Creativity

Distinguishing creativity and Innovation

Creativity is referred to the act of

producing new and novel ideas.
While innovation is referred to the act of
producing a new and novel idea and the
idea is applied in some specific context.
Creativity is starting point for innovation

Former necessary but not sufficient for

latter.

Three main types of 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.

According to Porter, Creativity has the

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.

Flexibility- Flexiblity means the ability to convert familiar concepts into new
shapes or jump from old concepts to new ones.

Originality- Originality means the ability to create unusual ideas. It must lead
to something novel or unique.

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

Definition of Creativity

Ability to come up with ideas that are new,

surprising and valuable.

Associated fields artificial intelligence, cognitive

psychology, philosophy, arts etc..
Not a special faculty but is an aspect of general
intelligence.
Eg.
Escher's
drawings,
inventions, discoveries etc..

Einstein's

works,

3. The 4-step Creative Process

Preparation
2. Incubation
3. Inspiration
4. Verification
1.

Creativity models

Wallas model

In his book "Art of thought".

4 stages

Preparation->Incubation->Illumination>Verification

Source: http://members.optusnet.com.au/charles57/Creative/Brain/wallis.htm

Wallas Model

Preparation :- we define the problem, need, or

desire, and gather any information the solution
or response needs to account for, and set up
criteria for verifying the solution's
acceptability.

Incubation :- we step back from the problem

and let our minds contemplate and work it
through. Like preparation, incubation can last
minutes, weeks, even years.

Wallace Model..cont.

Illumination :- ideas arise from the mind to provide the

basis of a creative response. These ideas can be pieces of
the whole or the whole itself, i.e, seeing the entire
concept or entity all at once. Unlike the other stages,
illumination is often very brief, involving a tremendous
rush of insights within a few minutes or hours.

Verification :- emerged in illumination satisfies the need

and the criteria defined in the preparation stage. the final
stage, one carries out activities to demonstrate whether
or not what

Factors Hindering / Blocking 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.

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 / different 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

cont..

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

cont

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.

References

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creativity
Boden, M. (1991). The Creative Mind:Myths and
Mechanisms. New York: Basic Books.
Margaret A. Boden. Creativity and Artificial Intelligence.
Artificial Intelligence, 103:347356, 1998.

Creativity Process By Dr. Vijay Kr Khurana