What is Creativity?Creativity is the act of turning new and imaginative ideas into reality.Creativity is characterised by the ability to perceive the world in new ways, to find hidden patterns, to make connections between seemingly unrelated phenomena, and to generate solutions. Creativity involves two processes: thinking, then producing.If you have ideas, but dont act on them, you are imaginative but not creative.Creativity is the process of bringing something new into being. Creativity requires passion and commitment. It brings to our awareness what was previously hidden and points to new life. Can creativity be learned?Creativity begins with a foundation of knowledge, learning a discipline, and mastering a way of thinking. You learn to be creative by experimenting, exploring, questioning assumptions, using imagination and synthesing information. Learning to be creative is akin to learning a sport. It requires practice to develop the right muscles, and a supportive environment in which to flourish.Our ability to generate innovative ideas is not merely a function of the mind, but also a function of five key behaviours that optimize your brain for discovery:1. Associating:drawing connections between questions, problems, or ideas from unrelated fields2. Questioning:posing queries that challenge common wisdom3. Observing:scrutinizing the behavior of customers, suppliers, and competitors to identify new ways of doing things4. Networking:meeting people with different ideas and perspectives5. Experimenting:constructing interactive experiences and provoking unorthodox responses to see what insights emerge

Overcoming myths about creativityBeliefs that only special, talented people are creative-and you have to be born that way- diminish our confidence in our creative abilities. The notion that geniuses such as Shakespeare, Picasso and Mozart were `gifted is a myth, according to a study at Exeter University. Researchers examined outstanding performances in the arts, mathematics and sports, to find out if the widespread belief that to reach high levels of ability a person must possess an innate potential called talent.The study concludes that excellence is determined by: opportunities encouragement training motivation, and most of all-practice.Few showed early signs of promise prior to parental encouragement. No one reached high levels of achievement in their field without devoting thousands of hours of serious training. Mozart trained for 16 years before he produced an acknowledged master work How does creativity work?Again, lack of certainty has created confusion. My observations in both business and the arts suggest it has five stages:1. "Gathering your ingredients" or taking in information. Creative people tend to take in a lot of information all the time, often from seemingly irrelevant and trivial areas. They're not necessarily preparing to solve a problem; the more information they have, the more likely they are to make an unusual connection.2. The "TV Chef" phase - putting the ingredients together and letting things simmer. Creative people often do this by themselves. They think about something different from the project in hand; the "simmering" goes on in the background.3. Ideas appear - they can rarely be forced. Creative people in a number of fields report that solutions appear out of the blue in dreams or through a sort of self-induced meditation. You have probably tried to remember a name, given up, then find it on the tip of your tongue some time later. The experiences are very similar.4. Deciding which are the good ideas (the ratio is about 99-1 nonsense to brilliance).5. Making the good ideas happen efficiently.1-3 are what most people think creativity is. But there are two more stages in poetry, art, music and business People who are good at 1-3 are rarely interested in 4-5, and it's a lack of understanding of this point which, I believe, led to the dot.com crash, and still leads to the common syndrome of companies saying: "We have too many good ideas but we never actually make them happen". In business, creativity must serve a purpose. But, if you introduce a goal or purpose too early in the creative process you immediately make certain thoughts unthinkable. Stages 4-5 are the time when ideas are seriously evaluated against company goals, whatever they may be. Before that, a certain degree of anarchy must reign. Common techniques like brainstorming reflect this but are often introduced without real understanding.

Do firms stifle creativity?Individual managers and companies are trained to be risk-averse. This is especially true when times are hard; managers emphasise command and control because the risks of getting things wrong are too great. Creative ideas are by their very nature difficult to manage and dangerous.

In addition, there's a hierarchy effect. Coming up with the ideas is sometimes seen as the province of senior managers - who may be much better at controlling, rather than being creative.

Corporations create their own language, a culture of how employees can act and dress, even a particular way of thinking. This helps people to work towards a common goal: but it stifles aberrant behaviour and thinking, and creativity is, by its nature, aberrant.

Why is creativity important?

Rational planning can create a good, efficient company but, combined with new IT systems, tends to make all companies look and act alike. Creativity is individual. Only creativity can provide the transforming idea that makes a great company and leaves competitors trying to catch up. This is borne out as much in science and art as it is in business. Creativity is human - and businesses are having to take on a more human tone of voice, either because that's what their customers expect or because it differentiates organisations.

Can one identify creativity?Not easily, since there is no one agreed definition of creativity.However, psychometric tests and other techniques can indicate people who are more predisposed to come up with ideas and make connections. They can also show who's comfortable in that sort of role - for instance, who likes taking risks, doesn't follow external rules, is less focussed on the here and now. Some people get anxious unless they have set rules to follow; others feel stifled.

Tests can also identify people who help other people feel creative, and those who are likely to be threatened by creative individuals. Very detailed, process-oriented people who cannot tolerate lack of clarity will undervalue creative ideas and actively fight against them. To recognize these differences is crucial in setting up any creative team.A final warning. Most people like to be considered "creative": it sounds more attractive than being "efficient". So when people claim this quality don't accept it at face-value. Examine it.

Creating a creative cultureThis is a huge area, but here are a few straightforward ideas.1. Don't jump on people if they make mistakes, if they come up with ideas before they have thought them through. Feeling comfortable about making a fool of yourself is essential for a creative person. They get things wrong many times before they come up with a great idea.2. Tiredness and ill-health kill creativity. A tired person can still produce a lot of ideas - but bad ones.3. Don't surround creative people with lots of other creative people. Creative people compete - the old idea of the other-worldly artist/creative person is a fiction and they'll talk for years without doing anything. Many creative people are introverts and an essential part of the process is letting them go away to mull over a problem4. Don't mistake good communication for creativity. Just because you write or speak well doesn't mean you're truly creative; and many creative people find it difficult to communicate.Do firms stifle creativity?Individual managers and companies are trained to be risk-averse. This is especially true when times are hard; managers emphasise command and control because the risks of getting things wrong are too great. Creative ideas are by their very nature difficult to manage and dangerous.

In addition, there's a hierarchy effect. Coming up with the ideas is sometimes seen as the province of senior managers - who may be much better at controlling, rather than being creative.

Corporations create their own language, a culture of how employees can act and dress, even a particular way of thinking. This helps people to work towards a common goal: but it stifles aberrant behaviour and thinking, and creativity is, by its nature, aberrant.

Why is creativity important?

Rational planning can create a good, efficient company but, combined with new IT systems, tends to make all companies look and act alike.

Creativity is individual. Only creativity can provide the transforming idea that makes a great company and leaves competitors trying to catch up. This is borne out as much in science and art as it is in business.Creativity is human - and businesses are having to take on a more human tone of voice, either because that's what their customers expect or because it differentiates organisations.

How important is creativity in business?It provides the structure and method for applying creativity to strategic decisions. My creative methodology is to try to get two to three solutions for any problem or opportunity. This allows you to pursue multiple options simultaneously and eventually see which one wins out across a range of criteria. One option is to pursue the same approach and never change. Thats doing the same thing which doesnt breed creativity. The second option is looking at the problem or opportunity with a new view. The third could be an opposite view of the status quo or a completely new view. If you are using the same tool to do the same job, you will get the same results which are usually not creative solutions. To really stimulate product creativity, it is valuable knowing the pulse of your market and interpreting it positively for your brand. I have studied some competitive brands and their efforts are not directed by the market and their products and presentation looks like a chaos and literally a yard sale and they essentially stand for nothing. To be effective strategically and creatively, you also must have assure the ideas meet your brand promise and address key market trends.

Components of creativity

Creativity has been found to comprise three central mechanisms; Expertise, Creative Thinking, and Motivation. Although these have on occasions been referred to under different headings (for example, as Intelligence, Creative Skills and Motivation to Innovate), academics are in general agreement about their definition. It should be noted that these components apply to both individual and small work group based creativity.

Expertise denotes the individuals knowledge; specifically, domain relevant knowledge, including opinions, domain-specific technical skills, and special talents. Expertise provides the individual with a repertoire of possible solutions to a specific problem. As there will invariably be a degree of risk involved with creativity, basic domain knowledge will result in outcome uncertainty reduction; specifically, expertise affords the individual a greater knowledge base from which to structure a potential solution. When facing events that are surprising or challenging, the process of Sensemaking occurs. Sensemaking involves the retrieval of rational accounts, or frames of reference. These frames of reference represent cognitive knowledge structures about a concept, developed following exposure to an external stimulus. Such stimuli are cognitively encoded and stored, available as an influencer for future judgements and behaviours. As frames of reference become more accessible through regular activation, the ease with which the account is retrieved increases. As an individual becomes more knowledgeable about a subject, the various frames of reference from which action can be derived increase. Thus, employees with rich background domain knowledge will possess a greater pool of information from which to craft problem solutions.

As business turbulence increases, employees are regularly confronting unique events of which they have limited or no prior experience. By calling upon similarly categorized frames of reference, the likelihood of an appropriately creative response being crafted is enhanced. By combining existing knowledge in new and creative ways, the employee is able to adopt an appropriate strategy for addressing the situation. It should be acknowledged that such frames of reference may be influenced over time. For example, when organization crises occur, the area that provides the eventual solution may influence the frame of reference recognized by a particular workgroup to address similar future occurrences.

It is important to note that expertise does not represent creativity in itself, however the more voluminous the number of cognitive accounts stored, the larger the knowledgebase from which a creative outcome can be constructed. In order to recognize creative potential, one must consider Creative Thinking.