1. Chapter 1 Creativity and its Importance in Business
Definitions of creativity
How ideas arise
Importance of creative thinking in business
Paradigm shifts
Characteristics of creative thinking
Acquiring creative skills

2. DEFINITIONS OF CREATIVITY (1)
Creativity is an ability to come up with new and different viewpoints on a subject.
It involves breaking down and restructuring our knowledge about a subject in order to gain new insights into its nature.
Defining creativity is complicated because the concept has many dimensions.

3. DEFINITIONS OF CREATIVITY (2)
Wertheimer…’restructuring our knowledge’
Kelly and Rogers…’understanding how we think’
Maslow…’primary versus secondary’
Rickards…’personal discovery process’
Gilliam…’making new connections’
Amabile…’novel and useful ideas’

4. DEFINITIONS OF CREATIVITY (3)
‘Being creative is seeing the same thing as
everyone else, but thinking of something
different’
Charles Cave

5. INVENTION AND CREATIVITY
Invention is an act of creativity that results in a device, process or technique that is novel enough to produce a significant change in the application of technology.

6. HOW IDEAS ARISE Curious or inquiring.
Generating ideas is not a chance process.
Ideas appear to arise when people are actually looking for them.
It happens to people who are
Curious or inquiring.
Engaged in a search for opportunities, possibilities, answers or inventions.

7. IMPORTANCE OF CREATIVE THINKING
Logical thinking is a series of steps that extend what we know already, rather than being truly new.
The need for creative thinking arises from the inadequacies of logical thinking.
It is a method for producing insights that might not be obtained through conventional or traditional methods of logical thinking.

8. CREATIVE THINKING IN BUSINESS
Increasing number of problems have few or no precedents
Fewer tried and tested ways of approaching them
Creativity is a vital asset for leadership
Business problems are usually open-ended
Planning, organising, leading, controlling

9. PARADIGM SHIFTS
The need for creative thinking often becomes paramount when a paradigm shift occurs or is likely to occur.
A paradigm is a set of rules and regulations that guide our actions when solving problems.
Transport – train, airplane, spaceship

10. CHARACTERISTICS OF CREATIVE THINKING
Intelligence measures do not explain creativity.
Creative thinkers form novel combinations.
Making juxtapositions between dissimilar subjects.
Thinking productively rather than reproductively.

11. PEOPLE WHO EXHIBIT CREATIVE BEHAVIOUR (1)
Challenge the status quo
Confront assumptions
Exhibit curiosity
Like to investigate new possibilities
Take the initiative
Are highly imaginative
Are future oriented

12. PEOPLE WHO EXHIBIT CREATIVE BEHAVIOUR (2)
Tend to think visually
See possibilities
Are not afraid to take risks
Are prepared to make mistakes
Are adaptable to different environments
Are adaptable to changing circumstances
See relationships between seemingly disconnected elements

13. PEOPLE WHO EXHIBIT CREATIVE BEHAVIOUR (3)
Distil unusual ideas down to their underlying principles
Synthesise diverse elements
Are able to spot underlying patterns in events
Are able to cope with paradoxes
Look beyond the first ‘right idea’

14. ACQUIRING CREATIVE SKILLS
Fluency - ability to produce many ideas
Flexibility - ability to produce a varied mix of ideas
Elaboration - ability to add detail, depth, mixtures of viewpoints or perspectives
Originality - uniqueness, novelty, newness