronically as opposed to the olden day when news was delivered through newspapers. This can be attributed to increased technological evolution, which has seen automation of almost every process and all aspects.

The other reason as to why creativity is important to firms is the fact that automation has been found to be a desirable aspect all over. For instance, many organizations are looking forward to automate their various processes. This is indicated by the assertion that anything (almost) that can be automated has been automated to soon will be automated, hence cutting down on a lot of process-oriented tasks(Griffiths, & Conti, 2019).

Common approaches to creative thinking

One of the common approaches to creative thinking is divergent thinking. Here is whereby people engage in brainstorming so that they may seek for many alternatives to a problem. For creativity to be enhanced, it is common for the involved parties to engage in critical thinking with the aim of coming up with many options to chose from. It is through coming up with many alternatives that the best solution is arrived at, hence indicating creativity.

The other approach to creative thinking is convergent thinking. This revolves around evaluation (Cox, 2013). In this case, judgment is involved to determine which option is the most appealing and most workable. Evaluation helps in the identification of the pros and cons of the possible options with a view of coming up with the best solution.

Real-world example of a creative change process, the factors that influence change and its impact as a result of the change.

The creative change process flows from the environment to product, through to creative change. The environment, in this case, involves persons and processes. An example, in this case, is the employees at Apple Company Limited engaging in creativity in their manufacturing and designing process so as to meet the needs of the clients by producing the latest iPhone X that supports the latest version of iTunes. In this case, the persons are the employees, the process is the manufacturing and design, while the product is the iPhone X. The creative change, in this case, is the ability of the product to be compatible with the latest version of iTunes.

Conversely, there are various factors that influence change, and these are people, process, product and creative change. The impact of people in change is that they are the drivers of change, and this is through the application of their skills and knowledge. Without the application of skills and knowledge from people, then there would be no impact on change. The process, on the other hand, helps in developing of creative ideas or solutions in the phase of change. Without creativity in ideas, then it would be difficult to get change to fruition. The product is the outcome of change, that is, it is what makes change visible, while the environment are those factors that are outside the individual, which bring about change (Cox, 2013).

References

Cox, D. (2013). Creative thinking for dummies. Hoboken, N.J: Wiley.

Griffiths, C., & Conti, M. (2019). The creative thinking handbook: Your step-by-step guide

to problem-solving in business.