TRAINERS
TRAINING KIT WS2
Funded by the Erasmus+ Programme of the European Union
Contents
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Introduction
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Workshop 2: Creativity and Innovation
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Exercise Material Contents
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Introduction The objective ...of this training Kit is to give a theoretical overview of the contents that would be developed during the three workshops. They were prepared for 4 hours each one and if you want to get all the activities done during this time, you should use our time suggestions. In this training kit you can find ideas of exercises, the main authors for each theme, materials to use if you want to develop the skills in your own class. You can use parts of the training or the entire training.
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Workshop 2: Creativity and Innovation Authors: Fonteijn, H. Entity: Maastrich University
Agenda Activity Type
Timeline
Materials
Small description
1. Presentation and objectives.
00:20
Slides 1-2
Brief overview/ Theme explanation; Show presentation of the participants in the training.
2. Challenge Academy presentation.
00:20
Challenge Challenge Academy Presentation followed by a short Academy Slides brainstorming. Concept of creativity, when it occurs and unfolds. Main processes involved in creativity. Main creative clusters: skills, attitudes and action mind set. Creativity main enablers and blockers.
3. Creativity: Definition, char- 00:105 acteristics and main factors
Slide 3-15
4. The creative enviroment
00:10
Slides 16-24
5. A creative process (including fluency exercise) 00:15
Slides 25-28
6. Divergence
00:05
Slides 29-34
7. SCAMPER
00:10
Slides 35-36
Introduction to SCAMPER Technique (including exercise): change solutions or ideas that were generated. Note: bring post-its, thick markers LINKYOU.
8. Convergent thinking
00:10
Slides 37-39
Evaluation on the quality of the purge. Categorization between Now, How and Wow ideas. Note: bring paper or prepare whiteboard.
9. Critical thinking competences
00:10
Slides 40-48
Systematic and analytic evaluation on the quality of ideas. Main competences, and some questions that help understand what they are.
10. Break
00:10
Slides 26-31
Break.
11. Introduction to innovation 00:10
Slides 50-54
Definition and innovation practices in Higher Education Institutions.
Main implication and examples of Task, Social and physical environments. Introduction to Problem analysis, divergent and convergent thinking phases. Note: Bring paper and pencils to the exercise. Main divergence techniques and triggers for creating a richer purge.
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Activity Type
Materials
Small description
00:30
Slides 55-72
Individual Level: Multilevel innovation model, Innovation at individual level and main individual factors; Group Level: Main dynamics of group decision making, self-reflection and lean management. Organizational Level: HR Practices, Management Support, and Diversity; Basic notions on leading a knowledge management process. the participants in the training.
13. Innovation in High Education Institutions
00:15
Slides 73-80
The innovative capacity in Higher Education Institutions.
14. Tension between invention and exploitation
00:10
Slides 81-82
Tension between goals and visions and procedures and habits. The Inayatullah triangle.
12. Individual, group and organizational level
Timeline
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15. Each professor as change manager. Change manager 00:50 skills
Slides 83-86
The change manager’s job. Stage models in the change process. Collective leadership at change and innovation processes (20min). A final exercise will involve participants in a final discussion regarding two main topics: Can innovation be taught and How can be taught (30min).
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Theoretical key points to support the slides
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Creativity: Definition, characteristics and main factors
What is creativity?
Slides 3-15
This part of the workshop will focus on what creativity is, when it occurs, and how creativity unfolds. A quote by Sternberg and top 10 skills from the Future of Jobs Report by the World Economic Forum illustrate the importance of creativity in education. The facilitator starts with two questions (exercise 1): First: what is creativity? The audience are given three minutes to come up with ideas (first minute in silence, then as a group). Facilitator gives definition: creativity is the ability to come up with novel and useful ideas. Naive subjects focus more on novelty and originality than on usefulness/context appropriateness. The distinction between creativity and innovation can also be made (innovation targets implementation rather than ideation). Creativity may include innate talent, expertise, emotional states, courage, a certain age, resilience, grit, creative self-efficacy/confidence, teamwork, networking skills, being a boundary spanner, etc. Creativity requires skills, attitudes and an action mind set. The latter one is often forgotten, but: ideas are useless unless used. Nevertheless, having the skills does not matter, when people do not think that it is important to be creative. Sternberg’s investment theory of creativity states that everyone can be creative, as long as he/she decides to be creative. People will decide to do so, when they feel it pays off, when they feel they have to, and/or when the environment stimulates them. Often, climate for creativity is not optimal. Any challenge of the status quo typically triggers dissenting remarks. Creativity thus takes courage. Factors that can help or hurt creativity The facilitator briefly mentions factors that help and hurt creativity (read slides 11-13). But some factors could or not helping the creativity: The relation between emotion or age and creativity (often mentioned) is less clear-cut. Positive emotions seem to benefit idea flexibility (i.e. coming up with very different ideas). Negative emotions, on the other hand, seem to push people to do creative work and to persevere. Creative productivity Is often related to age via an inverse-U relation, but this is domain dependent. Scientists for instance show little or no decline with age. While a peak is often seen 10-20 years after onset of a career, whether or not there is a gradual decline in performance depends on domain of practice (e.g., arts, science), task environment (incentives), and social environment (e.g. influx of new ideas from young co-workers). Many innovations result from people making late career discoveries.
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The creative enviroment Slides 16-24 An obvious constraint on creativity at work is the type of task people have to perform. If you want creative employees/students/peers, you make sure they have: (Read the slide 16). The social environment can be even more important. Creative leaders like Steve Jobs and Karl Lagerfeld often cultivate the myth that creativity is the result of individual genius. Steve Jobs’ quote stressing the importance of having diverse experiences somewhat downplays this myth-making, but in the fashion industry, creativity is often branded as the outcome of a supreme creative genius. In real life, creativity is team-work. (Steven Johnson’s 4-minute video clip illustrates this nicely – play video). Many trainings focus on helping teams to become creative. A familiar one is DeBono’s notion of 6 thinking hats model: each hat represents one of 6 parallel views on a problem. A person wearing a hat focuses on process (blue hat), creativity (green hat), facts (white hat), cautions (black hat) or benefits (yellow hat). By changing hats, individuals are invited to switch viewpoints. Groups can assign hats (roles) to different members to ensure that all perspectives are accounted for. The facilitator then asks the audience if they have ideas on what features in the physical environment might help them be more creative. Example offices at Facebook, and Google may stimulate ideas. Research shows that plants, certain colors (calm, but energizing; green), privacy, windows and a view (on nature), particular light (natural light is good) and sound and air quality (temperature, smell) can stimulate creativity. More on how to shape an environment that fosters creativity and innovation in the section on change management. We will now focus on the creative process (=idea generation + idea selection).
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A creative process Slides 25-28
Fluency exercise (exercise 2): Instruction • • • •
Place a piece of white paper in front of you and draw a 4*6 grid. Draw a series of images composed of circles. Move on until you run dry (aim for 24). (After a couple of minutes, urge participants to not give up; discontinue when a few have reached 24).
How many ideas have you produced? Then ask participants to split the purge of N drawings in two halves, marking drawing N/2 as the boundary. Some drawings will not be very creative (moon, eye-glasses, coin, snowman). Ask people to mark the two most creative ones with a star (*). Have them mark the two least creative/most common ones with a minus sign (-). Ask people to give examples of what they considered to be creative or common. Now ask participants to raise one or two hands if they had one resp. two stars in the first half of their series of drawings. Count the number of hands (not the number of participants raising hands). Next, ask them to raise one or two hands if they had one or two stars in the second half. Count the number of hands. Typically, the number of stars in the second half is greater than the number of stars in the first half. If this is observed, it illustrates that creativity is very much about perseverance. Then ask participants to raise one or two hands if they had one resp. two minus signs in the first half. Next, ask them to raise one or two hands if they had one or two minus in the second half. Count the number of hands. Typically, the number of minus signs
in the first half is greater than the number of minus signs in the second half. This illustrates that the first ideas usually are common ones. These are simply more accessible: the mind puts out the garbage first. This is the main idea through this exercise, namely understand that before someone be creative will have to give away the traditional ideas and open the door for new ideas. That’s one of the reasons why the creative process is being so difficult. (On average these results are replicated in workshops. If not, just tell the audience they are an atypical crowd, and ask them if they can imagine why – lack of time? motivation?) The creative process has traditionally been described as a succession of stages. One description mentions a problem analysis phase followed by a succession of alternating divergent and convergent thinking phases. During divergent thinking, novel ideas or solutions are generated. Fluency (number of ideas) and flexibility (number of different ideas) are valued. The outcome of a divergent thinking phase is called a purge. During convergent thinking, the outcome of the purge is evaluated, and the most promising ideas are identified. Next, a novel phase of divergent thinking can commence. Various creativity techniques focus on how the purge can be enhanced. An earlier description of the creative process focused more on insight (Aha Erlebnis). The model by Gestalt psychologist Wallas mentioned 4 stages: preparation (problem analysis), incubation (a period of inactivity), illumination (sudden insight) and verification (convergence, or a check on the adequacy of a solution). Kekule’s discovery of the benzene ring after dreaming (incubation) of a snake that after some time started biting its own tail is an often cited example of illumination. Archimedes Eureka moment provides another.
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Divergence Slides 29-34 Many techniques for creating a richer purge have been described. Some introduce randomness, stimulate analogies, create distance and force incubation, others use guided fantasy or specific techniques to enhance the purge, like SCAMPER. We give a few examples. (The picture of the tree in slide 29 contains 10 faces and illustrates the importance of persistence). Randomness helps people escape narrow conceptual spaces. The Scrabble players who line up their letters in ways that make sense have more trouble seeing novel combinations, than players whose letters were sorted randomly. Creativity can be triggered by thinking what would happen if an event had not occurred. Software packages (idea browsers) help people associate a concept with images, proverbs, rhymes etc. Artificial Intelligence tools like IBM’s Chef Watson can be used to generate creative recipes or musical compositions. A Google image search could also help people come up with new ideas, as could object-based search. Here, novel input might help a person discover new parts of the conceptual space. Such input could also be offered during a divergent phase. After several minutes, someone might simply suggest: “Imagine how (insert name of famous person or superhero here) would solve this problem”. Another variation is negative brainstorming: invert the problem statement, look for solutions, find the best ones, and then invert the solutions.
SCAMPER Slides 35-36
A technique that is often used by designers is SCAMPER. Exercise with the question: “how to develop the student’s creativity? The acronym suggests ways to change one or more of the solutions or ideas that were generated. Thus, new variations can emerge. Participants sit together in groups of 4-5 and write down as many ideas as possible, one idea per post-it, using no more than a few words per idea (exercise 3). Tell participants there are no stupid ideas. They should postpone judgment, because even a very silly or unworkable idea can remind them of something original that is more promising. Feasibility should be the last of their concerns. Participants should be advised to use SCAMPER to come up with variations, once the first run of ideas stops. They could also take the perspective of a celebrity or superhero, or engage in negative brainstorming etc. If time permits, the group can briefly discuss their ideas, after which another short round of idea generation can start (note that group brainstorming is less productive than individual brainstorming, because of production blocking: people are distracted not stimulated by hearing other people’s ideas, and often they find it difficult to postpone judgment on ideas of others). After 10 minutes, it is time to move to the next phase of the creative process: convergence or idea selection.
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Convergent thinking Slides 37-39 This phase of the creative problem-solving process calls for a different way of thinking. Critical, convergent thinking relies heavily on analysis and evaluation of information. (Go through slide 37 and then go to slide 38 to perform the convergent thinking exercise). After every divergent phase in the creative process, several novel ideas or solutions will have been suggested. The goal of convergent thinking is to evaluate the quality of the purge. (Here: all ideas written on post-its in the previous minutes). A convenient way to visualize attractiveness of ideas is shown in slide 38. Participants can order the post-its with their ideas along two axes (indicate them on whiteboards or tables, or bring large sheets of paper). Split the group in sub-groups, or have all participants stick their post-its on a large surface (e.g., on a wall). When ideas are ordered along originality and feasibility, three groups of ideas emerge: now ideas (normal, easily implemented, little resistance), wow ideas (original but feasible, exciting) and how ideas (vision setting). Ask participants to explain to the (other) groups how they grouped some ideas along these dimensions. An alternative set of dimensions’ pairs feasibility with impact.
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Critical thinking competences Slides 41-48
People are not good at idea selection (examples Sydney opera house, Van Gogh, Harry Potter: all rejected when first presented). The analysis of ideas in the previous exercise was rather holistic, mostly driven by what Kahneman calls system 1 processing. A more systematic, analytic evaluation of the quality of ideas would require one or more of several competences that together have been labeled as critical thinking skills. Reasons why critical thinking is important include: employers are now stressing the importance of creative problem-solving skills, especially critical thinking (e.g., in Australia). Critical thinking is also required in evidence-based practice (e.g., evidence-based medicine, evidence-based management, evidence-based education, etc.). Evidence-based practice is the execution of an act by a professional in such a way that its execution is based on the best available knowledge about its effectiveness and efficiency. We can conclude that the producers of knowledge need critical thinking competence in order to develop a better insight about what seems to be the reality. In our post-truth society, it seems without critical thinking we will have a hard time communicating and filtering information to help us find sustainable solutions for the wicked problems of our times). Leadership requires critical thinking skills. And we all need to learn to critically self-reflect.
Introduction to innovation Slides 50-54
Ask people about innovation, and they usually come up with examples of disruptive innovation, in which a new product, service, or business model fully replaces the version that existed before (such as what Instagram has done to Kodak, what Netflix has done to DVD rental stores, what Amazon is doing to bookshops and retail in general, and what robots and artificial intelligence are doing to the workforce in general – in 2016, IBM’s Jill Watson replaced teaching assistants in Georgia without students noticing). Innovation more often is incremental and deemed essential for any company or organization to increase profitability, enable organizational growth, understand implications of new technologies, cope with radical environmental change. Definitions of innovation, reform and change can be seen in slide 53. Slide 54 contrasts creativity (idea generation and selection) and innovation (idea implementation).
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Individual, group and organizational level Slides 55-72
A simple model of innovative work behavior (with two antecedents: leadership and network) can be shown, before participants can look at what research suggests to be antecedents of innovation at the individual level, i.e. individual factors and task and social factors. Each item could merit a separate discussion (regarding personality, for instance, people with a high need for structure perform better in more focused creativity and innovation process), but for now, you can simply ask participant to scan the list and look for factors they recognize as important given their analysis of a locally active their higher education institution. Not surprisingly, these lists show some overlap with earlier lists for creativity: idea generation and selection are part of the innovation process (although researchers have often studied creativity and implementation separately). Research on creativity has overemphasized the importance of a creative product that sprung from the mind of an individual. There can be different types of creativity, especially in heterogeneous teams, and creativity can evolve in many different ways. This dynamic process also appears in team decision making where divergent and convergent thinking again alternate. Research on team-level factors suggest composition plays a small role in explaining why some teams are innovative and others not. The “value-in-diversity” thesis argues that diversity (culture, gender, outsider) promotes divergence in teams, and divergence leads to creativity. Support for this thesis is mixed, however. Interdependence is more important, and team climate (e.g. safety), processes (task orientation) and leadership (participative during idea generation, directive during im-
plementation) have even stronger effects. Reflection can help teams maintain focus and enhance team climate. An example exercise that stimulates reflection is the speedboat exercise where people design a boat and then can write the anchors that are holding back the boat (things they don’t like). Then can turn anchors in goals/ desires. The speedboat exercise is all about reducing waste and removing bottlenecks. According to some, that is all that innovation management should amount to: removing barriers to innovation, rather than taking measures to stimulate innovation). It is an alternative format which allows a team to focus not only on what holds them or the project back (e.g., waste), but also on what moves them forward and what can help them. At the organizational level, HR practices (training and employee involvement practices, performance-based pay systems, flexible working hours, job variety and autonomy, human resource flexibility) have been shown to affect innovation, as well as management support (a positive attitude towards innovation) and diversity. For instance, data from BCG obtained in Europe suggest that diversity in country of origin, gender, industry background and career path) can boost innovation. Their data also suggest that gender diversity, i.e. having a high percentage of female managers is positively correlated with innovation (it was also positively correlated with disruptive innovation). The overall percentage of women in a company’s workforce was not related to innovation, but innovation revenues start to increase when more than 20% of managers at a company are female. (Incidentally, MIT research has also
shown that teams with a larger share of women possess more collective intelligence.) The people who were surveyed believed that five conditions in the work environment impacted diversity-led innovation: Note that these results were obtained in from German speaking countries in Europe. Participants may discuss whether they feel these conclusions can be generalized across continents. (In Europe, entrepreneurship and innovation are often considered to be cool, while in the global south these are more often necessity-based. Even within Europe, differences are large. For instance, in Spain 16% of graduates would like to start a business, while only 5% actually do so. There also appears to be less innovative work behavior in Spain than in for instance The Netherlands or Poland. Cultural causes and cuts in funding for support programs may explain some of these differences, and some results may not generalize across industries). A second cluster of organizational antecedents of innovation are linked to knowledge utilization and networking. The importance of “bringing outside innovation in” drives Open Innovation, which capitalizes on knowledge alliances with environmental partners. A short video further illustrates OI: https://bit.ly/1SzFUYy. Innovative success also depends on how well an organization manages the knowledge and skills it has accumulated. After all, in most organizations, innovation isn’t hampered by a lack of newly generated ideas, but rather a lack of noticing the good ideas already there. Leading a knowledge management process typically involves focusing on people, processes and technology and monitoring the transfer, combination, and conversion of knowledge as users interact and learn, often supported by technology. Other examples are incubators, accelerators, and innovation labs. Design thinking is a solution-focused, human-centered approach to problem solving and design that is often promoted in innovation and fablabs.
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Innovation in High Education Institutions Slides 73-80
Participants are asked to turn attention to the organization they are most familiar with: universities. The innovative capacity of their university can be analyzed on seven dimensions (Slide 73- 80 are important to be read).
Tension between invention and exploitation Slides 81-82
Managing innovation and change often boils down to managing tension between goals and visions (imagine a hand pulling) and procedures and habits (a stick holding you back). Tension will increase when goals and visions are ambitious, and when rules and procedures are rigid. The Inayatullah triangle depicts these forces as push of the present (which current developments push organizations forward? e.g., digital transformation, lifelong learning), pull of the future (what goals or future states offer direction: business as usual, impending doom, or the 2030 sustainable development goals) and the weight of history (what is holding us back? resistance to change, rigid regulations, people who stick to their routines, ...).
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Each professor as change manager: Change manager skills Slides 83-86
Change management occurs at different levels: top-down change is often planned at the organizational level, but then required plans for implementation at team level and individual levels. The change manager’s job is to constantly energize and monitor these change processes. Several stage models have been proposed to describe the change process. Each professor should have a plan to be a change agent in terms of teaching and learning strategies and in terms of teaching students to innovate in their own essays. Lewin’s unfreeze-change-refreeze model is often quoted, and variations on Lewin’s work have emerged in behavioral psychology (e.g., the trans-theoretical model of health behavior change by Prochaska and DiClemente). The most influential model in management science is Kotter’s 8 step model. The model provides a checklist for change managers and helps them prepare for a process that will typically not unfold as planned: real change is messy (3 steps forward, 2 steps in other directions) and emotional. Furthermore, halfway through change projects, initial optimism can wear off, and stakeholders often become indifferent, only to recommit (or not) as time pressure increases. Indifference can be avoided if climate for innovation or change readiness can be influenced. Knoster (1991) offers another model that is often used to explain why innovations fail (slide 84). Success is contingent on vision, skills, incentives, resources and an action plan. The notion of collective leadership (Kuenkel) appreciates that change and innovation processes involve multiple stakeholders who offer diverse perspectives on complex multifaceted problems that organizations face (think sustainable development goals). Facilitating stakeholder dialogues is an example of a skill that sup orts this type of leadership. To conclude this section, you may briefly mention that although innovation is often exclusively discussed as beneficial, recent research also targets the dark side of creativity and innovation. Uncreativity (Bilton, 2015) is used to indicate that sometimes continuity is more important than change, and that refining existing ideas can be more rewarding than inventing new ideas. Novelty should not be prioritized over value, because it is not sustainable at the organizational level, and individuals may overemphasize their talent and show self-exploiting self-destructive behaviors. In addition, frequent failure of innovation projects (e.g. due to a lack of resources) can cause disillusionment among staff that show the highest innovation-related work behavior. We now move to the final exercise (exercise 5), which wraps up everything, and illustrates another way of involving participants in the discussion, can innovation be taught? There’s four articles and groups of 4 will be made where each person will read one. Then each group will explain why Can’t be taught and How can be taught.
Exercise Material Contents 17
Can you teach people to be innovative?
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How to train your brain to be more innovative
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You can teach someone to be more creative
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Encouraging creativity and innovation in yourself and your students
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Can you teach people to be innovative?
By Anna Jenkinson - Politico.eu
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“We don’t grow into creativity; we grow out of it. Or rather we are educated out of it”. Finland’s Aalto University
is not a traditional university, and nor does it want to be. Launched in 2010 as part of a radical rethink of education in Finland, it brings together students of economics, technology, and art and design. By stimulating interdisciplinary collaboration and removing traditional barriers, the university aims to provide the right environment for its students to innovate, think creatively and tackle challenges in new ways. “Promoting entrepreneurship and supporting start-up companies are essential facets of Aalto University’s societal impact,” says the university’s president, Tuula Teeri. “Creating an entrepreneurial spirit and culture also forms an inherent element of Aalto University’s research and teaching activities.” For Marja Makarow, who was vice-chairwoman of the university’s board when it was being set up, Aalto is a great example of what can be achieved in education. “You cannot teach innovation, but you can teach a mindset that is receptive to new ideas and provide an enabling environment that breeds innovation,” said Makarow, now vice-president of research at the Academy of Finland. Many would argue that encouraging an innovative mindset needs to start much earlier, with creativity nurtured more at primary and secondary school.
A change of approach
In the most widely watched TED talk online, British author and education expert Ken Robinson explains how he thinks schools should place greater value on children’s creativity and their capacity for innovation. “We don’t grow into creativity; we grow out of it. Or rather we are educated out of it,” he says in the 2006 TED talk. He calls for creativity to be given the same status in education as literacy. “We have to rethink the fundamental principles on which we are educating our children.” The same could be said of higher education. In Makarow’s opinion “there’s a lot more innovative talent around than the current procedures and educational establishments are able to realize. Europe needs to renovate the university system to be prepared to meet the challenges of today’s society.”
EU response
Such calls are not falling on deaf ears. European policymakers have been busy working on a strategy to modernize higher education, identifying areas where European Union countries need to do more to stimulate the development of entrepreneurial, creative and innovation skills, and setting out how the EU can provide support. “Entrepreneurship and innovation are at the heart of our policies,” says a spokesman for Androulla Vassilliou, the European commissioner for education, culture, multilingualism and youth. Around Europe there are a growing number of examples of higher education establishments providing an environment in which innovation can flourish, be it by breaking down barriers between departments and disciplines, encouraging study and research in other countries, or establishing partnerships that enable universities to pool resources for collaborative programmes. It might not be possible to teach innovation per se, but these conditions could help unleash innovative and creative potential.
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How to train your brain to be more innovative
By Anisa Pursabari Horton - Fast Company
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We hear a lot about why we need to innovate, but not how we can actually do it.. When we think about an innovative
person, our focus is often on their achievements: How they’ve changed their industry, how their big idea is disrupting the landscape that they’re operating in, or the scale and impact of their innovative practices. What we don’t normally consider is the thought process they went through. We hear a lot about why we need to innovate, but not how we can actually do it. Victor Poirier, a professor at the Institute of Advanced Discovery & Innovation at the University of South Florida, recently published a research paper in collaboration with nine of his colleagues that looks at the thought process behind innovation. The paper argues that innovation is a series of steps, and that innovators possess certain characteristics. Every individual possesses some of those characteristics—though to varying degree—and Poirier’s work looks at what those characteristics are, and how we can “awaken” them in order to unleash our own innovative genius. According to Poirier’s research, here are a few things we can do to help train our brains to be more innovative.
Don’t wait for inspiration to strike, create it A-ha moments don’t just appear out of thin air. They follow five steps: 1. Inspiration 2. Creativity 3. Motivation 4. Entrepreneurship 5. Innovation Inspiration can strike systematically or spontaneously, but it often occurs
after someone has already thought about whatever it is that inspires them. For example, you might be having trouble finding a solution to a problem you’re facing at work. Say you’re responsible for organizing the monthly meeting for your big team, but you find yourself spending a lot of time flicking between calendars, because there’s always a last-minute scheduling conflict. You talk to your colleagues, and then a few days later you realize that the best solution would be to get your whole team to download the Slack scheduling bot that automatically syncs everyone’s calendars and schedules meetings for you. This solution didn’t appear out of nowhere—you let your brain “brew” the information and thoughts and then were able to tap into your creativity and arrive at a solution. In the paper, creativity is defined as “the ability to think about the world in new ways, to think from a clear, open perspective, and to be unencumbered by existing knowledge.” Sometimes a little bit of time is needed to have this perspective, because Of course, ideas without actions aren’t all that useful. So the next step requires you to implement the solution and see whether it provides the value you thought it would—the way an entrepreneur validates their business ideas by testing the market. When the group that you’re trying to help “accepts” your solution, it becomes innovation. Going back to the scheduling example, it’s on you to get your team to download the Slack bot, and also to make sure that you obtain feedback from your team and assess whether it does in fact save you time. If the feedback is positive and you find yourself with more free time as a result, your small solution becomes “innovation.”
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Cultivate your innovative traits Like creativity, there’s a belief that innovative people are just born that way. That’s not necessarily true, according to Poirier. He tells Fast Company, “Almost everybody [has] innovative traits. Some people use them, some people don’t. [I did this research] to make people aware of what traits people do have, wake up dormant traits that they don’t even know they have, and prove the utilization of those traits.” Some of these traits, which Poirier lists in his research paper, include the ability to think abstractly, having deep and broad knowledge, curiosity, openness to risk, grit, and dissatisfaction with the status quo. Poirier believes that working on cultivating the traits that already exist in an individual can lead to a greater ability to be innovative. Poirier and his colleagues at the institute are currently testing and developing ways in which they can teach individuals to do this. If you see any of the above traits in yourself, you can deliberately seek out experiences to put those traits to use. For example, if you think that you possess grit but want to strengthen it, make it a habit to work on a project or goal from start to completion, and be ready to identify alternative paths if your current one isn’t working.
Put yourself in enviroments that are conducive to innovation It’s probably no surprise that your environment plays a major part in developing the innovative characteristics you possess and determines how often you use them. Poirier notes, “It depends a lot on your background and where you grow up and what you’re exposed to. If your parents are very intelligent, you will probably have more traits, and utilize those traits.” Of course, you can’t change the circumstances of your upbringing, but as an adult, we have more of a choice in the kinds of people that we surround ourselves with. You’ve probably heard the saying that you are the average of the five people you spend the most time with, and this idea also applies in innovation. When you surround yourself with others who possess high levels of innovative traits and constantly use them, you yourself are likely to do the same.
Have some ego, but not too much Ego is often viewed negatively—after all, we’ve seen too many examples of entrepreneurs who lost their way as a result of excessive ego. But Poirier believes that a little bit of ego can be helpful in creating innovation. “Ego makes people do things that they wouldn’t normally do. For instance, if a group of individuals are trying to solve a problem or create a solution, ego can motivate you to concentrate more, to work hard, to do better than the people around you. They really take the extra effort just because it makes them feel much better and superior to other people.” Poirier notes, however, that there is a point at which ego stops being beneficial. “You can go to the other extreme and think you’re great when you’re really not.” Innovators might be born, but they can also be made and trained. Thomas Edison trained himself to be innovative by testing out all the ways to make a light bulb that didn’t work before finally landing on a method that did, and we can train ourselves to be innovative by cultivating certain characteristics and surrounding ourselves with the right people in the right environment.
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You can teach someone to be more creative By Tomas Chamorro Premuzic - Harvard Business Review
Though our inspiration levels
fluctuate from time to time, we all differ in our baseline levels of creativity. For instance, it is safe to assume that John Coltrane was more creative than Justin Bieber, and that the creative talent of Leonardo Da Vinci exceeded that of George W. Bush. In the world of business, few entrepreneurs can realistically expect to emulate the colossi of innovation, such as Steve Jobs, Jeff Bezos, or Richard Branson, or the companies they created. But can you coach someone to be more creative? To some degree, our creativity levels are hard to change. They come down to personality traits such as intellectual curiosity, openness to experience, and unconventionality, which are largely set by the time we reach early adulthood. Creative individuals have also been found to have higher IQs and lower latent inhibition – that is, an “inability” to suppress irrelevant or inappropriate thoughts, which provide the raw materials for their creative ideas. And, as recent research highlights, the key ingredients for creative performance are somewhat
field-dependent: in the arts, IQ is irrelevant but the desire to seek beauty, a tendency toward fantasy, and a vivid imagination are all critical; in science, thinking, reasoning, and a drive for truth are essential, even more so than IQ; in business, EQ and extraversion help, not least because innovation depends on successfully selling your creative ideas to others. So creativity is not 100% malleable – personality sets its limits – yet it can still be nurtured via deliberate interventions, especially over a long period of time. Genetic studies suggest that genes determine only 10% of the variability in creative potential, so there is a lot of room for development. Here are the main factors to consider when attempting to coach creativity:
1. Give lots of feedback Given that most people are not as creative as they think, it is important that any attempts to coach creativity begin by providing individuals with feedback, especially when they
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Creativity is not 100% malleable –personality sets its limits– yet it can still be nurtured via deliberate interventions, especially over a long period of time.
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are narcissistic, since narcissism inflates people’s estimates of their own competence to an unrealistic level. Feedback is essential to help people close the gap between their confidence and their competence. Employees who seek more feedback have been shown to perform more creatively than their counterparts. Conversely, individuals who ignore feedback from others will only end up being creative in their own minds.
2. Provide training in creative thinking Several exercises have been found to enhance creative performance. For example, teaching people to detect novel ideas, take on challenging tasks, retrieve knowledge outside their main area of expertise, or combine unrelated things or ideas can all boost creativity. The reason why incubators are so effective is that they successfully combine many of these techniques (e.g., they disengage people from their everyday activities and force them to pay attention to other issues, they push people to see things from different perspectives, and so on). Even small changes in your everyday routine can have a positive impact on your creative output – for instance, taking a different route to work everyday, or taking on new hobbies and activities. Meditation and relaxation have also been found to improve creative performance, partly by creating more favorable mood states. A review of nearly 600 studies found that mediation, including mindfulness, enhances creativity with the same effectiveness as psychotherapy interventions improve well-being, and not merely by improving relaxation and mood. Managers can boost employee creativity by fostering meditation and relaxation not only in their employees, but also in themselves – the more relaxed and mindful managers are, the more they will value and reward creative ideas in others.
3. Assing people to task they love One of the most effective methods for enhancing creative performance is to increase individuals’ motivation, particularly intrinsic motivation (their task-related enjoyment, interest, and involvement). Ever since Teresa Amabile first emphasized this idea, meta-analytic studies have confirmed the intuitive idea that assigning people to projects they love unleashes their creative potential. In contrast, extrinsic rewards, such as financial incentives, tend to inhibit people’s creativity. In the words of Carl Jung, “The creative mind plays with the object it loves.”
once said, “Learn the rules like a pro, so you can break them like an artist.” Finally, let’s not forget that though individual creativity matters, team creativity is far more important. The Western notion of “creatives” as individual superstars is in stark contrast with the realities of real-world innovation. Creativity is mostly a team effort that can only result from coordinated group activities, because it requires individuals to leave aside their selfish agendas to work as a team — and that is why leadership is a key driver of creativity. Here are three basic suggestions managers can follow in order to boost the creative output of their teams: •
Balance differences and similarities: high-performing teams tend to be similar in their values (they are all motivated and driven by the same things) but different in their styles (they have different personalities, skills, and backgrounds).
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Avoid having too many “creatives”: although idea generators are critical to any creative team, their ideas will only be implemented if the team also comprises people who love execution, think pragmatically, pay attention to details, and help to transform their creative ideas into actual innovations. Don’t assume that your less creative employees cannot make a key contribution to the group’s overall creative output.
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Embrace failure: This has become a cliché, but it is true. Too many managers and companies pretend to embrace creativity but they don’t care enough to do what it takes to promote it. They want employees to achieve “less with more” and are happy to support their creative ideas so long as they will “work for sure.” If you are not prepared to embrace failure, you will never encourage your employees to do anything creative.
4. Help employees develop expertise For any subject matter, creative performance is a function not just of potential, thinking skills, and motivation, but also of expertise. Most people are inclined to believe that knowledge interferes with creativity — that the more you read and find out, the harder it is to be creative. On the one hand, it is virtually impossible to come up with ideas that are completely original, which is why Einstein said that “the secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources.” On the other hand, without expertise or task-relevant skills, you cannot produce anything creative. If you don’t know how to play the piano, you’ll never be able to improvise on it; if you don’t speak a language, you won’t be able to tell jokes; and if you can’t code, you won’t be able to develop an original app. Therefore, a higher level of expertise, particularly in an area your employee is passionate about, will increase their chances of being creative in that domain. Of course, expertise is not sufficient for creative performance. It is not enough to master the elements of the system — one also has to rearrange them in original ways. As Picasso
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Encouraging creativity and innovation in yourself and your students By Laura Taddei EdD - Faculty Focus
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We hear a lot about why we need to innovate, but not how we can actually do it.. Innovation and creativity
are two words heard frequently in higher education today. How can we encourage innovation and creativity in ourselves and our students? Reimers-Hild and King (2009) described components of innovation as fun, creative, diverse, collaborative, and intuitive. Taking small steps to accomplish this goal is the way to go, but there needs to be support and encouragement. Taking risks and sometimes even looking at failure as “fuel for innovation” can help promote this process (Ryshke, 2012). If something does not work, we can learn from it, and then modify and try again. While serving as Director of a Center for Faculty Development, I often asked faculty how they encourage creativity and innovation in their classroom. Here are some of the key themes that arose from these conversations:
Active Learning Use active learning techniques to engage students, and encourage innovation and creativity. Some faculty create games and use concept maps, songs, study guides. As one faculty member stated, “learning happens when you trap a student in an environment where they can’t escape without thinking.” Faculty shared the following practical ideas for incorporating more active learning into their teaching: •
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Provide interaction that includes a high percentage of class time with hands-on and problem solving opportunities. Create opportunities for handson field work — get students out of their comfort zone and their own environments. Have students facilitate a round-
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table discussion. Write questions on the board and have students answer the questions — what is the evidence; do they agree or disagree, why? Allow students to create a few of the questions for an upcoming exam.
Community Building Creating an environment of trust is a critical component of promoting innovation and creativity. Faculty can create a classroom climate where everyone’s voice matters. Better yet, get involved in the community with your students. For example, a faculty member who taught Spanish had the students in the class work with a local theatre to produce a children’s play in Spanish. Someone else shared the following insight, “we need to come across as people and communicate our enthusiasm”. Additional ideas to build community are as follows: •
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Allow for spontaneous interactions. For example, during small group or large group discussions, allow students to discuss freely without offering too much feedback. If a discussion or question goes in a way not expected, use that time as a teachable moment. Create time for informal class opportunities; for example, provide time for students to talk and get to know each other. This can be through small group discussion, games, and hands-on activities during class time. Many times, these informal opportunities help for organic groups to form where students can bond and continue learning together. Learn everyone’s names and
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make sure everyone in the class knows each other’s names as well. If possible, arrange chairs in a circle so students can see one another. Encourage students to be intrinsically motivated; for example, one professor noted the use of a Facebook page where students could have discussions based on the course topic. Even after the course ended, the students continued to post to the course Facebook page because they wanted to keep the discussion going.
Colaboration Simmons (2012) described the importance of faculty talking with each other, sharing teaching ideas and challenges. These kinds of collaborative conversations encourage an atmosphere of safety and the ability to take risks. When faculty were asked what kind of strategies worked, some of the responses include: “sharing ideas across discipline,” “creating an environment of open collaboration,” and “providing for interdisciplinary and capstone courses as well as cross-class projects”.
Risk-Taking In order to create an innovative and creative environment, risk-taking needs to be encouraged (Reimers-Hild & King, 2009). Faculty suggested the following strategies for administrators and teachers: • • •
Provide a safe environment that allows risk-taking. Be willing to try new ideas and then tweak to improve. Allow do-overs – making mis-
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takes is acceptable. Get out of your own comfort zone. Throw out everything at the end of the year and start over again. Talk to other faculty and find out things they have tried and what worked and what did not work.
What are some ways you create an innovative and creative environment for yourself and your students? What do you need to help you create an environment that encourages innovation and creativity?
Moving Forward Faculty can benefit greatly from continued conversations and sharing of ideas. When institutions encourage innovation and creativity, faculty are free to take risks and try new things. When I asked the faculty what they needed moving forward, some of the key themes that arose included: support from administration; opportunities to collaborate with their colleagues both discipline-specific and interdisciplinary; time to observe other faculty; working in collaboration with institutional technology; and lots of communication. Following-up with faculty on these conversations and ideas is also an important part of encouraging innovation and creativity.
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h t t p s : / / w w w. y o u t u b e . c o m / watch?v=pXtN4y3O35M How it works: design thinking IBM ThinkAcademy 5:50 agile/design
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h t t p s : / / w w w. y o u t u b e . c o m / watch?v=SNkjDr4dwsg Design thinking method 4:36
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Kegan, R., & Lahey, L. L. (2016). An everyone culture: Becoming a deliberately developmental organization. Harvard Business Review Press.
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Contact Marina Ventura, Coordinator. Career Services and Alumni office. Instituto Universitario de Lisboa (ISCTE-IUL) T: +351 21 790 3000 marina.ventura@iscte.pt Av. das Forรงas Armadas, 1649-026 Lisboa, Portugal.
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