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Essay about Creativity and Innovation

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Introduction

Meaning of creativity, meaning of innovation, relation between innovation and creativity, theoretical study, thinking styles, stages of creative thinking.

Preparation: This stage includes focusing on the problem, understanding it, and measuring the dimension and severity of the issue.
Incubation: At this stage, people start to ponder over the problem in their subconscious minds.
Intimation: There is a hunching towards the idea that the solution to the problem is on its way.
Illumination: At this stage, there is a realization that a solution to the problem is found.
Verification: This is the final stage of the process where people begin to delve deep into the pragmatism, suitability, and effectiveness of the idea.

Six thinking hats

WHITE (information): It includes collecting the information and processing it to find facts, details, and information gaps. Thus, the process is information and data collection and finding facts so that appropriate solutions can be given.
RED (emotions): This part includes the guts, hunches, intuitions, and feelings. These cannot be justified by facts or explanation but it is the unavoidable inner voice that plays important role in people’s perspective towards a problem and its proposed solution.
BLACK (judgment): his hat represents stern judgment and thinking about the possible negative outcomes or problems that can arise. It includes caution and critical thinking about what could go wrong. It is a negative view but logical and rational which in the future may help in solving the problem.
YELLOW (optimism): On the contrary, the yellow hat is representative of positive views and optimistic thinking. It means looking at the brighter side and hoping for a positive outcome.
GREEN (creativity): Green hat represents new ideas and changes in surroundings through creative thinking. Here possibilities are analyzed from different points of view, alternatives are searched and ideas under process are modified and improved. It means thinking out of the box.
BLUE (management): It means looking at the bigger picture. It encompasses thinking about the topic, what needs to be done, when it should be done, when it is possible to complete the task etc. so it means laying the plan and managing and organizing the information. This hat is worn by the leader or manager of the project.

Creative thinking styles

Analytical skills: It is ostensible that to find a suitable solution, one needs to carefully examine things clearly. This entails the ability to understand the situation, data, problem, or lesson and analyze it to find minute details.
Open-minded nature: For being creative, it is necessary that thoughts are not bound by any restrictions. One needs to have an unbiased approach toward things. This widens the area of thinking and results in the flow of more ideas.
Organization skills: Although creative people are widely known for being unorganized and mismanaged, it is necessary on their part to be organized so that they can present their ideas in a structured and systematic manner.
Problem-solving ability: Creative ideas should be commercially useful and practical. For this purpose, individuals should have problem-solving skills. Issues can arise in any organization for which employees should be capable to think creatively to solve the problem and serve as an asset to the company.
Communication skills: Once the idea is generated, it is very important that they are conveyed in a proper manner to the people who are responsible for executing the idea and giving it a practical shape. Thus, for innovation to take place efficiently, it is requisite on the part of the person proposing the idea, to have a hold on the written and oral skills of the language.

Developing creativity

One can learn a lot by making something new every day. People should devote time to writing some articles, drawing mind maps while learning something, cooking some stories in their mind while going to bed, trying to experiment with new recipes for food or mixing some dishes to create new, etc.
Choosing friends and peers wisely can help a lot in developing a circle where one can express and learn a lot. Through healthy discussions comes knowledge about the experiences of others and great ideas for a great future.
There are some brain-strengthening games that help in nurturing the mind to boost creativity. Playing games that work as an exercise for the brain can prove fruitful in the same regard.
Take breaks from work, and study to relax your mind. It works like fuel for the tired and exhausted mind and helps it to relax. Creativity does not come from tired minds which are incapable of thinking something new and original.
Additionally, taking risks can help in creating a creative mind. By indulging in risks, one experiences new problems which instigate the mind to find solutions. This process helps in keeping the mind active.
On top of it, breathing techniques and exercises which increase blood flow towards the brain also aid in keeping the brain active and generating new ideas.

Conclusion.

Encouraging creativity and innovation in an organization.

Creating a team environment where employees can work in collaboration with each other can help them in getting acquainted with the work of other departments. This will not only increase the knowledge of employees but also allow ideas and inspiration to flow from different directions. Thus, a fun and humorous environment are necessary for team building and creativity.
Providing flexibility in the workplace can help in keeping the employees relaxed and stress-free. This process includes adding little flexibility in working hours or sometimes tolerating late comers. As a result of it, work-life balance for the employees is created which keeps people anxiety-free and thus, helps in the inflow of creative ideas.
The color and structure of the building can also help in triggering creativity and an innovative approach. By exploring interesting and creative office designs, employees may find new ideas in their business projects.
Organizations should support their employees in taking risks and should tolerate mistakes. Although by risk-taking techniques, the team will indulge in problems, this will help them find solutions to these problems.
Encourage creative activities like article writing, poetry, painting, etc. which helps in generating new ideas and creative thoughts by keeping the mind busy and energetic. Additionally, through these ideas, there might come ideas for marketing, mind mapping, graphics, etc. which can prove helpful in the growth of the business.
Apart from these, employees can be motivated by rewarding the employees who bring creative ideas. This reward can be in form of bonuses, awards, paid leaves and so on which would encourage the employees to be more creative.
Most important, recognizing new ideas, solutions, and suggestions is necessary. If someone comes with something original or unique then managers or superiors should pay attention to those suggestions. It will encourage employees to speak up about what is there in their minds. Some of these ideas may prove to be productive and viable from a business perspective.

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Essay on Creativity And Innovation

Students are often asked to write an essay on Creativity And Innovation in their schools and colleges. And if you’re also looking for the same, we have created 100-word, 250-word, and 500-word essays on the topic.

Let’s take a look…

100 Words Essay on Creativity And Innovation

What is creativity.

Creativity is like using your imagination to think of new ideas. It’s like when you draw a picture from your mind without copying someone else. Everyone has creativity inside them, and it can be used in art, writing stories, or even coming up with games.

What is Innovation?

Innovation is when you take a creative idea and make it real. It’s like when someone thought of making phones that can fit in your pocket. They used their creativity to think of the idea and then worked hard to create it.

Why They Matter

Creativity and innovation are important because they make life better and more fun. They help us solve problems and give us new things like video games, medicine, and ways to travel. Without them, life would be very boring.

250 Words Essay on Creativity And Innovation

Creativity is like a magic key that opens the door to new ideas. It is when you use your imagination to think of something that no one else has thought of before. Think of it as playing with your thoughts to make something unique. It’s like when you draw a picture from your mind or come up with a story that is completely your own.

Why Are They Important?

Creativity and innovation are very important because they make our world more interesting and better. Without them, we would still be living like people did a long time ago, without computers, smartphones, or even electricity. They help solve problems, like finding ways to make sick people better or making cars that don’t pollute the air.

How to Be Creative and Innovative

Anyone can be creative and innovative. You start by asking questions and being curious about everything around you. Then, you try to think of different ways to answer those questions or solve problems. Remember, it’s okay to make mistakes because they help you learn and come up with even better ideas.

In conclusion, creativity is thinking up new things, and innovation is doing new things. They are like best friends that help us make the world an exciting and better place to live.

500 Words Essay on Creativity And Innovation

Understanding creativity and innovation.

Creativity is like a muscle in your brain that lets you think of new and different ideas. It’s when you use your imagination to come up with something that no one else has thought of before. For example, when you draw a picture from your mind or invent a new game to play with your friends, you’re being creative.

Innovation is taking those creative ideas and making them real. It’s when you take a new idea and use it to make something better or solve a problem. Like when someone thought of putting wheels on suitcases, that was an innovation. It made traveling much easier because people didn’t have to carry heavy bags anymore.

Why Creativity is Important

Schools and teachers love creativity because it helps students learn better. When you’re creative in school, you might remember things more easily because you learned them in a fun way.

How Innovation Changes Lives

Innovation is a big deal because it can change how we live. Long ago, people had to wash clothes by hand, which took a lot of time. But then someone invented the washing machine, and it changed everyone’s lives. Now we have more time to do other things because machines can wash our clothes.

The Connection Between Creativity and Innovation

Creativity and innovation are like best friends. Creativity comes up with the idea, and innovation makes it happen. You need both to create something truly special. Think of your favorite toy or game. First, someone had to dream it up. That’s creativity. Then, they had to figure out how to make it. That’s innovation.

Encouraging Creativity and Innovation

Everyone can be creative and innovative, even you! It’s like planting a seed. If you give it water and sunlight, it will grow. If you practice being creative, like by drawing, writing, or building things, your brain gets better at coming up with new ideas.

Creativity and innovation are superpowers that everyone has. They help us make the world a better and more fun place. By being creative, you can come up with amazing ideas. And with innovation, you can turn those ideas into real things that can help people and make everyday life easier. So keep being curious, ask questions, and never stop creating!

That’s it! I hope the essay helped you.

If you’re looking for more, here are essays on other interesting topics:

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107 Innovation Essay Topic Ideas & Examples

Inside This Article

Innovation is a key driver of progress and growth in any field, whether it be in science, technology, business, or the arts. As such, it is a topic that is frequently explored in essays and research papers. If you are struggling to come up with a unique and interesting topic for your innovation essay, look no further. Here are 107 innovation essay topic ideas and examples to inspire your next writing project.

The impact of artificial intelligence on innovation in the workplace

How blockchain technology is revolutionizing the financial industry

The role of innovation in addressing climate change

The future of transportation: innovations in electric vehicles

The ethical implications of gene editing technologies

How virtual reality is transforming the way we experience entertainment

The rise of telemedicine: innovations in healthcare delivery

The role of innovation in addressing food insecurity

The impact of 3D printing on manufacturing processes

How the sharing economy is driving innovation in the service industry

The potential of renewable energy technologies to revolutionize the energy sector

Innovations in cybersecurity: protecting data in the digital age

The role of innovation in creating sustainable cities

The impact of social media on innovation and creativity

How biotechnology is revolutionizing healthcare

The future of work: innovations in remote collaboration

The role of innovation in addressing global poverty

The impact of autonomous vehicles on transportation systems

Innovations in education technology: transforming the classroom experience

The ethical implications of artificial intelligence and machine learning

The role of innovation in disaster response and recovery

The impact of big data on innovation in business

Innovations in renewable energy storage

The future of space exploration: innovations in propulsion technology

The role of innovation in addressing mental health challenges

How the Internet of Things is transforming everyday life

The ethics of gene editing and designer babies

The impact of virtual reality on mental health treatment

Innovations in sustainable agriculture

The role of innovation in addressing income inequality

The potential of quantum computing to revolutionize technology

Innovations in personalized medicine

The impact of biometrics and facial recognition technology on privacy

The future of sustainable fashion: innovations in eco-friendly materials

The role of innovation in promoting social justice

How drones are revolutionizing industries from agriculture to delivery services

The ethics of autonomous weapons systems

Innovations in clean water technology

The impact of 5G technology on communication networks

The role of innovation in addressing mental health stigma

The potential of regenerative medicine to revolutionize healthcare

Innovations in prosthetics and assistive technologies

The impact of virtual reality on empathy and social change

The future of smart cities: innovations in urban planning

The role of innovation in addressing gender equality

How bioengineering is revolutionizing the production of food and consumer goods

The ethics of artificial intelligence and decision-making

Innovations in disaster-resistant infrastructure

The impact of social media on political innovation

The role of innovation in promoting diversity and inclusion in the workplace

The potential of nanotechnology to revolutionize materials science

Innovations in sustainable transportation

The impact of biotechnology on personalized nutrition

The future of wearable technology: innovations in health monitoring

The role of innovation in addressing plastic pollution

How blockchain technology is transforming supply chain management

The ethics of autonomous vehicles and driverless cars

Innovations in sustainable architecture and design

The impact of artificial intelligence on creative industries

The role of innovation in promoting mental health awareness

The potential of gene editing technologies to cure genetic diseases

Innovations in renewable energy generation

The future of smart homes: innovations in home automation

The role of innovation in promoting environmental sustainability

How bioengineering is revolutionizing the production of consumer goods

The ethics of artificial intelligence and privacy

Innovations in disaster-resistant building materials

The impact of social media on political activism

These 107 innovation essay topic ideas and examples cover a wide range of disciplines and industries, providing you with plenty of inspiration for your next writing project. Whether you are interested in exploring the ethical implications of emerging technologies, the role of innovation in addressing social challenges, or the potential of cutting-edge scientific advancements, there is sure to be a topic on this list that piques your interest. Happy writing!

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The Importance of Creativity in Business

Professionals using creativity in business

25 Jan 2022

When you think of creativity, job titles such as graphic designer or marketer may come to mind. Yet, creativity and innovation are important across all industries because business challenges require inventive solutions.

Here’s an overview of creativity’s importance in business, how it pairs with design thinking, and how to encourage it in the workplace.

Access your free e-book today.

Why Is Creativity Important?

Creativity serves several purposes. It not only combats stagnation but facilitates growth and innovation. Here's why creativity is important in business.

Graphic showing four benefits of creativity in business

1. It Accompanies Innovation

For something to be innovative, there are two requirements: It must be novel and useful. While creativity is crucial to generate ideas that are both unique and original, they’re not always inherently useful. Innovative solutions can’t exist, however, without a component of creativity.

2. It Increases Productivity

Creativity gives you the space to work smarter instead of harder, which can increase productivity and combat stagnation in the workplace. Routine and structure are incredibly important but shouldn’t be implemented at the expense of improvement and growth. When a creative and innovative environment is established, a business’s productivity level can spike upward.

3. It Allows for Adaptability

Sometimes events—both internal and external—can disrupt an organization’s structure. For example, the COVID-19 pandemic has dramatically changed how the present-day business world functions . In such instances, imaginative thinking and innovation are critical to maintaining business operations.

Creatively approaching challenges requires adaptability but doesn’t always necessitate significantly adjusting your business model. For example, you might develop a new product or service or slightly modify the structure of your operations to improve efficiency. Big problems don’t always require big solutions, so don’t reject an idea because it doesn’t match a problem’s scale.

Change is inevitable in the business world, and creative solutions are vital to adapting to it.

4. It’s Necessary for Growth

One of the main hindrances to a business’s growth is cognitive fixedness, or the idea that there’s only one way to interpret or approach a situation or challenge.

Cognitive fixedness is an easy trap to fall into, as it can be tempting to approach every situation similar to how you have in the past. But every situation is different.

If a business’s leaders don’t take the time to clearly understand the circumstances they face, encourage creative thinking, and act on findings, their company can stagnate—one of the biggest barriers to growth.

5. It’s an In-Demand Skill

Creativity and innovation are skills commonly sought after in top industries, including health care and manufacturing. This is largely because every industry has complex challenges that require creative solutions.

Chart showing top industries hiring professionals with design thinking skills

Learning skills such as design thinking and creative problem-solving can help job seekers set themselves apart when applying to roles.

Creativity and Design Thinking

While creativity is highly important in business, it’s an abstract process that works best with a concrete structure. This is where design thinking comes into play.

Design thinking —a concept gaining popularity in the business world—is a solutions-based process that ventures between the concrete and abstract. Creativity and innovation are key to the design thinking process.

In Harvard Business School Dean Srikant Datar’s course Design Thinking and Innovation , the process is broken down into four iterative stages:

Four stages pf design thinking: clarify, ideate, develop, and implement

Clarify: In this stage, observation and empathy are critical. Observations can be either concrete and based on metrics and facts or abstract and gleaned from understanding and empathy. The goal during this stage is to gain an understanding of the situation and individuals impacted.
Ideate: The ideation stage is abstract and involves creativity and idea generation. Creativity is a major focus, as the ideation phase provides the freedom to brainstorm and think through solutions.
Develop: The development phase is a concrete stage that involves experimentation and trial and error. Critiquing and prototyping are important because the ideas generated from the ideation stage are formed into testable solutions.
Implement: The fourth stage is solution implementation. This involves communicating the solution’s value and overcoming preexisting biases.

The value of design thinking is that it connects creativity and routine structure by encouraging using both the operational and innovation worlds. But what are these worlds, and how do they interact?

The Operational World

The operational world is the concrete, structured side of business. This world focuses on improving key metrics and achieving results. Those results are typically achieved through routine, structure, and decision-making.

The operational world has many analytical tools needed for the functional side of business, but not the innovative side. Furthermore, creativity and curiosity are typically valued less than in the innovation world. Employees who initiate unsuccessful, risky endeavors are more likely to be reprimanded than promoted.

The Innovation World

The innovation world requires curiosity, speculation, creativity, and experimentation. This world is important for a company’s growth and can bring about the aforementioned benefits of creativity in business.

This world focuses more on open-ended thinking and exploration rather than a company’s functional side. Although risky endeavors are encouraged, there’s little structure to ensure a business runs efficiently and successfully.

Connecting the Two Worlds

Although the operational world and innovation world are equally important to a business’s success, they’re separate . Business leaders must be ambidextrous when navigating between them and provide environments for each to flourish.

Creativity should be encouraged and innovation fostered, but never at the expense of a business’s functionality. The design thinking process is an excellent way to leverage both worlds and provides an environment for each to succeed.

Since the design thinking process moves between the concrete and abstract, it navigates the tension between operations and innovation. Remember: The operational world is the implementation of the innovative world, and innovation can often be inspired by observations from the operational world.

Design Thinking and Innovation | Uncover creative solutions to your business problems | Learn More

How to Encourage Creativity and Innovation

If you want to facilitate an innovative workplace, here are seven tips for encouraging creativity.

1. Don’t Be Afraid to Take Risks

Creativity often entails moving past your comfort zone. While you don't want to take risks that could potentially cripple your business, risk-taking is a necessary ingredient of innovation and growth. Therefore, providing an environment where it’s encouraged can be highly beneficial.

2. Don’t Punish Failure

Provide your team with the freedom to innovate without fear of reprisal if their ideas don’t work. Some of the best innovations in history were the product of many failures. View failure as an opportunity to learn and improve for the future rather than defeat.

3. Provide the Resources Necessary to Innovate

While it can be tempting to simply tell your team to innovate, creativity is more than just a state of mind. If your colleagues have the opportunity to be creative, you need to provide the resources to promote innovation. Whether that entails a financial investment, tools, or training materials, it’s in your best interest to invest in your team to produce innovative results.

4. Don’t Try to Measure Results Too Quickly

If an innovative idea doesn’t produce desirable results within a few months, you may consider discarding it entirely. Doing so could result in a lost opportunity because some ideas take longer to yield positive outcomes.

Patience is an important element of creativity, so don't try to measure results too quickly. Give your team the freedom to improve and experiment without the pressure of strict time constraints.

5. Maintain an Open Mind

One of the most important components of an environment that fosters creativity and innovation is keeping an open mind. Innovation requires constantly working against your biases. Continually ask questions, be open to the answers you receive, and don't require fully conceptualized ideas before proceeding with innovation.

6. Foster Collaboration

Collaborative environments are vital for innovation. When teams work together in pursuit of a common goal, innovation flourishes. To achieve this, ensure everyone has a voice. One way to do so is by hosting brainstorming sessions where each member contributes and shares ideas.

7. Encourage Diversity

Diversity fosters creativity and combats groupthink, as each individual brings a unique outlook to the table. Consider forming teams with members from different cultural backgrounds who haven’t previously worked together. Getting people to step outside their comfort zones is an effective way to encourage innovation.

Which HBS Online Entrepreneurship and Innovation Course is Right for You? | Download Your Free Flowchart

Learning to Be Creative in Business

Creativity and innovation are immensely important skills whether you’re a job seeker, employer, or aspiring entrepreneur.

Want to learn more about design thinking? Start by finding fellow professionals willing to discuss and debate solutions using its framework. Take advantage of these interactions to consider how you can best leverage design thinking and devise different approaches to business challenges.

This exposure to real-world scenarios is crucial to deciding whether learning about design thinking is right for you. Another option is to take an online course to learn about design thinking with like-minded peers.

If you’re ready to take your innovation skills to the next level, explore our online course Design Thinking and Innovation , one of our online entrepreneurship and innovation courses. If you aren't sure which course is the right fit, download our free course flowchart to determine which best aligns with your goals.

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4.2 Creativity, Innovation, and Invention: How They Differ

Learning objectives.

By the end of this section, you will be able to:

Distinguish between creativity, innovation, and invention
Explain the difference between pioneering and incremental innovation, and which processes are best suited to each

One of the key requirements for entrepreneurial success is your ability to develop and offer something unique to the marketplace. Over time, entrepreneurship has become associated with creativity , the ability to develop something original, particularly an idea or a representation of an idea. Innovation requires creativity, but innovation is more specifically the application of creativity. Innovation is the manifestation of creativity into a usable product or service. In the entrepreneurial context, innovation is any new idea, process, or product, or a change to an existing product or process that adds value to that existing product or service.

How is an invention different from an innovation? All inventions contain innovations, but not every innovation rises to the level of a unique invention. For our purposes, an invention is a truly novel product, service, or process. It will be based on previous ideas and products, but it is such a leap that it is not considered an addition to or a variant of an existing product but something unique. Table 4.2 highlights the differences between these three concepts.

Concept	Description
Creativity	ability to develop something original, particularly an idea or a representation of an idea, with an element of aesthetic flair
Innovation	change that adds value to an existing product or service
Invention	truly novel product, service, or process that, though based on ideas and products that have come before, represents a leap, a creation truly novel and different

One way we can consider these three concepts is to relate them to design thinking. Design thinking is a method to focus the design and development decisions of a product on the needs of the customer, typically involving an empathy-driven process to define complex problems and create solutions that address those problems. Complexity is key to design thinking. Straightforward problems that can be solved with enough money and force do not require much design thinking. Creative design thinking and planning are about finding new solutions for problems with several tricky variables in play. Designing products for human beings, who are complex and sometimes unpredictable, requires design thinking.

Airbnb has become a widely used service all over the world. That has not always been the case, however. In 2009, the company was near failure. The founders were struggling to find a reason for the lack of interest in their properties until they realized that their listings needed professional, high-quality photographs rather than simple cell-phone photos. Using a design thinking approach, the founders traveled to the properties with a rented camera to take some new photographs. As a result of this experiment, weekly revenue doubled. This approach could not be sustainable in the long term, but it generated the outcome the founders needed to better understand the problem. This creative approach to solving a complex problem proved to be a major turning point for the company. 7

People who are adept at design thinking are creative, innovative, and inventive as they strive to tackle different types of problems. Consider Divya Nag , a millennial biotech and medical device innovation leader, who launched a business after she discovered a creative way to prolong the life of human cells in Petri dishes. Nag’s stem-cell research background and her entrepreneurial experience with her medical investment firm made her a popular choice when Apple hired her to run two programs dedicated to developing health-related apps, a position she reached before turning twenty-four years old. 8

Creativity, innovation, inventiveness, and entrepreneurship can be tightly linked. It is possible for one person to model all these traits to some degree. Additionally, you can develop your creativity skills, sense of innovation, and inventiveness in a variety of ways. In this section, we’ll discuss each of the key terms and how they relate to the entrepreneurial spirit.

Entrepreneurial creativity and artistic creativity are not so different. You can find inspiration in your favorite books, songs, and paintings, and you also can take inspiration from existing products and services. You can find creative inspiration in nature, in conversations with other creative minds, and through formal ideation exercises, for example, brainstorming. Ideation is the purposeful process of opening up your mind to new trains of thought that branch out in all directions from a stated purpose or problem. Brainstorming , the generation of ideas in an environment free of judgment or dissension with the goal of creating solutions, is just one of dozens of methods for coming up with new ideas. 9

You can benefit from setting aside time for ideation. Reserving time to let your mind roam freely as you think about an issue or problem from multiple directions is a necessary component of the process. Ideation takes time and a deliberate effort to move beyond your habitual thought patterns. If you consciously set aside time for creativity, you will broaden your mental horizons and allow yourself to change and grow. 10

Entrepreneurs work with two types of thinking. Linear thinking —sometimes called vertical thinking —involves a logical, step-by-step process. In contrast, creative thinking is more often lateral thinking , free and open thinking in which established patterns of logical thought are purposefully ignored or even challenged. You can ignore logic; anything becomes possible. Linear thinking is crucial in turning your idea into a business. Lateral thinking will allow you to use your creativity to solve problems that arise. Figure 4.5 summarizes linear and lateral thinking.

It is certainly possible for you to be an entrepreneur and focus on linear thinking. Many viable business ventures flow logically and directly from existing products and services. However, for various reasons, creativity and lateral thinking are emphasized in many contemporary contexts in the study of entrepreneurship. Some reasons for this are increased global competition, the speed of technological change, and the complexity of trade and communication systems. 11 These factors help explain not just why creativity is emphasized in entrepreneurial circles but also why creativity should be emphasized. Product developers of the twenty-first century are expected to do more than simply push products and innovations a step further down a planned path. Newer generations of entrepreneurs are expected to be path breakers in new products, services, and processes.

Examples of creativity are all around us. They come in the forms of fine art and writing, or in graffiti and viral videos, or in new products, services, ideas, and processes. In practice, creativity is incredibly broad. It is all around us whenever or wherever people strive to solve a problem, large or small, practical or impractical.

We previously defined innovation as a change that adds value to an existing product or service. According to the management thinker and author Peter Drucker , the key point about innovation is that it is a response to both changes within markets and changes from outside markets. For Drucker, classical entrepreneurship psychology highlights the purposeful nature of innovation. 12 Business firms and other organizations can plan to innovate by applying either lateral or linear thinking methods, or both. In other words, not all innovation is purely creative. If a firm wishes to innovate a current product, what will likely matter more to that firm is the success of the innovation rather than the level of creativity involved. Drucker summarized the sources of innovation into seven categories, as outlined in Table 4.3 . Firms and individuals can innovate by seeking out and developing changes within markets or by focusing on and cultivating creativity. Firms and individuals should be on the lookout for opportunities to innovate. 13

Source	Description
The unexpected	Looking for new opportunities in the market; unexpected product performance; unexpected new products as examples
The incongruity	Discrepancies between what you think should be and what is reality
Process need	Weaknesses in the organization, product, or service
Changes in industry/market	New regulations; new technologies
Demographics	Understanding needs and wants of target markets
Changes in perceptions	Changes in perceptions of life events and values
New knowledge	New technologies; advancements in thinking; new research

One innovation that demonstrates several of Drucker’s sources is the use of cashier kiosks in fast-food restaurants. McDonald’s was one of the first to launch these self-serve kiosks. Historically, the company has focused on operational efficiencies (doing more/better with less). In response to changes in the market, changes in demographics, and process need, McDonald’s incorporated self-serve cashier stations into their stores. These kiosks address the need of younger generations to interact more with technology and gives customers faster service in most cases. 15

Another leading expert on innovation, Tony Ulwick , focuses on understanding how the customer will judge or evaluate the quality and value of the product. The product development process should be based on the metrics that customers use to judge products, so that innovation can address those metrics and develop the best product for meeting customers’ needs when it hits the market. This process is very similar to Drucker’s contention that innovation comes as a response to changes within and outside of the market. Ulwick insists that focusing on the customer should begin early in the development process. 16

Disruptive innovation is a process that significantly affects the market by making a product or service more affordable and/or accessible, so that it will be available to a much larger audience. Clay Christensen of Harvard University coined this term in the 1990s to emphasize the process nature of innovation. For Christensen, the innovative component is not the actual product or service, but the process that makes that product more available to a larger population of users. He has since published a good deal on the topic of disruptive innovation, focusing on small players in a market. Christensen theorizes that a disruptive innovation from a smaller company can threaten an existing larger business by offering the market new and improved solutions. The smaller company causes the disruption when it captures some of the market share from the larger organization. 17 , 18 One example of a disruptive innovation is Uber and its impact on the taxicab industry. Uber’s innovative service, which targets customers who might otherwise take a cab, has shaped the industry as whole by offering an alternative that some deem superior to the typical cab ride.

One key to innovation within a given market space is to look for pain points, particularly in existing products that fail to work as well as users expect them to. A pain point is a problem that people have with a product or service that might be addressed by creating a modified version that solves the problem more efficiently. 19 For example, you might be interested in whether a local retail store carries a specific item without actually going there to check. Most retailers now have a feature on their websites that allows you to determine whether the product (and often how many units) is available at a specific store. This eliminates the need to go to the location only to find that they are out of your favorite product. Once a pain point is identified in a firm’s own product or in a competitor’s product, the firm can bring creativity to bear in finding and testing solutions that sidestep or eliminate the pain, making the innovation marketable. This is one example of an incremental innovation , an innovation that modifies an existing product or service. 20

In contrast, a pioneering innovation is one based on a new technology, a new advancement in the field, and/or an advancement in a related field that leads to the development of a new product. 21 Firms offering similar products and services can undertake pioneering innovations, but pioneering the new product requires opening up new market space and taking major risks.

Entrepreneur In Action

Pioneering innovation in the personal care industry.

In his ninth-grade biology class, Benjamin Stern came up with an idea to change the personal care industry. He envisioned personal cleaning products (soap, shampoo, etc.) that would contain no harsh chemicals or sulfates, and would also produce no plastic waste from empty bottles. He developed Nohbo Drops , single-use personal cleansing products with water-soluble packaging. Stern was able to borrow money from family and friends, and use some of his college fund to hire a chemist to develop the product. He then appeared on Shark Tank with his innovation in 2016 and secured the backing of investor Mark Cuban . Stern assembled a research team to perfect the product and obtained a patent ( Figure 4.6 ). The products are now available via the company website.

Is a pioneering innovation an invention? A firm makes a pioneering innovation when it creates a product or service arising from what it has done before. Pokémon GO is a great example of pioneering innovation. Nintendo was struggling to keep pace with other gaming-related companies. The company, in keeping with its core business of video games, came up with a new direction for the gaming industry. Pokémon GO is known worldwide and is one of the most successful mobile games launched. 22 It takes creativity to explore a new direction, but not every pioneering innovation creates a distinctly new product or capability for consumers and clients.

Entrepreneurs in the process of developing an innovation usually examine the current products and services their firm offers, investigate new technologies and techniques being introduced in the marketplace or in related marketplaces, watch research and development in universities and in other companies, and pursue new developments that are likely to fit one of two conditions: an innovation that likely fits an existing market better than other products or services being offered; or an innovation that fits a market that so far has been underserved.

An example of an incremental innovation is the trash receptacle you find at fast-food restaurants. For many years, trash cans in fast-food locations were placed in boxes behind swinging doors. The trash cans did one job well: They hid the garbage from sight. But they created other problems: Often, the swinging doors would get ketchup and other waste on them, surely a pain point. Newer trash receptacles in fast-food restaurants have open fronts or open tops that enable people to dispose of their trash more neatly. The downside for restaurants is that users can see and possibly smell the food waste, but if the restaurants change the trash bags frequently, as is a good practice anyway, this innovation works relatively well. You might not think twice about this everyday example of an innovation when you eat at a fast-food restaurant, but even small improvements can matter a lot, particularly if the market they serve is vast.

An invention is a leap in capability beyond innovation. Some inventions combine several innovations into something new. Invention certainly requires creativity, but it goes beyond coming up with new ideas, combinations of thought, or variations on a theme. Inventors build. Developing something users and customers view as an invention could be important to some entrepreneurs, because when a new product or service is viewed as unique, it can create new markets. True inventiveness is often recognized in the marketplace, and it can help build a valuable reputation and help establish market position if the company can build a future-oriented corporate narrative around the invention. 23

Besides establishing a new market position, a true invention can have a social and cultural impact. At the social level, a new invention can influence the ways institutions work. For example, the invention of desktop computing put accounting and word processing into the hands of nearly every office worker. The ripple effects spread to the school systems that educate and train the corporate workforce. Not long after the spread of desktop computing, workers were expected to draft reports, run financial projections, and make appealing presentations. Specializations or aspects of specialized jobs—such as typist, bookkeeper, corporate copywriter—became necessary for almost everyone headed for corporate work. Colleges and eventually high schools saw software training as essential for students of almost all skill levels. These additional capabilities added profitability and efficiencies, but they also have increased job requirements for the average professional.

Some of the most successful inventions contain a mix of familiarity and innovation that is difficult to achieve. With this mix, the rate of adoption can be accelerated because of the familiarity with the concept or certain aspects of the product or service. As an example, the “videophone” was a concept that began to be explored as early as the late 1800s. AT&T began extensive work on videophones during the 1920s. However, the invention was not adopted because of a lack of familiarity with the idea of seeing someone on a screen and communicating back and forth. Other factors included societal norms, size of the machine, and cost. It wasn’t until the early 2000s that the invention started to take hold in the marketplace. 24 The concept of a black box is that activities are performed in a somewhat mysterious and ambiguous manner, with a serendipitous set of actions connecting that result in a surprisingly beneficial manner. An example is Febreeze, a chemical combination that binds molecules to eliminate odors. From a black box perspective, the chemical engineers did not intend to create this product, but as they were working on creating another product, someone noticed that the product they were working on removed odors, thus inadvertently creating a successful new product marketed as Febreeze.

What Can You Do?

Did henry ford invent the assembly line.

Very few products or procedures are actually brand-new ideas. Most new products are alterations or new applications of existing products, with some type of twist in design, function, portability, or use. Henry Ford is usually credited with inventing the moving assembly line Figure 4.7 (a) in 1913. However, some 800 years before Henry Ford, wooden ships were mass produced in the northern Italian city of Venice in a system that anticipated the modern assembly line.

Various components (ropes, sails, and so on) were prefabricated in different parts of the Venetian Arsenal, a huge, complex construction site along one of Venice’s canals. The parts were then delivered to specific assembly points Figure 4.7 (b) . After each stage of construction, the ships were floated down the canal to the next assembly area, where the next sets of workers and parts were waiting. Moving the ships down the waterway and assembling them in stages increased speed and efficiency to the point that long before the Industrial Revolution, the Arsenal could produce one fully functional and completely equipped ship per day . The system was so successful that it was used from the thirteenth century to about 1800.

Henry Ford did not invent anything new—he only applied the 800-year-old process of building wooden ships by hand along a moving waterway to making metal cars by hand on a moving conveyor ( Figure 4.7 ).

Opportunities to bring new products and processes to market are in front of us every day. The key is having the ability to recognize them and implement them. Likewise, the people you need to help you be successful may be right in front of you on a regular basis. The key is having the ability to recognize who they are and making connections to them. Just as those ships and cars moved down an assembly line until they were ready to be put into service, start thinking about moving down the “who I know” line so that you will eventually have a successful business in place.

The process of invention is difficult to codify because not all inventions or inventors follow the same path. Often the path can take multiple directions, involve many people besides the inventor, and encompass many restarts. Inventors and their teams develop their own processes along with their own products, and the field in which an inventor works will greatly influence the modes and pace of invention. Elon Musk is famous for founding four different billion-dollar companies. The development processes for PayPal , Solar City , SpaceX , and Tesla differed widely; however, Musk does outline a six-step decision-making process ( Figure 4.8 ):

Ask a question.
Gather as much evidence as possible about it.
Develop axioms based on the evidence and try to assign a probability of truth to each one.
Draw a conclusion in order to determine: Are these axioms correct, are they relevant, do they necessarily lead to this conclusion, and with what probability?
Attempt to disprove the conclusion. Seek refutation from others to further help break your conclusion.
If nobody can invalidate your conclusion, then you’re probably right, but you’re not certainly right.

In other words, the constant underlying Musk’s decision process is the scientific method. 25 The scientific method , most often associated with the natural sciences, outlines the process of discovering an answer to a question or a problem. “The scientific method is a logical organization of steps that scientists use to make deductions about the world around us.” 26 The steps in the scientific method line up quite nicely with Musk’s decision-making process. Applying the scientific method to invention and innovation makes sense. The scientific method involves becoming aware of a problem, collecting data about it by observing and experimenting, and coming up with suggestions on how to solve it.

Economists argue that processes of invention can be explained by economic forces. But this hasn’t always been the case. Prior to 1940, economic theory focused very little on inventions. After World War II, much of the global economy in the developed world needed to be rebuilt. New technologies were developing rapidly, and research and development investment increased. Inventors and economists alike became aware of consumer demand and realized that demand can influence which inventions take off at a given time. 27 However, inventors are always up against an adoption curve. 28

The Rogers Adoption Curve was popularized through the research and publications of the author and scientist Everett Rogers . 29 He first used it to describe how agricultural innovations diffused (or failed to) in a society. It was later applied to all inventions and innovations. This curve illustrates diffusion of an innovation and when certain people will adopt it. First is the question of who adopts inventions and innovations in society: The main groups are innovators, early adopters, early and late-majority adopters, and “laggards” (Rogers’s own term). 30 The innovators are the ones willing to take a risk on a new product, the consumers who want to try it first. The early adopters are consumers who will adopt new inventions with little to no information. Majority adopters will adopt products after being accepted by the majority. And finally, laggards are often not willing to readily adopt change and are the hardest to convince to try a new invention. 31

Rogers’s second way of looking at the concept is from the point of view of the invention itself. A given population partially or completely adopts an invention or rejects it. If an invention is targeted at the wrong population or the wrong population segment, this can dramatically inhibit its chances of being adopted widely. The most critical point of adoption often occurs at the end of the early adoption phase, before the early majority steps in and truly confirms (or not) the diffusion of an invention. This is called the diffusion chasm (though this process is usually called the diffusion of innovations , for our purposes, it applies quite well to new inventions as we define them here).

The diffusion curve depicts a social process in which the value of an invention is perceived (or not) to be worth the cost ( Figure 4.9 ). Early adopters generally pay more than those who wait, but if the invention gives them a perceived practical, social, or cultural advantage, members of the population, the popularity of the invention itself, and marketing can all drive the invention over the diffusion chasm. Once the early majority adopts an innovation (in very large numbers), we can expect the rest of the majority to adopt it. By the time the late majority and the laggards adopt an innovation, the novelty has worn off, but the practical benefits of the innovation can still be felt.

Inventors are constantly trying to cross the diffusion chasm, often with many products at a time. Crossing the diffusion chasm is a nearly constant concern for business-focused or outcomes-focused inventors. Inventors put many of their resources into an invention during the innovation and early adoption stages. Inventions may not turn a profit for investors or the inventors themselves until they are well into the early majority stage of adoption. Some inventors are pleased to work toward general discovery, but most in today’s social and cultural context are working to develop products and services for markets.

One shortcoming of the diffusion of innovations model is that it treats inventions and innovations as though they are finished and complete, though many are not. Not all inventions are finished products ready for market. Iterative development is more common, particularly in fields with high levels of complexity and in service-oriented ventures. In the iterative development process, inventors and innovators continuously engage with potential customers in order to develop their products and their consumer bases at the same time. This model of business learning, also known as the science of customer development, is essential. 32 Business learning involves testing product-market fit and making changes to an innovation or invention many times over until either investment funding runs out or the product succeeds. Perhaps the most accurate way to summarize this process is to note that many inventions are hit-or-miss prospects that get only a few chances to cross the diffusion chasm. When innovators follow the build-measure-learn model (discussed in detail in Launch for Growth to Success ), they try to work their way across the diffusion chasm rather than making a leap of faith.

Work It Out

The safety razor was an innovation over the straight razor. Safety razor blades are small enough to fit inside a capsule, and the location and type of handle was altered to suit the new orientation of handle to blade ( Figure 4.10 ). Most contemporary razors are themselves innovations on the safety razor, whether they have two, three, four, or more blades. The method of changing razor blades has evolved with each innovation on the safety razor, but the designs are functionally similar.

The electric razor is a related invention. It still uses blades to shave hair off the face or body, but the blades are hidden beneath a foil or foils. Hairs poke through the foils when the razor is pressed against the skin, and blades moving in various directions cut the hairs. Although electric razors use blades as do mechanical razors, the new design and the added technology qualified the electric razor as an invention that offered something new in the shaving industry when Jacob Schick won the patent for a shaving machine in 1930. 33 Still other innovations in the shaving genre include gender-specific razors, beard trimmers, and, more recently, online clubs such as Dollar Shave Club and Harry’s Shave Club .

Think about the conceptual difference between innovation and invention. Is the safety razor a pioneering innovation or an incremental one? What makes the electric razor an invention, as we define it here? What makes it stand out as a leap from previous types of razors? Do you think the electric razor is a “sure thing”? Why or why not? Consider the availability of electricity at the time the first electric razors were being made. Why do you think the electric razor made it over the diffusion chasm between early adopters and early majority adopters? Do you think the electric razor was invented iteratively with small changes to the same product in response to customer preferences? Or did it develop in a series of black box inventions, with each one either diffusing or not?

7 “How Design Thinking Transformed Airbnb from Failing Startup to Billion Dollar Business.” First Round Review . n.d. https://firstround.com/review/How-design-thinking-transformed-Airbnb-from-failing-startup-to-billion-dollar-business/
8 “Divya Nag, 26.” Fortune . n.d. http://fortune.com/40-under-40/2017/divya-nag-27/
9 Rikke Dam and Teo Siang. “Introduction to the Essential Ideation Techniques Which Are the Heart of Design Thinking.” Interaction Design Foundation . April 2019. https://www.interaction-design.org/literature/article/introduction-to-the-essential-ideation-techniques-which-are-the-heart-of-design-thinking
10 Dawn Kelly and Terry L. Amburgey. “Organizational Inertia and Momentum: A Dynamic Model of Strategic Change.” Academy of Management Journal 34, no. 3 (1991): 591–612.
11 Ian Fillis and Ruth Rentschler. “The Role of Creativity in Entrepreneurship.” Journal of Enterprising Culture 18, no. 1 (2010): 49–81.
12 P. F. Drucker. Innovation and Entrepreneurship: Practices and Principles . New York: Harper & Row Publishers, 1986.
13 P. F. Drucker. Innovation and Entrepreneurship: Practices and Principles . (New York: Harper & Row Publishers, 1986), 35.
14 P. F. Drucker. Innovation and Entrepreneurship: Practices and Principles . New York: Harper & Row Publishers, 1986.
15 Blake Morgan. “5 Fresh Examples of Customer Service Innovation.” Forbes . July 17, 2017. https://www.forbes.com/sites/blakemorgan/2017/07/17/5-fresh-examples-of-customer-experience-innovation/#3ae5a46e5c18
16 Tony Ulwick. “Reinventing Innovation for 25 Years.” Strategyn . n.d. https://strategyn.com/tony-ulwick/?network=g&matchtype=p&keyword=tony%20ulwick&creative=268244402567&device=c&devicemodel=&placement=&position=1t1&campaignid=1394486829&adgroupid=57939305027&loc_physical_ms=9015694&loc_interest_ms=&gclid=CjwKCAjw29vsBRAuEiwA9s-0B2jD3BYbm-BEiPWHKfd6R6mnW4XCHuhXbX_JhUof76IdXh6joIzlWRoCqJAQAvD_BwE
17 Chris Larson. “Disruptive Innovation Theory: What It Is & 4 Key Concepts.” Harvard Business School . November 15, 2016. https://online.hbs.edu/blog/post/4-keys-to-understanding-clayton-christensens-theory-of-disruptive-innovation
18 Rosamond Hutt. “What Is Disruptive Innovation?” World Economic Forum . June 25, 2016. https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2016/06/what-is-disruptive-innovation/
19 Lloyd Waldo. “What’s a Pain Point? A Guide for Startups.” StartupYard Seed Accelerator . December 1, 2016. https://startupyard.com/whats-pain-point/
20 Abdul Ali, Manohar U. Kalwani, and Dan Kovenock. “Selecting Product Development Projects: Pioneering versus Incremental Innovation Strategies.” Management Science 39, no. 3 (1993): 255–274.
21 Abdul Ali. “Pioneering versus Incremental Innovation: Review and Research Propositions.” Journal of Product Innovation Management 11, no. 1 (1994): 46–61.
22 JV Chamary. “Why ‘Pokémon GO’ Is the World’s Most Important Game.” Forbes . February 10, 2018. https://www.forbes.com/sites/jvchamary/2018/02/10/pokemon-go-science-health-benefits/#2b6f07fd3ab0
23 Morten Thanning Vendelø. “Narrating Corporate Reputation: Becoming Legitimate through Storytelling.” International Studies of Management & Organization 28, no. 3 (1998): 120–137.
24 Thomas J. Fitzgerald. “For the Deaf: Communication without the Wait.” The New York Times . December 18, 2003. https://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/18/technology/for-the-deaf-communication-without-the-wait.html
25 Abby Jackson. “Elon Musk Uses This 6-Step Process to Make Decisions.” Business Insider . November 16, 2017. https://www.inc.com/business-insider/how-elon-musk-makes-decisions-rolling-stone.html
26 Joan Whetzel. “Formula for Using the Scientific Method.” Owlcation . February 11, 2017. https://owlcation.com/academia/FormulaForUsingScientificMethod
27 N. Rosenberg. “Science, Invention and Economic Growth.” The Economic Journal 84, no. 333 (1974): 90–108.
28 Everett M. Rogers. Diffusion of Innovations , 5th ed. New York: Simon and Schuster, 2010.
29 John-Pierre Maeli. “The Rogers Adoption Curve & How You Spread New Ideas Throughout Culture.” The Political Informer . May 6, 2016. https://medium.com/the-political-informer/the-rogers-adoption-curve-how-you-spread-new-ideas-throughout-culture-d848462fcd24
30 Everett M. Rogers. Diffusion of Innovations , 5th ed. New York: Simon and Schuster, 2010.
31 Wayne W. LaMorte. “Diffusion of Innovation Theory.” September 9, 2019. http://sphweb.bumc.bu.edu/otlt/MPH-Modules/SB/BehavioralChangeTheories/BehavioralChangeTheories4.html
32 Eric Ries. The Lean Startup: How Today’s Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses . Largo, Maryland: Crown Books, 2011.
33 “Jacob Schick Invents the Electric Razor.” Connecticut History . May 13, 2017. https://connecticuthistory.org/jacob-schick-invents-the-electric-razor/

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Creativity and Innovation in Our World

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A Deeper Understanding of Creativity at Work

BetterUp’s Gabriella Rosen Kellerman and the University of Pennsylvania’s Marty Seligman on finding new paths to good ideas.

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We all know that creativity is the backbone of innovation and, ultimately, business success. But we don’t always think deeply about how creative people get their ideas and the steps we might take to do the same. Gabriella Rosen Kellerman, a physician and chief product and chief innovation officer at BetterUp, and Martin Seligman, a professor of psychology at the University of Pennsylvania, say there are four types of creativity — integration, splitting, figure-ground reversal, and distal thinking — and explain how each shows up at work. Amid startling advances in artificial intelligence, people who hone these skills will set themselves apart. Kellerman and Seligman are the authors of the HBR article “ Cultivating the Four Kinds of Creativity ” and the book Tomorrowmind .

ALISON BEARD: Welcome to the HBR IdeaCast from Harvard Business Review. I’m Alison Beard.

Fears about robots taking over our jobs ebb and flow over time, but with the recent rise of AI tools like DALL·E, which can scrape the internet to create some not bad art and design work, and Chat GPT, which can mimic human writing and even pass medical, bar and business school exams, now everyone seems to be worried. But today’s guests argue that there are a few things artificial intelligence can’t yet replicate, chief among them, human creativity. And they have some advice for how to better cultivate it, in yourself, your team, and your organization.

Gabriella Rosen Kellerman is a physician and chief product officer and chief innovation officer at BetterUp, and Martin Seligman is a professor of psychology at the University of Pennsylvania. They’re co-authors of the new book, Tomorrowmind, and the HBR article, “Cultivating the Four Kinds of Creativity”. Welcome to both of you.

MARTIN SELIGMAN: Hi, Alison.

GABRIELLA ROSEN KELLERMAN: Great to be here, Alison.

ALISON BEARD: Gabriella, let’s start with you. Just for context, why is creativity such an important way for us to set ourselves apart, not just from robots but also from our peers and competitors?

GABRIELLA ROSEN KELLERMAN: So the robot part’s a little bit important to start with. We are seeing the less creative, more rote parts of our job taken over by automation. And that, in our view, is probably a good thing. It means our jobs become more interesting and more human. And part of the overarching climate that this is happening within is changing so rapidly and at such a global scale that the challenges we’re facing are very different than in previous eras. They’re novel, it’s not the same thing recurring in different forms.

They’re unpredictable, they’re uncertain. And so it requires inherently a creative and novel approach because it’s a new problem. Those of us who can rise to the opportunity to see those challenges as times to shine as creatives, as times to put forward our ideas and lean into that native creativity, will thrive in this environment. And part of our work and our hope is to empower people to identify as creatives and to build that muscle.

ALISON BEARD: And Marty, you and Gabriella are both psychologists. What role does creativity play in mental health? Why are these issues that you two think about?

MARTIN SELIGMAN: Well, mental health increasingly depends on creative solutions to personal problems as well as problems at work. And in order for us to be creative in our lives, we need to know something more about what creativity actually is. And the literature on creativity is not very helpful. It basically has told us that creativity is divergent thinking.

I think that’s true, but what Gabriella and I have been after is what kinds of divergent thinking are there? Can you identify the kinds, and then for the problems you have, in your own life, at your corporation, or in what I do, which is science, what kind of creativity, what kind of divergent thinking is going to work best with the problems you’re looking at?

ALISON BEARD: Yeah, and I think that’s useful because we so often think of creative jobs as the people who are in the art department or the editorial department. You think about brainstorming meetings, innovation. But the idea is that you can be creative and you should be creative in any kind of job, right?

GABRIELLA ROSEN KELLERMAN: Yeah, that’s correct. And particularly at the edges of the business, which is often customer service or the front lines of receiving and exchanging paperwork, there’s really important signals happening and really important opportunities to formulate creative solutions to these challenges, which then become opportunities. So the businesses that will succeed are the ones where those folks at the edges are empowered, are creative, and where there’s a fast and easy way of transmitting their innovations to the rest of the business.

ALISON BEARD: So Marty, if we’re going to break down just divergent thinking into more specific kinds of creativity, just quickly walk me through the four types that you’ve outlined.

MARTIN SELIGMAN: If we look at the history of science, there are four huge moves that people make for creative solutions in science. The first is integration, and that’s seeing that things that look very different are really the same. The second is the reverse of that. That’s splitting, and seeing that something that is claimed to be the same is really very different. The third kind, the kind I use most in my life, is figure-ground reversal. And that says that the solution to the problem is not going to be found in the foreground, it’s going to be found in background premises that are wrong. And the fourth kind is distal thinking, and that’s the ability to think about things that are very different from the here and now: different in time, different in space and different in culture.

ALISON BEARD: And I’d love to drill down into how all these different types actually show up in the workplace. So give me an example of integration.

GABRIELLA ROSEN KELLERMAN: So a very famous example of integration from the last couple decades is the iPhone. So originally, maybe 40 years ago, you had some sort of music player on a console, you had a phone hanging on the wall, you had a camera with film that would be dropped off at the drugstore to be developed. Over time, those were all digitized.

And then the integration victory was realizing that once those things were digitized, the acts of storing and processing and then accessing the data through each of those was analogous and could be therefore combined into a single device. And now many of us sitting next to us right now have a phone that’s also a camera and a music player. Lots of integrative thinking victories had to happen to get there, and engineering that followed suit in terms of integrating common systems for these very different use cases.

Marketing is a great example. There’s often marketing challenges where we’re trying to solve for a particular use case or persona of a customer, and we realize that there’s an analogy to what we would’ve thought of as a very different persona, but actually the needs are common. And so the solutions that worked in one arena can then be brought over and applicable and sometimes even more successful for that second persona. We see it in sales, in marketing, really across the board, across the functions.

ALISON BEARD: Okay. Marty, what about splitting? What’s a real world example of that?

MARTIN SELIGMAN: Well, splitting is seeing that things that look like they’re the same are really different. In science, the great precedent for splitting is the table of the elements. Earth, air, fire, and water, those were the Greek elements. And we now have, at last count, 119 splits for that. In medicine it’s been very important to take syndromes that look like they’re the same, in smallpox, for example, small poxes on the face and fever, to divide that into the kind of smallpox that kills you, variola major, and the kind of smallpox that just produces the symptoms but is not deadly. And that’s been crucial to understanding smallpox.

GABRIELLA ROSEN KELLERMAN: I would guess that splitting is one of the creative acts that we are most used to doing at work. Whenever we see product differentiation, so a broad product line that started as one thing and then starts to differentiate into different streams of business, that’s theoretically an act of splitting. It depends, for our definition, depends how that came to be. But if you’re fine-tuning it to different audiences and you’re realizing there’s inherently different value propositions for a single product, that is an act of splitting. And that can happen, by the way, in an R&D team or it can happen in a product marketing team. It can happen with a frontline salesperson who realizes that there’s a different way to position that product. It can also happen on the contracting side. So there’s really a lot of different parts of the value chain within the business where that splitting insight can arise and even be enacted.

ALISON BEARD: Okay. Figure-ground reversal is up next. That strikes me as something that’s quite strategic. Marty, could you give us an example?

MARTIN SELIGMAN: I think the most important discovery in neuroscience of my lifetime was a remarkable figure-ground reversal. Like many people who are interested in what brain circuits light up when you’re doing a specific task, like listening to this podcast for example, how do you find out? Well, there are a thousand studies of the following form to ask what part of the brain lights up when you’re doing an external task. We put people into the donut and we give them a lecture to listen to, anagrams to solve, external problems. But we also run a control group, because you have to contrast it to something. So we ask people, “Oh, just lie there and don’t do anything.”

Well, what showed up was a huge reversal. And that is, if you look at what lights up when you’re listening to this podcast, it’s very noisy. You have to be a really good statistician to pull out what’s going on. But if you look at what lights up when I ask you just to lie there and don’t do anything, it is so regular that we call it the default circuit. And it turns out to be the very same circuit that lights up if I ask you to plan for the future. So it turns out that the creativity circuit, the imagination circuit, was discovered by looking not at what we do when we’re focused on a task, but what we do when we lie there and are asked not to do anything. 50% of the time, you’re planning for the future.

ALISON BEARD: That’s very meta. You learned something about creativity by using figure-ground reversal, which is a type of creativity.

GABRIELLA ROSEN KELLERMAN: We also see figure-ground reversal in industry. These are stories you’ll hear of some sort of tool that was built for internal purposes and then it became the successful product. Slack is a great example of this. Stewart Butterfield started the company Tiny Speck, a video game company, and the engineers developed this messaging system for their own purposes to communicate across the company. It became so successful as a messaging app that of course today we know Slack as a messaging company, and a very successful one at that, rather than as a video game company.

MARTIN SELIGMAN: And let me just add one thing to that, if I may. One of my favorite examples is GPS. And the way GPS came about was in 1958, I think, the Russians launched Sputnik into space and American military wanted to track where it was. And so to do that, they had to look at two different places on earth and zoom in on Sputnik. By doing it to two different places, you could get both the speed and where it was. And then people said, well, how about if we reversed this and we wanted to know where Alison was on earth right now? Well, we’d need two different satellites out in space looking at Alison. And so GPS was a profound figure-ground reversal.

ALISON BEARD: And now we can’t imagine living without it. That’s pretty extraordinary. So finally Gabriella, let’s talk about distal thinking. Is this the kind of creativity that we think about when we’re talking about innovation and entrepreneurship and invention?

GABRIELLA ROSEN KELLERMAN: It’s the kind of thinking we imagine with the lone creative genius who’s able to think of these futures so different from what we have today that it takes a moment just to wrap our head around the words they’re using and the vision they’re painting. That is a type of divergent thinking that is unique to some of us.

ALISON BEARD: And so how do people bridge that gap between the present and the future in a way that others can’t? How do they make other people see what they see?

GABRIELLA ROSEN KELLERMAN: There’s lots of examples over the last hundred years of innovators who were ahead of the market. And subsequently their distal ideas became very successful, but they saw very little of the monetary success because they were too far ahead of it. So we proposed two different strategies to bridge the gap between the distal invention and market which is not yet ready for it. The first one is by accelerating market maturity, doing this through promotions, partnership and focus launches.

So an example of this would be PayPal. When PayPal first came to be, people may recall that the primary use case, or one of the primary use cases was eBay. People weren’t using digital payments broadly, but it was very common to do so on the site eBay. PayPal and eBay formed a strategic partnership and eBay even acquired PayPal. Eventually, PayPal became a broader-based offering with lots more applications as the market caught up. But that was a really successful incubation for PayPal during that 10-15 year period.

The second strategy is what we call backwards innovation. So this is where you have intermediary kind of stepping stone products between where we are today and where you’re trying to get people. Self-driving cars offer a good look at this, where there is technology that would let people take their hands off the wheel more than they’re willing to do today. But the cars that we use, for lots of reasons, don’t have that in place. And one of those reasons is simply consumer readiness.

And so there are these intermediary products that are helping us along the way. Tesla’s a great example of this and they have language for different modalities of hands-off driving that help people get more comfortable with this ultimate vision they have, which still feels funny to us today, of not actually having our hands on the wheel and getting from one place to another.

MARTIN SELIGMAN: I think of distal thinking as particular genius. I’m a verbal thinker, but when I try to understand DNA and Francis Crick’s discovery of the double helix, this notion of a self-replicating double helix is so difficult for me to wrap my mind around. Einstein was a visual thinker. His ability to conceive of time in a visual way is what gave us both special relativity and general relativity. So for me, distal thinking differs from person to person and there are some people who are geniuses at it.

ALISON BEARD: We’ve talked about these hugely successful products and companies and inventions, but part of your premise is that all of us, the non-geniuses, can cultivate all of these types of creativity if it doesn’t come to us naturally?

GABRIELLA ROSEN KELLERMAN: We believe that we can cultivate creativity. There are methods for how to build these different muscles. There’s going to be types within the four that feel more native to some of us than others. And gaining self-awareness of our creative strengths is part of the exercise that we’re proposing, so that we can work on those areas where we’re less strong, but also surround ourselves with thinkers who are complementary so that at the team level, at the organizational level, we’re responding to creative opportunities as robustly as possible.

ALISON BEARD: You talk in the book about creativity hygiene, things that we should all do all the time to boost our muscles, as you say. So what are some of those daily habits that you’d like us to adopt?

GABRIELLA ROSEN KELLERMAN: The idea of creativity hygiene is analogous to sleep hygiene, with the notion that sleep, like creativity, is something we want to be able to do readily, but involves non-conscious processes. And therefore surrounding ourselves with behavioral techniques and contextual cues that will optimize for that is the right approach rather than, for example, telling ourselves, just be creative or just go to sleep. Our brains just don’t quite work like that.

For creativity, we’re proposing a few different threads of “hygiene,” by which we really just mean behavioral shifts. One of them is all about seeking novelty. So how do we feed that default mode network that Marty was talking about with the most rich, divergent materials so that when we are in those acts of association that happen in these very creative parts of our minds, they’re drawing from the richest soil possible?

So things like branching out socially, breaking up our routine, taking a different route to and from work, browsing broadly, whether that’s literally in a bookstore or online. Another important thread of creativity hygiene is dialing in incubation period. Incubation is the period in between really focused work on a particular problem. We’re working on it, but in the background of our conscious minds, and we know that there are activities that interfere with high-quality incubation.

So busy work, messaging, meetings, lots of things that we spend our days at work doing, they interfere with high quality incubation. What’s best for incubation of creative problems is doing just enough. So tasks that require a minimal amount of conscious attention, but still some. You don’t want to just be lying in bed. But taking a walk, gardening, showering, all of these things that you’re sort of on autopilot. This is what leads to the richest daydreaming, the richest incubation and then will result in richer output.

MARTIN SELIGMAN: I’m a great advocate of daydreaming and dreaming. One very interesting property of the default circuit is there seems to be a temporal pattern all day long in which you listen to what I’m saying for about 90 seconds, and then you go inward, the default circuit turns on, and you do roughly what we call daydreaming. But what daydreaming does, it breaks the barriers of time and space and it juxtaposes scenarios that don’t occur in reality.

And the same thing seems to happen in dreaming. So interestingly, all day long our external circuits are turned on, those go for about 90 seconds. And then we daydream, we integrate what we’ve just heard in the last 90 seconds in the external world with what our current concerns are and what our future looks like. So I’m all for encouraging people to daydream and to dream and to take lessons from that.

ALISON BEARD: For a lot of jobs, creativity sometimes feels like something that you have to do on top of your daily rote work, and it might not even be welcomed. So what advice do you have for people in that situation?

GABRIELLA ROSEN KELLERMAN: Part of the work of improving our creative abilities is understanding what do we mean by creativity, and debunking the myth of, again, this lone creative genius with the distal vision. We’re all doing creative things every day, and so understanding what those are and what those look like is part of the first step in building creative self-efficacy.

So for someone who’s feeling burdened by creativity or maybe daunted in the way that you’re describing, Alison, they probably have a low self-belief in their own creative abilities. Creativity, for those who have a higher self-belief, is something that we feel it’s easy for us to access. We’re confident that we can come up with some ideas. Creative self-efficacy is built very effectively through support and observation from influential others.

ALISON BEARD: What can managers do to cultivate different types of creativity on their teams?

GABRIELLA ROSEN KELLERMAN: Managers have a really critical role to play here in building the creative self-efficacy of the individuals on their teams, first and foremost. Managers have a huge influence on whether the people on their teams see themselves as creative and successfully so. It’s important to notice the little things, so little innovations in process, in structure, in response to a customer complaint. Notice them, recognize them, call them out. As you build the creative self-efficacy of the individuals on your team, you increase the quality of the creative output that you’ll see from those individuals.

It’s also important for managers to hold the bar of what is the realm of the possible. So the group that we form in a team will quickly create norms around how big do we want to think about this problem? And if we don’t think big enough about the problem to begin with, then we’re sort of already sunk before we’ve left the gate. So how do you position teams with individuals within them in particular who can broaden that realm, who can lift the ceiling on what people think is acceptable to be introducing into the conversation? So that before we start narrowing and picking a solution, we have the broadest set of ideas on the table to begin with.

ALISON BEARD: What about at the organization level? How can corporate leaders foster a more creative culture that emphasizes and enhances these different types of creativity?

GABRIELLA ROSEN KELLERMAN: Two things. The first is treating everyone as creative. A lot of leadership competency structures today include creativity as part of what they expect out of everyone in the organization. Democratizing that idea, setting that broad expectation, it already goes a huge way toward establishing this idea that everyone has that capability. Everyone can and should and is expected to nurture it within the organization.

The second is all about psychological safety and risk-taking. So cultures that are great at creativity and innovation are able to celebrate risk-taking even when the risk “fails,” even when the innovation is not a success. If it was arrived in the right ways, with great solid thinking and processes, celebrate it. Let everyone know that there’s good that comes from all kinds of innovation and that the outcome isn’t necessarily going to determine how your efforts were judged. Risk-taking is one of the capabilities that’s important in general for success in this world of work. And leaders set a really strong tone around that just by how they respond when people at lower levels of the organization put themselves out there.

ALISON BEARD: Before we go, I want to talk about some of the other essential human skills that you talk about in your book which seem to complement creativity. Marty, you mentioned one of them before, which is perspection. So tell me about that, the research you’ve done on it and how you see it show up in the workplace.

MARTIN SELIGMAN: Well, I think it’s very important to be effectively future-minded. Future-mindedness consists of the range of scenarios that you can generate and your ability to choose among them. So for example, in our work in the United States Army, we were interested in the fact that people gravitate to the most catastrophic interpretation when things go wrong. And so we have an exercise called putting it in perspective in which we ask people first when something goes wrong.

And I’ll give you a military example. You’ve been out on a night march and one member of your troop at midnight hasn’t shown up. Your catastrophic thought is, he’s dead and I am really in trouble. So we have people first to lay out the most catastrophic thinking. Then we have people lay out the best possible consequence. Maybe the batteries are dead in his radio and he’ll be here in five minutes. And then we have people, having contrasted the best to the worst, to talk about the most realistic and to plan for it. The most realistic here is something has gone wrong, he may be injured, and what we need to do is retrace our steps and find him. Putting things in perspective is a great tool for effective future-mindedness.

ALISON BEARD: And what about connection? That’s another chapter in the book that you talk about, and surely that is important to work and creativity, particularly when you’re trying to surround yourself with people who have different types of creative modes than you.

GABRIELLA ROSEN KELLERMAN: Yeah. So every model of wellbeing includes relationships and connection as a pillar of our psychological wellbeing. In the modern workplace, there’s so many barriers to connection because we’re separated in space, because we’re really strangers and we’re in these teams that are constituting and reconstituting over and over again. And yet we still need each other as much as ever for our wellbeing, and for our creative work to be successful, it relies on collaboration.

And now more than ever, companies are focused not on customer satisfaction, not even on customer experience, but customer delight. The bar just keeps getting higher for this level of connection that we’re expected to achieve with our customers, which again comes back to connection. And so for our purposes, the task is how do we overcome these barriers in order to build authentic deep connection and trust and to do so quickly? Because of course, the pace of work today is so fast and we feel this sense of time famine. There’s not enough time in the day. We call this rapid rapport and we introduce a number of techniques for quick trust building across difference.

ALISON BEARD: Thank you both for being here today. I really appreciate it.

GABRIELLA ROSEN KELLERMAN: Thanks so much, Alison.

MARTIN SELIGMAN: Thanks so much.

ALISON BEARD: That’s Gabriella Rosen Kellerman, a physician and executive at BetterUp, and Martin Seligman, psychologist and professor at the University of Pennsylvania. They’re coauthors of the new book Tomorrowmind and the HBR article, “Cultivating the Four Kinds of Creativity.”

We have more episodes and more podcasts to help you manage your team, your organization, and your career. Find them at hbr.org/podcasts or search HBR in Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen.

This episode was produced by Mary Dooe. We get technical help from Rob Eckhardt. Our audio product manager is Ian Fox. And Hannah Bates is our audio production assistant. Thanks for listening to the HBR IdeaCast . We’ll be back with a new episode on Tuesday. I’m Alison Beard.

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Essay Samples on Innovation

What does creativity mean to you.

Creativity, an intricate tapestry of imagination and innovation, holds a unique significance for each individual. It is a concept that transcends the boundaries of convention, sparking curiosity and igniting the flames of inspiration. In this essay, we embark on a journey to unearth the meaning...

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Alexander Bell And His Innovation

Alexander Graham Bell is most well-known for his scientific breakthrough in changing how the world communicates. The invention that changed the course of history is the telephone, which allowed people to speak directly to each other through a device interconnected in a system of wires....

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Technological Innovations And Medical Practice

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Stanford Online

Creativity and innovation management: how to inspire original ideas.

Do you find it difficult to come up with new ideas? Or do you get caught in the same train of thought over and over again?

Perhaps the problem isn’t that you’re not creative 一 you may just be using the wrong methods to brainstorm and ideate.

Creativity and successful innovation tools can help you work through even the toughest of issues. By changing the way that you think about problem-solving, you can reinvent your framework and generate more solutions.

In this short guide, we’ll discuss what it means to practice creativity and innovation management 一 as well as methods that you can use to inspire original ideas for any obstacles that you might encounter.

If you want to learn even more and practice with others, consider taking our Creative and Design Thinking program.

What is creativity and innovation management?

Put simply, creativity and innovation management is the act of balancing creativity and innovation in your workplace.

Fueling creative thinking can be a difficult endeavor, especially in a work environment. Creativity doesn’t always come naturally, and it’s not uncommon for staff to feel stuck at times, especially when there are approaching deadlines and additional stress factors. Solution ideation 一 another term for coming up with a new idea and solutions 一 and managing creativity can be difficult tasks.

That’s where innovation management comes in. Using tools designed to help foster creativity and encourage innovative ideas, the best innovation management techniques can help you solve problems, including those that you’ve been putting off for ages.

A word about creativity and innovation: they may seem like similar concepts, but there is a significant difference between the two due to their focus. Creativity is typically centered around original thought and knowledge, which unleashes potential and is an integral part of idea generation. Innovation, on the other hand, is used to turn the creative idea that you come up with into a viable solution. Hand in hand, they are powerful ways to disrupt and adapt, and to create the next great idea, which is increasingly important in today’s ever-changing world.

How do I brainstorm creative ideas?

If you’re looking to encourage new ideas from your team, try these methods to start:

Rapid ideation: Everyone in a group writes down as many ideas as possible within a set time limit. Brainstormers won’t be able to self-censor as easily with the element of speed. None of these ideas have to be fleshed out or thought through 一 even scraps or fragments are fine. Generating the bad ideas can open the door for good ones. This can be done to get the juices flowing.
Brainstorm using different mediums and settings: Some people find that they can brainstorm better when it’s on colorful sticky notes, and others find that they can get their ideas out better with a whiteboard and a handful of dry-erase markers. Encouraging the creative process collectively in different settings, using various tools. Brainstorm individually and with a group . Learn hands-on brainstorming techniques with Stanford’s Introduction to Design Thinking and Innovation at Work content and find out what works best for your team.
Figure storming: Pick a famous person and try to guess how they would solve the problem that you’re facing. By doing so, you’ll be able to approach your problem from a different perspective.
Starbursting: Identify who, what, when, where and why in regards to the problem. By understanding the problem inside and out, you’ll have a better time finding a solution for it.

How to create an innovation process

So your team has a bunch of new ideas, what’s next? There are a few steps that you can take to build a good problem-solving method and become a master of creativity . The following is an example of an innovation process step-by-step.

Encounter a problem that needs to be resolved.
Define the problem correctly.
Choose a brainstorming activity to spark your creativity.
Gather relevant material and work through it, considering different solutions and approaches that you can take to solve the problem.
Discuss your idea with your teammates to gauge its viability.
Walk away from the problem before returning to it.
Start implementing your idea.

This is just one example of a creativity and innovation process. Practice it with your team to see what drives innovation for you. You can tweak the process, inserting different steps or designing a different process that works better. Design thinking , the experimental-based, solution-process , might work for you and your company. With time you’ll be able to start bringing your idea to fruition quickly and efficiently.

Does innovation start with creativity?

Naturally, innovation cannot happen without creativity.

Only with creative ideas can one truly innovate and implement solutions that work. Coming up with creative innovation is a matter of actively finding this inspiration. Once you’re able to start coming up with creative solutions to your problem, many find that this skill quickly lends itself to leadership roles with ease.

Because of how linked entrepreneurship is with creativity and innovation management, a large number of people who practice design thinking go on to be entrepreneurs. Many students in our online Creativity and Design Program find that there’s a natural transition between it and the Leading People, Culture, and Innovation Program .

The Creativity and Design Thinking Program teaches you how to build a creative practice and grow your creativity via ideation, empathizing, prototyping and seeking inspiration. Logically, what follows is the Innovation and Entrepreneurship Program, which teaches students how to lead using those innovations and collaborative teams. Students bring what they learn in those classes and implement them to drive those innovations as well.

The ability to think, create, and implement creative solutions takes practice. Sharpening the creative potential within your organizational innovation development can be led through implementation processes . Creativity can indeed spark innovation, and innovation can, in turn, motivate entrepreneurship.

Enroll today

You can learn more about concepts like creativity and innovation management by enrolling in our professional education programs. Both our Creativity and Design Thinking Program and our Innovation and Entrepreneurship Program can enhance the way you think about problems and execute meaningful solutions.

For more information about what online courses we have to offer, visit our website today.

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The science behind creativity

Psychologists and neuroscientists are exploring where creativity comes from and how to increase your own

Vol. 53 No. 3 Print version: page 40

Neuropsychology
Creativity and Innovation

young person standing on a rock outcropping with their arms up looking out at mountains in the distance

Paul Seli, PhD, is falling asleep. As he nods off, a sleep-tracking glove called Dormio, developed by scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, detects his nascent sleep state and jars him awake. Pulled back from the brink, he jots down the artistic ideas that came to him during those semilucid moments.

Seli is an assistant professor of psychology and neuroscience at the Duke Institute for Brain Sciences and also an artist. He uses Dormio to tap into the world of hypnagogia, the transitional state that exists at the boundary between wakefulness and sleep. In a mini-experiment, he created a series of paintings inspired by ideas plucked from his hypnagogic state and another series from ideas that came to him during waking hours. Then he asked friends to rate how creative the paintings were, without telling them which were which. They judged the hypnagogic paintings as significantly more creative. “In dream states, we seem to be able to link things together that we normally wouldn’t connect,” Seli said. “It’s like there’s an artist in my brain that I get to know through hypnagogia.”

The experiment is one of many novel—and, yes, creative—ways that psychologists are studying the science of creativity. At an individual level, creativity can lead to personal fulfillment and positive academic and professional outcomes, and even be therapeutic. People take pleasure in creative thoughts, research suggests—even if they don’t think of themselves as especially creative. Beyond those individual benefits, creativity is an endeavor with implications for society, said Jonathan Schooler, PhD, a professor of psychological and brain sciences at the University of California, Santa Barbara. “Creativity is at the core of innovation. We rely on innovation for advancing humanity, as well as for pleasure and entertainment,” he said. “Creativity underlies so much of what humans value.”

In 1950, J. P. Guilford, PhD, then president of APA, laid out his vision for the psychological study of creativity ( American Psychologist , Vol. 5, No. 9, 1950). For half a century, researchers added to the scientific understanding of creativity incrementally, said John Kounios, PhD, an experimental psychologist who studies creativity and insight at Drexel University in Philadelphia. Much of that research focused on the personality traits linked to creativity and the cognitive aspects of the creative process.

But in the 21st century, the field has blossomed thanks to new advances in neuroimaging. “It’s become a tsunami of people studying creativity,” Kounios said. Psychologists and neuroscientists are uncovering new details about what it means to be creative and how to nurture that skill. “Creativity is of incredible real-world value,” Kounios said. “The ultimate goal is to figure out how to enhance it in a systematic way.”

Creativity in the brain

What, exactly, is creativity? The standard definition used by researchers characterizes creative ideas as those that are original and effective, as described by psychologist Mark A. Runco, PhD, director of creativity research and programming at Southern Oregon University ( Creativity Research Journal , Vol. 24, No. 1, 2012). But effectiveness, also called utility, is a slippery concept. Is a poem useful? What makes a sculpture effective? “Most researchers use some form of this definition, but most of us are also dissatisfied with it,” Kounios said.

Runco is working on an updated definition and has considered at least a dozen suggestions from colleagues for new components to consider. One frequently suggested feature is authenticity. “Creativity involves an honest expression,” he said.

Meanwhile, scientists are also struggling with the best way to measure the concept. As a marker of creativity, researchers often measure divergent thinking—the ability to generate a lot of possible solutions to a problem or question. The standard test of divergent thinking came from Guilford himself. Known as the alternate-uses test, the task asks participants to come up with novel uses for a common object such as a brick. But measures of divergent thinking haven’t been found to correlate well with real-world creativity. Does coming up with new uses for a brick imply a person will be good at abstract art or composing music or devising new methods for studying the brain? “It strikes me as using way too broad a brush,” Seli said. “I don’t think we measure creativity in the standard way that people think about creativity. As researchers, we need to be very clear about what we mean.”

One way to do that may be to move away from defining creativity based on a person’s creative output and focus instead on what’s going on in the brain, said Adam Green, PhD, a cognitive neuroscientist at Georgetown University and founder of the Society for the Neuroscience of Creativity . “The standard definition, that creativity is novel and useful, is a description of a product,” he noted. “By looking inward, we can see the process in action and start to identify the characteristics of creative thought. Neuroimaging is helping to shift the focus from creative product to creative process.”

That process seems to involve the coupling of disparate brain regions. Specifically, creativity often involves coordination between the cognitive control network, which is involved in executive functions such as planning and problem-solving, and the default mode network, which is most active during mind-wandering or daydreaming (Beaty, R. E., et al., Cerebral Cortex , Vol. 31, No. 10, 2021). The cooperation of those networks may be a unique feature of creativity, Green said. “These two systems are usually antagonistic. They rarely work together, but creativity seems to be one instance where they do.”

Green has also found evidence that an area called the frontopolar cortex, in the brain’s frontal lobes, is associated with creative thinking. And stimulating the area seems to boost creative abilities. He and his colleagues used transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) to stimulate the frontopolar cortex of participants as they tried to come up with novel analogies. Stimulating the area led participants to make analogies that were more semantically distant from one another—in other words, more creative ( Cerebral Cortex , Vol. 27, No. 4, 2017).

Green’s work suggests that targeting specific areas in the brain, either with neuromodulation or cognitive interventions, could enhance creativity. Yet no one is suggesting that a single brain region, or even a single neural network, is responsible for creative thought. “Creativity is not one system but many different mechanisms that, under ideal circumstances, work together in a seamless way,” Kounios said.

In search of the eureka moment

Creativity looks different from person to person. And even within one brain, there are different routes to a creative spark, Kounios explained. One involves what cognitive scientists call “System 1” (also called “Type 1”) processes: quick, unconscious thoughts—aha moments—that burst into consciousness. A second route involves “System 2” processes: thinking that is slow, deliberate, and conscious. “Creativity can use one or the other or a combination of the two,” he said. “You might use Type 1 thinking to generate ideas and Type 2 to critique and refine them.”

Which pathway a person uses might depend, in part, on their expertise. Kounios and his colleagues used electroencephalography (EEG) to examine what was happening in jazz musicians’ brains as they improvised on the piano. Then skilled jazz instructors rated those improvisations for creativity, and the researchers compared each musician’s most creative compositions. They found that for highly experienced musicians, the mechanisms used to generate creative ideas were largely automatic and unconscious, and they came from the left posterior part of the brain. Less-experienced pianists drew on more analytical, deliberative brain processes in the right frontal region to devise creative melodies, as Kounios and colleagues described in a special issue of NeuroImage on the neuroscience of creativity (Vol. 213, 2020). “It seems there are at least two pathways to get from where you are to a creative idea,” he said.

Coming up with an idea is only one part of the creative process. A painter needs to translate their vision to canvas. An inventor has to tinker with their concept to make a prototype that actually works. Still, the aha moment is an undeniably important component of the creative process. And science is beginning to illuminate those “lightbulb moments.”

Kounios examined the relationship between creative insight and the brain’s reward system by asking participants to solve anagrams in the lab. In people who were highly sensitive to rewards, a creative insight led to a burst of brain activity in the orbitofrontal cortex, the area of the brain that responds to basic pleasures like delicious food or addictive drugs ( NeuroImage , Vol. 214, 2020). That neural reward may explain, from an evolutionary standpoint, why humans seem driven to create, he said. “We seem wired to take pleasure in creative thoughts. There are neural rewards for thinking in a creative fashion, and that may be adaptive for our species.”

The rush you get from an aha moment might also signal that you’re onto something good, Schooler said. He and his colleagues studied these flashes of insight among creative writers and physicists. They surveyed the participants daily for two weeks, asking them to note their creative ideas and when they occurred. Participants reported that about a fifth of the most important ideas of the day happened when they were mind-wandering and not working on a task at hand ( Psychological Science , Vol. 30, No. 3, 2019). “These solutions were more likely to be associated with an aha moment and often overcoming an impasse of some sort,” Schooler said.

Six months later, the participants revisited those ideas and rated them for creative importance. This time, they rated their previous ideas as creative, but less important than they’d initially thought. That suggests that the spark of a eureka moment may not be a reliable clue that an idea has legs. “It seems like the aha experience may be a visceral marker of an important idea. But the aha experience can also inflate the meaningfulness of an idea that doesn’t have merit,” Schooler said. “We have to be careful of false ahas.”

Boosting your creativity

Much of the research in this realm has focused on creativity as a trait. Indeed, some people are naturally more creative than others. Creative individuals are more likely than others to possess the personality trait of openness. “Across different age groups, the best predictor of creativity is openness to new experiences,” said Anna Abraham, PhD, the E. Paul Torrance Professor and director of the Torrance Center for Creativity and Talent Development at the University of Georgia. “Creative people have the kind of curiosity that draws them toward learning new things and experiencing the world in new ways,” she said.

We can’t all be Thomas Edison or Maya Angelou. But creativity is also a state, and anyone can push themselves to be more creative. “Creativity is human capacity, and there’s always room for growth,” Runco said. A tolerant environment is often a necessary ingredient, he added. “Tolerant societies allow individuals to express themselves and explore new things. And as a parent or a teacher, you can model that creativity is valued and be open-minded when your child gives an answer you didn’t expect.”

One way to let your own creativity flow may be by tapping into your untethered mind. Seli is attempting to do so through his studies on hypnagogia. After pilot testing the idea on himself, he’s now working on a study that uses the sleep-tracking glove to explore creativity in a group of Duke undergrads. “In dream states, there seems to be connectivity between disparate ideas. You tend to link things together you normally wouldn’t, and this should lead to novel outcomes,” he said. “Neurally speaking, the idea is to increase connectivity between different areas of the brain.”

You don’t have to be asleep to forge those creative connections. Mind-wandering can also let the ideas flow. “Letting yourself daydream with a purpose, on a regular basis, might allow brain networks that don’t usually cooperate to literally form stronger connections,” Green said.

However, not all types of daydreams will get you there. Schooler found that people who engage in more personally meaningful daydreams (such as fantasizing about a future vacation or career change) report greater artistic achievement and more daily inspiration. People who are prone to fantastical daydreaming (such as inventing alternate realities or imaginary worlds) produced higher-quality creative writing in the lab and reported more daily creative behavior. But daydreams devoted to planning or problem-solving were not associated with creative behaviors ( Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts , Vol. 15, No. 4, 2021).

It’s not just what you think about when you daydream, but where you are when you do it. Some research suggests spending time in nature can enhance creativity. That may be because of the natural world’s ability to restore attention, or perhaps it’s due to the tendency to let your mind wander when you’re in the great outdoors (Williams, K. J. H., et al., Journal of Environmental Psychology , Vol. 59, 2018). “A lot of creative figures go on walks in big, expansive environments. In a large space, your perceptual attention expands and your scope of thought also expands,” Kounios said. “That’s why working in a cubicle is bad for creativity. But working near a window can help.”

Wherever you choose to do it, fostering creativity requires time and effort. “People want the booster shot for creativity. But creativity isn’t something that comes magically. It’s a skill, and as with any new skill, the more you practice, the better you get,” Abraham said. In a not-yet-published study, she found three factors predicted peak originality in teenagers: openness to experience, intelligence, and, importantly, time spent engaged in creative hobbies. That is, taking the time to work on creative pursuits makes a difference. And the same is true for adults, she said. “Carve out time for yourself, figure out the conditions that are conducive to your creativity, and recognize that you need to keep pushing yourself. You won’t get to where you want to go if you don’t try.”

Those efforts can benefit your own sense of creative fulfillment and perhaps lead to rewards on an even grander scale. “I think everyday creativity is the most important kind,” Runco said. “If we can support the creativity of each and every individual, we’ll change the world.”

How to become more creative

1. Put in the work: People often think of creativity as a bolt of inspiration, like a lightbulb clicking on. But being creative in a particular domain—whether in the arts, in your work, or in your day-to-day life—is a skill. Carve out time to learn and practice.

2. Let your mind wander: Experts recommend “daydreaming with purpose.” Make opportunities to let your daydreams flow, while gently nudging them toward the creative challenge at hand. Some research suggests meditation may help people develop the habit of purposeful daydreaming.

3. Practice remote associations: Brainstorm ideas, jotting down whatever thoughts or notions come to you, no matter how wild. You can always edit later.

4. Go outside: Spending time in nature and wide-open spaces can expand your attention, enhance beneficial mind-wandering, and boost creativity.

5. Revisit your creative ideas: Aha moments can give you a high—but that rush might make you overestimate the merit of a creative idea. Don’t be afraid to revisit ideas to critique and tweak them later.

Reflective Essay on Creativity and Innovation

This paper outlines my changing perceptions about creativity, entrepreneurship and innovation, through the journey of the semester.

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Joseph Nadan , Dimis Michaelides

Saheed Adebayo Gbadegeshin

Innovative Thinking: A Comprehensive Guide

Innovative Thinking is driven by challenging the status quo in creativity and solving problems. It is about opening one's mind to new insights. It creates unique solutions to transform businesses and industries. This blog discusses several techniques, benefits, and examples that will help you attain this innovative mindset.

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Innovative Thinking is the driving force behind progress and transformation across all sectors. It involves challenging conventional wisdom, embracing curiosity, and exploring diverse perspectives to generate novel ideas and solutions. By fostering a mindset that welcomes experimentation and values creativity, individuals and organisations can unlock their full potential for innovation.

In this blog, we’ll delve into the essence of Innovative Thinking and how it can be cultivated. We’ll explore real-world examples of groundbreaking innovations that have reshaped industries, from Airbnb’s disruption of the hospitality sector to Tesla’s revolution in automotive technology. Additionally, we’ll recommend inspiring movies and insightful books that can ignite your creative spark and provide valuable lessons on innovation.

Table of Contents

1) What is Innovative Thinking?

2) Strategies to Develop Your Innovative Thinking Skills

3) Examples of Innovative Thinking

4) How to Foster Innovative Thinking in Organisations?

5) Recommended Movies and Books on Innovative Thinking

6) Conclusion

What is Innovative Thinking?

Innovative Thinking is the ability to come up with new ideas, which must be original and different from traditional patterns. This means being unorthodox in one's approach to problem-solving and seeking new ways to solve complex issues.

Innovative Thinking provides benefits for the individual in increased growth of mindset, problem-solving, and adaptability and resiliency. Innovative Thinking unlocks potential for individuals and organisations to grow and achieve business objectives.

The innovative thinker can find new solutions to problems, be they to do with customer needs, sourcing materials, or the right human resources platform. Innovative Thinking enables us to discover solutions that haven't been found before.

What does Innovative Thinking look like? It comes in many forms. We often idealise innovative thinkers as quirky people with boundless curiosity, unruly hair, and a different way of looking at the world. In truth, innovative ideas come from thinkers applying a collection of skills and ways of working that can be understood and learned. This intentional practice is gold in the workplace.

Why is Innovative Thinking So Important?

Gone are the days when a job could be considered permanent or when technology might not replace it. Technology develops so fast that almost every other day sees some new development in the job market. No field, from manual labour to a highly prestigious profession, remains out of the reach of AI and automation. Let's look more closely at how different categories of jobs are affected and at the importance of Innovative Thinking for future job security.

1) Disappearing Manual Jobs

This decline is picking up speed with the increasing use of automation and AI. For example, the trucking industry will soon face a crossroads because autonomous vehicles are going to render that line of work much more efficient and cheaper. Thus, this job is part of the greater trend that involves routine activity automation-automation that takes away jobs from millions of workers worldwide.

2) Professional Jobs at Risk

Even highly regarded professions, like doctors and attorneys, are in jeopardy as technology advances. Medical AI is bound to change the face of health in its development of the capacity to diagnose and administer treatment. Similarly, the leaps in AI technologies are about to revolutionise the legal profession by automating a great chunk of legal work and thus changing the way the law is practised.

3) Threats to Creative Jobs

AI innovations have increasingly affected creative positions, from the writing of newspaper articles to other forms of art. Because AI can create news articles, there is still a lot that must come from humans in the way of idea creation and editing to make sure works are creative and original. Yet other jobs entailing graphic creativity, including graphic design and video production, are not quite good candidates for automation. For this reason, human creativity is still sought after.

4) Job Security Factors

The key to job security exists in those roles that demand a blend of empathy, creativity, and problem-solving. It is all these skill factors that surround Innovative Thinking, which essentially is required for the individual who wants to be at an edge within their competitiveness, as well as for the company intending to prosper within the rapidly changing market.

5) Importance of Innovation

This is underlined by the accelerating speed of technological change. Amazon forced a change upon bookstores, Netflix killed Blockbuster, and the iPhone killed Nokia. Innovation thus seems to be the key to survival and growth. This can be further seen in the list of the world's most valued companies, as the most successful firms of the 21st century could be almost characterised all over by innovation.

Strategies to Develop Your Innovative Thinking Skills

The art of Innovative Thinking lies in the ability to unlock creative solutions. Curiosity, experimentation, and diverse perspectives can be fostered by a mindset that allows the generation of novel ideas and approaches. Let's explore a few effective ways to develop and sharpen your Innovative Thinking.

1) Use the Six Thinking Hats Method

The Six Thinking Hats system, designed by Edward de Bono, requires one to view a problem from many different perspectives. Each "hat" represents a mode of thinking: logical-white hat, emotional-red hat, creative-green hat, cautious-black hat, optimistic-yellow hat, and objective-blue hat.

By switching hats in an orderly fashion, one can examine a variety of angles and arrive at much more comprehensive solutions. It breaks down complex problems and allows for balanced decision-making.

2) Approach Common Tasks Unconventionally

Break the chain of routine regarding everyday tasks. If your day invariably starts with catching up on emails, try starting with something creative like brainstorming or doodling. It gets the brain ticking and opens different pathways for Innovative Thinking.

This gives flexibility to their thinking and maybe brings up unexpected insights when changing their approach in respect to everyday situations.

3) Try the Random Word Technique

In this technique, you are supposed to randomly pick a word and then associate it with your problem by coming up with new ideas. In so doing, sometimes these unexpected connections make for a fresh perspective.

For instance, if you are working on some marketing campaign and the random word happens to be "ocean," then you can let your imagination soar with depth, exploration, or tranquillity. This method helps in lateral thinking and can bring you out of the vicious circle of conventional ways of thinking.

4) Discover New Uses for Everyday Items

Acquire the new challenge in seeking alternative uses for everything surrounding you. Such activity will develop your creative and problem-solving skills much more promptly.

Take a paper clip as an example: besides being used to hold the papers together, it can be transformed into a kind of zipper pull, into a stand for your phone, or even into a tiny sculpture. Having such practice, you will open your eyes before unnoticeable things and will teach yourself how to be resourceful in any situation.

5) Blend Two Distinct Ideas

Mix and match concepts coming from two different areas. Sometimes this process is referred to as "conceptual blending". It can result in innovative solutions. Think about how the combination of a telephone and camera gave birth to completely new ways of capturing and sharing life's moments. You will have the opportunity to develop a very special kind of product or solution with the blending of two different ideas.

6) Brainstorm Abundantly

Whenever you brainstorm, initially, it is better to prefer quantity over quality. Just jot down some ideas, not evaluating them. That would help dig out hidden gems and gain an open-minded attitude toward creativity. The more ideas one can generate, the better the chances of discovering a creative solution.

7) Impose Constraints to Enhance Creativity

Sometimes, constraints can allow creativity to flourish. Impose certain constraints on the project, like a time limit or a budget ceiling. These constraints will have you thinking more resourcefully and looking for new ways of doing something. Constraints can spark creativity since sometimes forcing yourself out of your own box is exactly what you need.

8) Organise and Track Your Ideas

Keep a special notebook or online tool where you jot down ideas. Revisit the list regularly, looking for patterns and inter-relationships between those ideas. In that way, no idea is ever lost, and you can build upon prior ideas. You can come back and evolve ideas over time by tracking them, coming up with even more robust and creative results.

9) Take Breaks Away from Your Workspace

A change of scenery can clear your mind and get the ideas flowing. Take a walk, go to a museum, or just sit in a different space. Sometimes, taking a break is all you need to open space in your mind for creative insights. A shift in perspective can bring forth new ways of considering the problem.

10) Embrace an Experimental Approach

Be willing to try new things, though at risk of failure. View trying as an opportunity to learn. This attitude will lead to continuous improvement and a culture of innovation. You will discover new methodologies and ideas that will be key to your breakthrough innovations through experiments.

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Examples of Innovative Thinking

Innovative Thinking drives progress and transforms industries by fostering creativity and problem-solving. By embracing curiosity and diverse perspectives, individuals and organisations can unlock groundbreaking ideas and solutions. Let’s delve into some real-world examples that showcase the power of Innovative Thinking.

1) Airbnb: The founders of Airbnb changed the hospitality industry by creating a website that would allow individuals to rent their homes or a spare room to travellers. Indeed, it gave a different travelling experience; however, it also gave the homeowner one more means of receiving extra money. This idea of a shared economy really did change things and can help make travel more budget-friendly and customised.

2) Tesla : It was not just making electric cars, but Elon Musk's vision for Tesla had been to bring a revolution in the automobile sector. Tesla's path-breaking stride includes innovation in battery technology, driverless cars, and direct sale to customers. Their commitment to sustainability and state-of-the-art technologies set the benchmark for all others in the industry.

3) Netflix: Netflix started as a subscription-based DVD rental service, shifted to streaming media, and then further shifted to producing original content. This transition also changed the game of how people consume media, not just disrupting the conventional ways of television and film. With data-driven content creation and personalised recommendations, Netflix has managed to always be on the bleeding edge of the entertainment business.

4) Google: From its innovative approach to search algorithms and advertising models to its workplace culture, Google is an original by nature. Innovative projects like Google Maps, Google Earth, and driverless cars-Waymo-demonstrate a commitment to the advancement of technology. The company culture of encouraging employees to invest 20% of their work time in passion projects led to numerous breakthrough innovations.

How to Foster Innovative Thinking in Organisations?

An organisation’s ability to foster Innovative Thinking and problem-solving skills hinges on its openness to employees finding unusual connections between their work and that of others. This begins with hiring practices; without a diverse team, inspiring innovation is challenging.

Embracing diverse backgrounds encourages the combination of disparate ideas, pushing the organisation toward Innovative Thinking. Companies that have historically embraced workforce diversity often enjoy higher levels of creative thinking and innovative ideas. These companies sustain success by continually identifying the best ideas through dedicated practices focused on Innovative Thinking.

Emotions indicate unmet needs, and intuition senses our complex, vague reality. Intuition allows us to unconsciously see patterns that our rational minds might miss. Both emotions and intuition play roles in all stages of mindset, though not always consciously or officially recognised. The more you consciously and mindfully incorporate emotions and intuition into structured decision-making processes, the more often surprising outcomes emerge.

Understanding the complementary nature of emotions and intuition helps managers obtain the right mindset for encouraging innovation. Innovative thinkers generate ideas best when supervisors create an environment designed to foster innovation. This requires deliberate action from those in charge. While we might believe in the spark of inspiration, the creative process demands a particular environment to flourish.

To build an environment that promotes innovative ideas, consider the following:

1) Encourage Collaboration: Create spaces where people from different teams can meet. Ensure your company has a creative operating system willing to leave the status quo behind. Incorporate Innovative Thinking into usual practices and recognise innovative thinkers on your staff.

2) Reward Thinking, Not Just People: Creative thinking is often the first step toward new ideas, even if not immediately profitable. Redefine “failure” and “success” to reflect a dedication to Innovative Thinking.

3) Reward Attempts: A creative mindset won’t thrive in an environment fixated on outdated notions of success. Reward the measured efforts of innovative thinkers to try something new. Encourage more Innovative Thinking without discouraging failure.

Recommended Movies and Books on Innovative Thinking

Exploring movies and books on Innovative Thinking can boost your creativity and provide valuable insights into the minds of great innovators. These recommendations offer a blend of real-world examples and theoretical frameworks to inspire and enhance your ability to think outside the box. Let’s dive into some top picks:

1) Movies

a) The Social Network: This popular film tells the story of the rise of Facebook and shows new ideas and challenges faced by Mark Zuckerberg and his team. It's a very nice example how an idea could be brought onto the global map from a small one.

b) Moneyball: It is a true story of how Innovative Thinking in analytics changed baseball. Gripping to watch, to understand methods applied in unconventional ways to achieve groundbreaking performance.

c) Inception: Although fictional, the philosophy of this movie-great powers of the mind and creativity-challenges viewers to think out-of-the-box and consider the endless possibilities of Innovative Thinking.

2) Books

a) The Innovator's Dilemma by Clayton Christensen: This classic book, now in second edition, looks at why companies that succeed often are not successful at innovating, and conversely how companies can avoid meeting this fate. It is a must-read for any person who wants to understand the dynamics of innovation.

b) Creative Confidence by Tom Kelley and David Kelley: This is by the founders of IDEO. This gives insight into unleashing your creative potential and fostering a culture of innovation.

c) Zero to One by Peter Thiel: The book offers a unique perspective into creating innovative startups, or as his words go, ways of creating the future. Thiel insists on thinking differently and finding unique solutions for any problem.

d) The Lean Startup by Eric Ries: This revolutionary book stands as a guide toward new ways in the development of businesses by emphasising rapid prototyping, validated learning, and iterative product releases. Useful contribution for entrepreneurs and innovators.

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Conclusion

Innovative Thinking is a powerful tool that can drive progress and transform industries. By embracing curiosity, diverse perspectives, and a willingness to experiment, individuals and organisations can unlock groundbreaking ideas and solutions. Whether through real-world examples, inspiring movies, or insightful books, there are countless resources to help you cultivate and enhance your Innovative Thinking skills.

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Frequently Asked Questions

An innovative mindset is a way of thinking that encourages curiosity, creativity, and taking risks. It’s about seeing things differently, thinking outside the box , and being open to change and new ideas to create unique solutions.

Innovative Thinking can be learned. By fostering traits like curiosity, open-mindedness, and resilience, people can become better problem-solvers. Techniques like brainstorming, design thinking, and promoting a culture of experimentation can help build and refine these skills.

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Barriers to Creativity and Innovation Essay

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Background of the study

Purpose of to study, innovation and creativity, barriers to innovation and creativity, review of the barriers under each category as presented, legislation and structural barriers, significance of innovation and creativity, recommended ways to stimulate innovation in institutions, list of references.

Some barriers to innovation and creativity can affect employees considerably. Notably, deprived creativity and inadequate innovation are influencing (negatively) the productivity and expansion of various institutions. Critically, gaining exemplary performance and competitive advantages in business operations requires a high level of innovation.

This is to advance product quality in order to satisfy customer needs adequately. Meeting customer needs entails intelligent understanding of their concerns and designing amicable procedures based on innovative ideals to satisfy the concerned preferences. Indeed, innovation and creativity are fundamental pillars that influence realization of set objectives in diverse institutions.

It is imperative to note that institutions, which perform exemplarily, are driven under innovative and creative ideals. This has contributed in elevating their product quality and service delivery.

Innovation entails the capacity of creating new ventures and production procedures. It sets unique systems of operation that has not been fully exploited to gain competitive advantages. Innovation is achievable through determination and consistent pursuit for knowledge that defines institution’s competitiveness.

As noted, no institution that can leverage its performance without innovation and advancement of products based on creative ideals. Ideally, institutions should develop strong innovative and creative department to drive product growth and eliminate barriers that may hinder commodity development. The department should be operated with determined, intelligent and passionate individuals with requisite capacity of learning new ideals of operation.

They should also be able to carry out detailed research on emerging issues based on quality and the opportunities that are presented by the environment. Organizations that perform better and hold global presence, for example, Toyota Company, develop its products under innovative ideals. The company recognizes that innovation is the key to survival in the current competitive environment.

The company’s management states that innovation is an element that seeks to add value to consumers by delivering products that hold unique but essential features conforming to their specifications. To achieve high standards of innovation, their must be superior communication, training, career development, technology advancement, and performance of research.

Variably, individuals must exhibit positive attitude, perception and eradicate the fear of failure that influences execution of credible concepts (Dhillon, 2009, P, 3). Innovative initiatives are developed through understanding of the current needs and future expectations in terms of product functionality.

Innovators are constantly in pursuit of how well a product can serve its purpose efficiently and effectively. This is guided with available capacity and the needs of consumers. It is clear that innovators are individuals who set realistic, measurable, attainable and specific goals that hold growth orientation.

They are first thinkers (innovators) always keen to provide solutions to complications/problems that might hinder execution of duties in various sectors. Developed nations, for example, US and Japan, are putting more emphasis on innovation as a performance measure. The authorities in the nations asserts that, evident barriers to innovation that includes poor research and lack of resources influences generation of new ideas.

Variably, brainpower, inferior ICT integration, negative attitude, perception and lack of superior communication channels, also hampers production of new commodities and the implementation of new ideas. Proper solution measures should be undertaken to mitigate the complications that hinder innovation.

The nations have developed superior policies with an aim of boosting innovation with the Japanese governing stressing on the kaizen system that presents credible capacities that foster creativity. This study evaluates the barriers that influence innovation and creativity that forms major performance elements in institutions with focus to Toyota and Samsung companies.

This study strives to unveil how innovation and creativity form credible aspects of employee development. It also shows how some barriers can affect the innovation and creativity among employees. The study is conducted to provide essential and insightful information on the barriers that influence effective innovation and creativity in institutions. It is set to equip policymakers with the imperativeness of enhancing innovation and creativity in corporations.

The study also seeks to relay essential information on the barriers that affect innovation to aid formulation of relevant mitigating mechanism. This is set to ensure that individuals or institutions acquire full knowledge on the relevant steps necessary to improve growth and facilitate production of quality items that conforms to customer specifications.

Rationally, managers should develop a strong performance mechanism that encourages innovation. They should provide pertinent incentives and emphasize on research to advance production of unique products (Griffin & Macgaw 2012, p. 10). This is to ensure that, the barriers that hinder effective innovation in institutions are eradicated.

According to economists, institutions should adopt conventional techniques of production that are guided with superior research findings. The findings should give evident gaps, resource capacity and the needs of the stakeholders to facilitate accurate policy formulation. Therefore, this study holds relevance as it seeks to equip individuals with the knowledge on the imperativeness and barriers that hinder realization of innovative ideals.

Creativity and innovation are crucial growth elements that cannot be ignored if sound advancements are to be realized in diverse facets of operations. Quality depends on how well production procedures are designed in institutions. It is achievable through adoption of clear-cut system of operation that embraces the use of modern incentives. This is vital since modern techniques or incentives drives innovation.

The techniques equip individuals with strong intellectual capacity to exploit the opportunities that the environment present and utilize the gaps in formulating unique products (Clarke & George, 2005, P, 42). Indeed, institutions that perform dismally should identify their strengths and weakness appropriately to facilitate deployment of relevant capacity to foster innovation.

Such institutions should develop a special department with the task of developing creative ideas on product development. It is recognizable that innovative ideals are achieved through consistent learning, exploitation of the existing opportunities and integration of technological systems (Clarke & George 2005, p. 44). These elements are crucial in ensuring that new product development is attained.

Barriers to innovation and creativity affect employees in various contexts. Strategic directions on barriers to innovation (2007, p. 23) indicate several barriers that hamper individuals’ creative and innovative capacity in institutions. Barriers to innovation and creativity are separable into numerous categories incorporating societal, psychological, fiscal, technological, integrity, legal as well as workplace barriers.

Factors that are presented under the categories greatly influence performance in institutions. They form the delimiting factors to global growth and industrialization with most scholars asserting that, their impact would affect the realization of aspired global integration. In particular, social and psychological barriers present severe complications that are attributable to deficiency in social integration. Social stability is an element that is crucial in developing individuals self-efficacy (Stern 2004, p. 57)).

It affects individual’s perception on diverse issues that compromise the ability to develop new perspectives and ideas in life. The evident elements under social aspect includes attitude, perception, poor engagement with others and psychological stress. Variably, making assumptions, lack of time, sleep deprivation, fear of failure and being unpractical are elements that hampers realization of creative outcomes.

Economic barriers include inadequate resource availability, inferior economic policies, economic assumptions, and inadequate research execution. These fundamentals influence individual’s capacity to further their innovative ideas since resources are required to propel the noble ideas fronted out of creativity (Courvisanos 2012, p. 97).

Consequently, technological and structural or workplace barriers hinder execution of innovative ideas. The workplace barriers include poor organizational policies that do not give room for innovation, over-reliance on logic and inferior communication channels. Technological barriers include lack of modern IT systems, education, self-identification and poor planning.

Social and Psychological Barriers

In business institutions, attitude is vital in realizing exemplary performance and development of superior mindsets, which are innovative in nature. It is important to understand how these barriers affect employees’ creativity/innovation. Negative attitude at work between employees has been a hindering factor that affects performance in diverse institution, including Toyota Company (Courvisanos 2012, p. 97). Negative attitudes also affect the aspects of innovation and creativity.

Evidently, institutions with a strong passion to good performance and development of creative mindsets should advance the working attitude. This forms a crucial social aspect that brings a sense of identity and confidentiality.

Attitude is the inner feeling that is portrayed outside through actions or mood. Individuals with a negative attitude are described as in industrious persons with limited capacity to be innovative. Innovation requires sound mindset that views things with immense positivity that propels the need for their execution (Litan 2010, p. 32).

However, the capacity to view ideas with absolute positivity and development of sound mindset has been lacking among individuals. This is a massive hindrance to creativity and individuals are developing a pessimistic attitude that views new concepts as impossible ideas that cannot give credible results when implemented (Floyd 1997, p. 185). As noted, managers have an obligation to develop viable programs in institutions under best practice guidelines to facilitate professional execution of activities.

This is to eradicate the negative nature of employees at the workplace to facilitate their creativity. It is critical since attitude is formulated based on how one perceive the organization or himself. Inferiority perceptions and lack of adequate enterprising ability for example, “I am not creative” facilitate the development of a negative attitude that diminishes creative capacity (Trias De Bes & Kotler 2011, p. 23).

Lack of confidence can equally contribute to diminished creativity and innovation. This happens since the concerned individuals will hardly venture into new ideologies. Creative individuals hold immense confidence levels and never ignore any acquired ideology. They are enterprising individuals who never relent due to inferiority issues but, are motivated with the attempts that they make.

In short, poor attitude and development of inferior perception hinders individual’s capacity to effective innovation. Consequently, lack of proper engagement and social integration affects person’s creative capacity. Creative persons are regarded as extroverts who are always willing to learn from others (Lindsay, Perkins & Karanjikar 2009, p. 11).

They are keen listeners and regard everyone as important based on the belief that every individual hold unique talent. They are keen listeners and engage others in discussions where they acquire basic knowledge on diverse issues. These provisions show how the mentioned barriers can create hindrance to employees in respect to creativity and innovations.

They conceptualize information received and deploy independent input guided under professional capacity to come up with a new system or perspective of operation. This has enabled institutions for example, Toyota and Samsung companies to leverage their performance. They operate innovative departments with individuals who are keen to engage diverse stakeholders, including professionals with an aim of getting their response on the best features they would prefer.

They then integrate the features to match modern expectations innovatively (Garud, 1997). Therefore, individuals who seek to leverage their innovative skills should be excellent enterprising and social persons who regard everyone’s ideas. It is imperative to note that poor stakeholder engagement has been a major impediment that affects innovation and creativity in institutions (Pritzker & Runco 1999, P. 54).

Another hindrance to creativity and innovation among employees is the failure and psychological stress. They affect realization of innovative products. Individuals who fear failure or dismal performance are not excellent innovators (Lindsay et al. 2009, p. 11). These elements have been major factors that hamper execution of creative ideas.

Individuals focus on the negative aspect of the innovated projects before execution. Innovators are persons with distinguished credentials who get an idea and implement the concept professionally to evaluate the outcome with limited hesitation. They state that, you cannot know the successful nature of an idea before its implementation and evaluation of the results.

They hold that, innovators are risk-takers and that forms their motivation. The fear of recording losses has hampered creativity in institutions since they focus on the negative aspects of new ideas that have not been in operation.

The institutions should understand that innovation is a concept that facilitates development of a new and unique system of production (Chak-keung, & Wai-Ling 2003, p. 33). They should embrace failure as it forms apart of business operations however, the focus should not be neglected. Consequently, executive stress for example, psychological complications delimits individual’s innovative capability.

Stress-related complications deprives individuals the ability to enterprise effectively, to make conscious decisions, to adopt critical thinking and hinders general engagement. The elements are crucial in ensuring the development of superior ideas that hold the capacity to steer growth. Innovators operate under sound psychological state that fosters their capacity to critical thinking that is relevant in formulation superior ideas.

Imperatively, making assumptions is a detrimental aspect that affects best innovative and creative practices in institutions. Individuals hold back their ideas based on the unwarranted assumptions and inferior perception that their ideas may not hold relevance (Chak-keung, & Wai-Ling 2003, p. 30).

It is advisable for individuals to understand that no one has the right answer to solving human needs; it is the innovators confidentiality and determination that shapes an idea to a lucrative status. Scholars assert that, innovators never make unconscious assumptions that may restrict their thinking.

That is, they hold positive attitude in ensuring that new perspectives of product development are formulated. They never relent on pursuing innovative ideas that are initiated regardless of eminent challenges that they face. United Kingdom Water Industry Research report (UKWIR 2007, p. 3) indicates that the feeling that an [idea is wrong] is a detrimental misconception that individuals should eliminate in their mindset. They should be optimistic and focused to ensure the realization of their dreams.

Clearly, lack of enough time and inadequate sleep hinder innovation in most institutions. These are vital elements that seek to erode the noble gains that have been made in the innovation sector, especially in this century where the need for 24-hour economic operations is becoming real in diverse settings.

Individuals are becoming busier and are failing to strike a viable life balance that is paramount in developing superior ideas. Proper time management, adequate sleep, observation of dietary system and exercise are social practices that individuals must adhere to effectively to enhance innovative credentials. Best practice has it that, innovation requires a high degree of conscious mindset and psychological stability that is achievable through ensuring a balanced lifestyle.

Economic barriers

Economic barriers affect creativity and innovation among employees in numerous ways. Evidently, economic capacity is a central pillar that influences performance in institutions. It facilitates determination of the projects that can be undertaken after cost evaluation to ascertain their sustainability.

It is significant to note that, limitation in terms of resources is hindering development of new products and execution of new ideas (Kong & O’connor 2009, p. 102). This has prompted authorities in various nations to initiate new policies that seek to ensure that new ideas are financed. The policy is to enable provision of requisite support to individuals with lucrative ideas to aid the implementation of the concepts.

According to Henry (2008, p. 206) resource remains a major issue that influence individuals attitude in pursuing creative and innovative concepts since they feel that the implementation of the ideas even if formulated would not be actualized. These economic provisions show how the mentioned barriers can create hindrance to employees in respect to creativity and innovations.

In particular, lack of sufficient resources is hindering research and stakeholder engagement with an aim of getting more knowledge on diverse issues leading to formulation of creative perspectives. This is critical since creativity is to facilitate production of commodities that suits consumers and that satisfies their needs with utmost efficiency. Innovation is set to enhance quality through product development or new product launching that requires monetary and physical resources (Davenport, Leibold & Voelpel 2006, p. 328).

Lack of the requisite resources to propel the execution of the developed idea may render a concept obsolete and thus demoralize participants. Therefore, institutions should develop strong innovation and research departments with a sole purpose to driving new product development through studies on the relevance of the idea. They should also equip the department with relevant resources to ensure advancement of unique concepts that holds the capacity to advance the institutions competitive advantage (Stoneman 2010, p. 14).

Another way through which economic barriers influence creativity and innovation among employees incorporate fiscal hiccups. Economic assumptions restricting individual’s thinking capacity in regard to financial usage in executing innovative ideas have hindered product development in several companies, including Toyota Corporation.

Economists asserts that, assumptions on the expensive nature of executing creative ventures is hampering development of new products that conforms to modern guidelines and the needs of the users (Davenport et al. 2006, p. 328).

They state that institutions are skeptical in creative financing ventures due to fear of making limited results or lose. Managers always put more emphasis on profit maximization with limited expenditure (Carayannis, Varblane & Roolaht 2012, p. 47).

They adopt laid back strategy in the implementation of new concepts that are set to improve products quality. Education and career advancement of employees to facilitate their intellectual capacity also influences innovation in institutions. These provisions show how the mentioned barriers can create hindrance to employees in respect to creativity and innovations.

Education is a vital element that requires formative and cognitive procedures reminiscent to creativity. Education enables individuals to develop a strong innovative capacity that is viable and sustainable. Anything against proper education (education barrier) forms a massive hindrance to creativity and innovation.

It is recommended that institutions should expose their employees to career development programs to enhance their creative power (Biech 1996, p. 23). This element has been ignored by various institutions who feel that career development is an individual affair that is only performed to boost personal growth (Griffin & Macgaw 2012, p. 5).

However, this is a wrong perception since mental and psychological growth that is earned through education aid individual and institutions performance through development of new ideas.

Critically, resource limitation has hindered innovation globally since individuals who are disadvantaged consistently take a laid back strategy that limits idea generation due to the evident notion that “it will not succeed”. These provisions show how the mentioned barriers can create hindrance to employees in respect to creativity and innovations as indicated earlier.

Legislation and structural barriers affect innovation and creativity among employees in numerous ways. For example, apart from social and economic barriers, inferior legislation and infrastructural set-up greatly influence the development of conventional product development concepts.

These complications are referred to as workplace barriers that present internal inconsistencies that are not relevant in steering innovation. Indeed, lack of superior policies that hold the capacity of ensuring effective implementation of new ideas is becoming an impediment that requires timely solution (Griffin & Macgaw 2012, p. 5). Toyota and Samsung companies should develop relevant policies to facilitate realization of set objectives through creative initiatives.

They should commend creative thinkers and motivate them to shape their attitude positively. Critically, institutions are focusing on profit-making with limited recognition to individuals with innovative ideas. This is causing an absolute negative attitude that deteriorates superior performance and new product development (NPD). These legislation and structural provisions show how the mentioned barriers can create hindrance to employees in respect to creativity and innovations.

Indeed, poor communication, planning, and identification of the available strengths constitute structural barriers that delimit individual’s creativity potentials (Owens 2012, p. 3). Lack of superior communication channels in institutions to convey relevant policies on performance influence innovation negatively. This might affect employees considerably.

Communication enables individuals to understand the evident gaps within the production system and customer needs. Such information enables innovators to develop new concepts that are unique in ensuring that the gaps are eliminated (Bundy 2002, p. 230). The effects of inferior communication threatened to paralyze operations in the Toyota Company, especially when its fleet of vehicles was manufactured with a mechanical miss up.

The company attributed the default to insufficient communication on the state of the cars during manufacturing. The miss-up was realized later and prompted the recall of the vehicles for further check-up. Indeed, these barriers hold the capacity of stalling innovation in diverse institutions and general performance (Owens 2012, p. 3). The barriers also threaten the realization of social and economic integration that is aimed at facilitating growth, effectiveness and efficiency.

Critically, managers should view the mentioned barriers with the utmost contempt to ensure formulation of viable guidelines to aid their elimination. Innovation is a vital element, especially in the current century where institutions are seeking to gain global presence and expand their market share.

It provides relevant incentives that enhance marketing of products. To achieve exemplary performance institutions are under obligation to design amicable policies with a strong focus to improve performance (Ruth 2001, p. 66). Therefore, relevant policies and support systems should be put in place to advance research in diverse fields to enable the development of new concepts of product advancement. These legal provisions show how the mentioned barriers can create hindrance to employees in respect to creativity and innovations.

Innovation is a significant element that enhances institutions effectiveness, efficiency, and quality in service delivery. It presents requisite synergies that advance operations at all business units ranging from administration to production sectors in corporations. Evidently, no institution can achieve its objectives without innovation and creative mindsets that hold the capacity of inventing unique ways of product development (Shavinina 2003, p. 29).

It is imperative to note that, achievement of excellent performance requires adoption of conventional practices that are attainable through creative thinking. Firstly, innovation enhances the development of liner organizational structures that ensures effectiveness in service delivery. Innovators in their creative capacity have been contributing in ensuring timely service delivery to consumers by designing viable structures that are sustainable.

The structures are developed to eradicate unwarranted bottlenecks that may hinder communication and wastage of resources (Sternberg 2003, p. 378). It is clear that, several institutions operate with broad organizational structures that hamper quality in service delivery and wastage of resources.

Innovators state that, liner organizational structures are worth adoption by institutions that seek to leverage their performance due to its effectiveness compared to the broader system. Subsequently, innovation enhances marketing of the institutions commodities that help in fostering sales (Shavinina 2003, p. 29).

This is critical since institutions derive their revenue from the returns on services delivered. Innovators execute this noble aspect through designing of superior promotional channels and mode that are effective and sustainable. They apply the evident gaps and untapped mode of communication that are effective to enable conveyance of the products information to cover wider area.

Enhancing the market share is dependent on strategies adopted by the marketing department. The concerned strategies should be economically viable and socially relevant to ensure their holistic acceptance. Toyota company administrators sate that, development of the strategies requires sober and critical thinkers with the capacity to provide reliable and realistic ideas.

The ideas should be developed in cognizance to the overall objectives of the institution. Innovation and creativity also enhances institutional growth and consumer satisfaction (Sorli & Stokić 2009, p. 49). This is vital since consumer satisfaction is the driving force why innovators develop new products and systems of operation.

The developments are undertaken to facilitate production of unique items that matches consumer’s expectations and realization of competitive advantage. Indeed, new product development (NPD) is not achievable with limited creativity. This has been a major factor why institutions are keen to hire creative individuals with the capacity to develop ideas that can help to revolutionize performance through best practices.

According to Mostafa & El-Masry (2008, p. 81), there are several stages in the product development system that must be identified and adhered to adequately. The identification of the stages that includes idea generation to product launching, should be undertaken by creative thinkers who hold immense experience in management systems. This is to ensure that, the process of developing the new products are well executed in a sequential manner.

Managers of institutions, for example, Toyota Company state that new product development is a costly affair that requires superior planning and implementation by innovative individuals. The innovators would assist in understanding the processes involved in steering the production and identification of possible gaps that may compromise realization of superior results.

They assert that, institutions should integrate modern department with IT infrastructure to drive innovations due to its critical nature (Mostafa & El-Masry 2008, p. 82). The concept also holds relevance since it aid elimination of bureaucracy that hinders effective service delivery in most institutions. Innovation is an element indentified as a critical pillar that has immense contribution in elimination of bureaucratic practices in institutions.

It presents relevant incentives that have facilitated development of thinner lines of communication in organizations. Subsequently, innovation holds credit for enhancing capacity building in corporations. It must be noted that, capacity building enhances integration and development of coherent principles that are set with an aim of advancing performance. Capacity building also helps in nurturing talents and social integration that facilitate development of a positive attitude.

To develop a strong distribution channel of products and to expand business networks through joint ventures, creativity must be central in decision making (Harvey 2001, p. 14). This ensures that superior lines of product distribution are designed to boost customer satisfaction and reliability in service delivery. Consumers tend to identify with institutions that provide them the requisite products conveniently without unwarranted delays.

Such distribution channels are achievable through innovative strategies that are capable of ensuring identification of credible and reliable distribution networks. Consequently, it enables identification of viable and reliable institutions to which joint venture agreements can be effected to promote global networks. Indeed, innovation and creativity are essential elements that managers in various institutions should adopt to enhance performance (Harvey 2001, p. 14).

Acquiring innovative ideals requires immense determination and absolute attitudinal change that is receptive to new ideas. Managers should understand that, innovation requires critical thinking and openness that facilitate the development of strong performance capacity. It is proper to indicate that, innovative and creative ideals are performance virtues that apply to all institutions that seek to record ideal output and competitiveness (Mostafa & El-Masry 2008, p. 83).

Every stakeholder in institutions has a role to play in ensuring that requisite incentives that hold the capacity to boost innovation are adopted. This is significant since development of innovative ideas requires increased participation and engagement of various individuals that help in formulation of credible concepts that are sustainable. Managers, employees and individuals of diverse backgrounds are under obligation to set requisite guidelines to enhance creativity that remains central pillar in product development and growth.

In particular, being open and receptive to new ideas is a critical way to advance innovation. Open mind enables individuals to engage and understand other people’s ideas based on performance principles since the innovative concepts are always developed to serve the needs of customers (Harvey 2001, p. 14). Consequently, continuous experimentation on implementing new ideas with limited skepticism defines true spirit of innovation.

Innovators are individuals who should exhibit relentless execution of new ideas that comes their way. They should desist from the inferior feelings, for example, the fear of failure that may hinder realization of superior growth in institutions. Taking a risk and accepting failures at certain times also forms the third vital element in advancing innovation that managers should embrace.

Individuals who seek to succeed as innovators should always be ready to take a risk and accept failure if the idea they undertake fails to realize the intended results. Martinsons & Martinsons (1996, p. 18) assert that, lucrative ideas or the inability to produce good results can only be ascertained after the implementation procedure is undertaken.

This explains why innovators should implement their ideas since no one possess an absolute answer to the global issues/problems affecting performance. However, ideas are generated and improvements made on them to aid the realization of superior systems that promote effectiveness and best practices in the manufacturing chain (Ramus 2003, p. 87). This element is critical since individuals are skeptical to execute implementation of basic ideas that they formulate citing failure or wastage of resources.

Ideally, risk aversive individuals are never excellent achievers in life due to their skeptical nature. They hold noble ideas that are borrowed by aggressive persons who implement the concepts, thus own the initiative (Martinsons & Martinsons 1996, p. 18). Therefore, boosting innovation requires individuals to prepare and get acquainted that development of new systems of operation involves risk-taking.

Having fun is a credible way to develop a culture of innovation in individuals holding potential of advancing performance. It is advisable that individuals should have leisure moments or free periods where they engage in recreational activities and share ideas with friends. This enables individuals to realize their untapped potential in diverse settings that help in formulation of new ideas.

Innovators are individuals with balance lifestyles and who embraces every aspect that improves health standards that help in making conscious decisions (Sadi & Al-Dubaisi 2008, p. 48).

Researchers assert that having fun of diverse nature is relatively significant in developing human psychological and mental strength. In short, it is imperative for individuals to develop positive attitude, perception, superior engagement of stakeholders, critical thinking and eradication of restrictive assumptions as requite measures to enhance creativity.

The mentioned barriers can influence innovation and creativity among employees in numerous ways. It is imperative to conclude that creative mindset provides relevant incentives that drive product development and manufacturing of new commodities that conform to the modern standards. This provides amicable ways of providing quality to consumers by ensuring production of economically viable commodities.

As noted, inferior commodities (that are not innovatively designed) hinder performance in various institutions. Organizations with a strong focus to leverage their performance should advance their innovative set-ups to ensure that modern needs of consumers are met. This is critical since global revolution presents dynamic and rapid changes.

The changes present new systems of operation, production, and technological management that administrators must integrate in corporations. Indeed, lack of innovation and creativity influences organizational growth and production of quality products with requisite capacity to solve market complications. For example, diverse sectors, including health, social, economic, and engineering require innovative products to steer the delivery of services.

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Courvisanos, J 2012, Cycles, Crises and Innovation Path to Sustainable Development, a Kaleckian schumpeterian Synthesis , Edward Elgar Pub, New York, NY.

Davenport, T., Leibold, M & Voelpel, S 2006, Strategic management in the innovation economy strategy approaches and tools for dynamic innovation capabilities , Publicis Press, Erlangen.

Dhillon, G 2009, Information systems – creativity and innovation in small and medium-size enterprises IFIP WG 8.2 international conference; proceedings , Springer, Berlin.

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Shavinina, L 2003, The international handbook on innovation, Pergamon, Oxford, UK.

Sorli, M & Stokić, D 2009, Innovating in Product/Process Development: Gaining Pace in New Product Development, Springer, London, UK.

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Artificial Intelligence

Ai expands human cognitive potential and creativity, the pie isn't getting cut into smaller pieces but expanding in unexpected ways..

Posted September 19, 2024 | Reviewed by Michelle Quirk

AI expands human creativity and cognition, acting as a tool for amplification, not replacement.
History shows innovation creates new roles and industries, growing opportunities, not diminishing them.
Like the selfie, unforeseen AI applications will open new forms of human expression and achievement.

Innovation has always sparked a blend of excitement and anxiety . With each major technological leap comes a familiar set of fears—concerns that machines will replace humans, automation will render jobs obsolete, or new tools will reduce creativity to mere algorithms. Yet, time and again, these fears have been proven wrong. From the steam engine to the internet, innovation has not diminished humanity's role; rather, it has expanded it, creating new opportunities and unlocking unprecedented forms of expression. Today, as we stand at the brink of the artificial intelligence (AI) revolution, similar concerns are resurfacing—this time striking at the very core of what makes us human: cognition . For the first time in history, it seems that human thought itself could be on the "obsolescence chopping block." The question looms: Will AI and large language models (LLMs) shrink human roles into smaller and smaller pieces, leaving us isolated in a world where machines dominate?

I don’t believe so. In fact, I argue the opposite. AI, far from reducing humanity’s relevance, will expand our circle of cognition, creativity, and achievement. And while some may fear that AI will fragment human roles, history suggests that innovation typically grows the pie, creating opportunities that are yet to be fully realized or understood.

A Tool for Augmentation, Not Replacement

Throughout history, technological innovations have often been met with skepticism, particularly when it comes to the perceived displacement of human labor or creativity. But the reality is that innovations serve as amplifiers of human potential. Take photography, for example. When the camera emerged in the 19th century, it might have been thought to threaten portrait painting, a prestigious art form that had been the exclusive domain of skilled painters. However, rather than extinguishing portraiture, photography expanded visual storytelling in ways previously unimaginable. It didn’t reduce the importance of art—it made it more accessible, diverse, and multifaceted.

AI is following a similar trajectory. LLMs and creative tools may automate some tasks, but they also unlock new possibilities for human expression. In industries from healthcare to creative arts, AI is less about replacing human input and more about augmenting it. In fact, it allows people to achieve more in less time, shifting their focus from repetitive, mechanical tasks to higher-order, creative, and empathetic work.

This collaborative potential between humans and machines suggests that AI will be a tool for cognitive and creative amplification, rather than a force of diminishment.

Creating New Markets and Roles

A common fear with AI is job displacement. Certainly, some jobs will evolve or disappear, just as they did during the Industrial Revolution. But just as that era gave birth to entirely new professions and industries, AI will also create opportunities that we cannot fully envision today. As AI tools automate routine work, new fields are already emerging—from highly technical and scientific to philosophical and humanistic.

And in an interesting twist, AI has the potential to democratize expertise. Just as desktop publishing made it easier for nonprofessional writers to communicate effectively, AI will enable non-experts to perform tasks that once required years of specialized training and technology. In fields like law, medicine, and research, AI-driven tools are helping professionals analyze large data sets, generate insights, and improve decision-making processes. This doesn’t reduce the value of human expertise; rather, it enhances it, opening up new avenues for people to contribute in ways that weren’t possible before.

The "Selfie Effect": Unforeseen Applications of AI

When photography first emerged, no one predicted the cultural phenomenon of the "selfie." The selfie is a perfect metaphor for how innovations often spur entirely unexpected behaviors, industries, and cultural forms. What started as a technological breakthrough in capturing images turned into a global trend that influences everything from social media to marketing , personal identity , and even art.

AI is on a similar trajectory. While today’s applications of AI—automated customer service, content generation, or personalized recommendations—are just the tip of the iceberg, the most transformative uses of AI are likely those that we can’t yet fully envision. Entirely new modes of communication, creativity, and collaboration will emerge as AI tools become more sophisticated.

Imagine the possibilities: AI-generated art that interacts with viewers in real-time, personalized education programs that adapt to individual learning styles on the fly, or new forms of storytelling where human writers collaborate with AI to create immersive, multi-sensory narratives. Just as the internet opened up unforeseen opportunities, AI will unlock cultural, intellectual, and artistic movements that will expand the boundaries of human potential. And the operative word here is human .

Human Creativity and Judgment Remain Central

A crucial point to remember is that AI lacks one thing that is central to human creativity: meaning. While AI can generate art, music, or writing, it is humans who assign context, cultural significance, and emotional resonance. Creativity isn’t just about producing novel combinations of words or images; it’s about connecting those combinations to shared human experiences, values, and aspirations. AI can assist in the mechanics of creativity, but the heart of creative expression remains fundamentally human.

Moreover, human judgment will always play a key role in guiding AI’s development and applications. As AI systems grow more powerful, ethical oversight, empathy, and adaptability will be critical. This means that the role of humans in an AI-driven future will not be diminished but elevated, focusing on areas where intuition , emotion , and values take precedence over calculation.

Expanding the Circle of Human Achievement

In many ways, AI represents a continuation of humanity’s long journey of augmenting its abilities. The tools we create—whether they are steam engines, computers, or AI models—are extensions of our capacity to solve problems, create meaning, and push boundaries.

Rather than fragmenting human roles or diminishing our importance, AI has the potential to expand the circle of human cognition and creativity. It will give us more tools to tackle complex problems, open new frontiers of innovation, and allow us to achieve more than we ever could alone. While some fear that AI will shrink the space for human contributions, I believe it will do the opposite: It will multiply our possibilities.

The selfie was unimaginable to the inventors of photography, and, likewise, the most profound impacts of AI are likely still unknown. What we can predict, however, is that just as innovation has done in the past, AI will grow the pie—creating new opportunities, roles, and creative forms that will elevate human potential rather than diminish it.

John Nosta is an innovation theorist and founder of NostaLab.

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COMMENTS

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According to Paul Trott, innovation refers to managing the actions which are involved in the creation of idea, advancement in technology, production, and promotion of a new product or service (Trott, 2016). An innovative process starts with a need or opportunity or a new problem that requires a solution in a different way.
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Perhaps the most notable recent example is Anderson et al.'s (2014, p.1298) review, in which they put forward the following definition of workplace creativity and innovation: Creativity and innovation at work are the process, outcomes, and products of attempts to develop and introduce new and improved ways of doing things.
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4. Go outside: Spending time in nature and wide-open spaces can expand your attention, enhance beneficial mind-wandering, and boost creativity. 5. Revisit your creative ideas: Aha moments can give you a high—but that rush might make you overestimate the merit of a creative idea.
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Creativity And Innovation Essay. 3485 Words14 Pages. Creativity and Innovation: Business Practice towards make in India. Chitra, Assistant Professor, Chandigarh University, Mohali. ABSTRACT. Creativity and innovation concern the process of creating and applying new knowledge. As such, they are at the very heart of Knowledge Management.
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Innovation thus seems to be the key to survival and growth. This can be further seen in the list of the world's most valued companies, as the most successful firms of the 21st century could be almost characteri s ed all over by innovation. CTA Image: Innovative Thinking Training . Image desc: Unlock Your Innovative Mindset Today
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Inferiority perceptions and lack of adequate enterprising ability for example, "I am not creative" facilitate the development of a negative attitude that diminishes creative capacity (Trias De Bes & Kotler 2011, p. 23). Lack of confidence can equally contribute to diminished creativity and innovation.
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