LECTURE 4

CREATIVITY IN ORGANIZATIONS
By
Dr. Nisha Palagolla
25th August 2023

[email protected]
LEARNING OUTCOMES
On successful completion of this lesson, the learner will be able to:

LO1: Understand creativity and its importance in engineering.

LO2: Discuss declining & driving factors of creativity.
LO3: Discuss creativity process and creative problem solving
process.
LO4: Explore characteristics of a creative person and creativity
encouraging leader.
LO5: Explore creative idea generation methods and how to
avoid stuck thinking.
LO6: Discuss principles of creative thinking, directed creativity
process and steps for transforming an organization. 2
CREATIVITY ?

Ø Defining creativity across disciplines is difficult and

often nearly impossible.
Ø Creativity is often associated with artistic creativity
like painting, drawing, writing or musical
composition.
Ø Creativity is imagination, novel thinking or use of
original ideas that forms something new and valuable.

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CREATIVITY IN ENGINEERING

Ø “Creativity is a vital part of engineering and you can’t

have an engineer without someone who’s creative,”
Ø “Creativity is the way that we look at, approach and
solve problems to come up with solutions.”
Scarlett Miller
Associate professor of engineering design & industrial engineering
Penn State College of Engineering

Ø Do you know? Creativity is at the center of

every engineering discipline
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FACTORS DECLINING CREATIVITY

Ø Restrictive policies & procedures

Ø Fear of failure
Ø Unpredictability of true innovative activities
Ø Financial constraints
Ø Need of long-term research activities
Ø Inflation factor
Ø Pre-inventions disclosure agreements

What else you need to add? 5

FACTORS DRIVING CREATIVITY

Ø Management accepts risk taking

Ø Innovators are rewarded appropriately
Ø Managers do not control the flow of information
Ø Employees have access to knowledge sources
(customers, scientific community, benchmarking
partners)
Ø New ideas and new ways are encouraged & welcomed
Ø Supporting good ideas

What else you need to add? 6

 CREATIVITY PROCESS

Identification

Ø Identification: Recognizing that there is a problem that needs

to be solved.
Ø Preparation: Collecting data from various sources.
Ø Incubation: Processing subconscious data
Ø Illumination: Providing possible solutions to the problem 7
Ø Verification: Evaluating the final results
CREATIVE PROBLEM-SOLVING PROCESS

1. Define the problem (avoid jumping to the cause).

2. Verify if the problem ties to the company goals.
3. Divide the problem into elements (reduce the scope).
4. Brainstorm to identify all possible causes.
5. Collect additional data.
6. Classify by major types of causes.
7. Identify symptoms from root causes.
8. Determine if there is a need for additional information.
9. Prioritize causes by predominant cause, most probable cause, level of
impact, and potential for change.
10. Brainstorm for finding solutions to cause(s).
11. Choose most comprehensive and easiest solution.
12. conduct cost benefit analysis.
13. Test and verify the proposed solution.
14. Develop an action plan. 8
CREATIVITY ENCOURAGING LEADER

Characteristics

Ø Enjoys his/her job

Ø Makes quick decisions
Ø Listens to others
Ø Takes risks
Ø Comfortable with half-developed ideas
Ø Does not dwell on mistakes and errors

What else you see?

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A TYPICAL CREATIVE PERSON

Characteristics

Ø Possesses good sense of humor

Ø Possesses good listening ability
Ø Works relentlessly
Ø Observant
Ø Nonconformist
Ø Always open to experience
Ø Takes interest in exploring ideas
Ø Places no value on job security
Ø Accepts chaos
Ø Independent
Ø Likes to seek privacy and autonomy
Ø Accepts failures easily
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What else you see?

CREATIVE IDEA GENERATION METHODS

Ø Attribute listing method

Ø Mind mapping
Ø Starbursting
Ø Figure storming /Role storming
Ø Gap filling
Ø Story boarding
Ø SWOT
Ø Force-field analysis
Ø Forced-relationships method
Ø Six thinking hats method
Ø SCAMPER
Including but not limited to 11
AVOID STUCK THINKING

Ø Recognize when your thinking is stuck.

Ø Make it a habit to purposely pause and notice things.
Ø Think broadly and suspend judgement.
Ø Keep options open as long as possible.
Ø Practice analytical thinking; what works and why.
Ø Concentrate on one chosen thing continuously in different
angles.
Ø Play with ideas and have no scripts.
Ø Try to define the current reality.
Ø Visualize or draw a picture.
Ø Make a slow-motion mental movie.
Ø Explain it to someone. 12

Ø Listen to yourself.
PRINCIPLES OF CREATIVE THINKING

There are three basic principles:

Ø Attention
Ø Escape
Ø Movement

Despite the diversity of tools to support creative thinking, all

such tools are based on three simple principles: attention,
escape, and movement. Plsek (1997)

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BACKGROUND BEHIND PRINCIPLES

What do they mean?

Ø Focus attention
Ø Escape the current reality, and
Ø Continue mental movement

Ø The relative weights given on attention, escape, and movement

vary among the methods.
Ø But, this variation makes sense because each situation we
encounter is different, each group is different, and each person
is different.
Ø If you understand these three basic principles, you can adapt14
techniques to suit various needs, situations, and personalities.
ATTENTION

How it helps creativity?

Ø Creativity requires that you first focus your attention

on something.

Ø It can be something that you have not focused much

attention on before.

Ø Or it can be something that you have overlooked.

Ø creative thinking techniques prepare our minds for 15

breakthroughs.
ESCAPE

How it helps creativity?

Ø This principle calls us to mentally escape our current

patterns of thinking.
Ø We often, knowingly and unknowingly get stuck with
current patterns of thinking.
Ø Escaping current patterns of thinking is a must for
creativity.
Ø Escape your current paradigm about something, for a
moment and imagine a very different world.
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MOVEMENT

How it helps creativity?

Ø This principle calls us to keep exploring and

connecting our thoughts.
Ø Because, paying attention to something and escaping
current thinking on it is not always sufficient to
generate creative ideas.
Ø This principle helps generating new connections and
ideas that might expand the basic concept.
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MOVEMENT

Source: Paul E. Plsek (1997), Creativity, Innovation and Quality (p. 86) 18
 PROCESS OF DIRECTED CREATIVITY

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Paul E. Plsek (1997), Creativity, Innovation and Quality

TOOLS FOR PREPERATION

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Paul E. Plsek (1997), Creativity, Innovation and Quality

TOOLS FOR IMAGINATION

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Paul E. Plsek (1997), Creativity, Innovation and Quality

DEVELOPMENT & ACTION OF DIRECTED
CREATIVITY

Ø To put your ideas into action is the most difficult thing

in the world.
Ø Creative ideas have no value until they are put into
action.
Ø While the Preparation and Imagination phases of the
Directed Creativity are the heart and mind of
innovation, the Development and Action phases are
the hands and feet.
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DEVELOPMENT & ACTION OF DIRECTED
CREATIVITY

Ø The Development and Action phases are hard work,

but without them the Preparation and Imagination
phases are meaningless.
Ø Do not have to implement all of your creative ideas.
Be selective.
Ø A sense of urgency and active leadership are
necessary conditions.
Ø Traditional tools of quality management and general
project management are very useful in Development
and Action. 23
TRANSFORMING YOUR ORGANIZATION

Eight steps
1. Establish a sense of urgency
2. Forming a powerful guiding coalition
3. Creating a vision
4. Communicating the vision
5. Empowering others to act on the vision
6. Planning for and creating short-term wins
7. Consolidating improvements, producing still more change
8. Institutionalizing new approaches 24
RECOMMENDED READING

Ø Dhillon, B.S., Engineering Design: A Modern Approach, Richard D. Irwin,

Inc., Chicago, 1996.
Ø Dhillon, B.S., Creativity for Engineers, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte.
Ltd., Singapore, 2006.
Ø Maggie Macnab, Design by Nature: Using Universal Forms and Principles
in Design, USA, 2012.
Ø Robin Lowe and Sue Marriott, Enterprise: Entrepreneurship and Innovation,
Elsevier Ltd., 2006.
Ø Edited by James C. Barrood, Entrepreneurship and Innovation: Global
Insights from 24 Leaders, Rothman Institute of Entrepreneurship, 2010.
Ø http://www.directedcreativity.com/pages/ToolsDev.html

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Q&A
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