Creativity Defined.

Creativity is defined as the tendency to generate or recognize ideas, alternatives, or possibilities

that may be useful in solving problems, communicating with others, and entertaining ourselves and
others. (page 396)

Three reasons why people are motivated to be creative:

1) need for novel, varied, and complex stimulation

2) need to communicate ideas and values
3) need to solve problems (page 396)

In order to be creative, you need to be able to view things in new ways or from a different perspective.
Among other things, you need to be able to generate new possibilities or new alternatives. Tests of
creativity measure not only the number of alternatives that people can generate but the uniqueness of
those alternatives. the ability to generate alternatives or to see things uniquely does not occur by
change; it is linked to other, more fundamental qualities of thinking, such as flexibility, tolerance of
ambiguity or unpredictability, and the enjoyment of things heretofore unknown. (page 394)

From Human Motivation, 3rd ed., by Robert E. Franken: Brooks/Cole Publishing

Company, 1982 - Self-Help - 538 pages

Ways that "creativity" is commonly used:

Persons who express unusual thoughts, who are interesting and stimulating - in short, people who
appear to unusually bright.

People who experience the world in novel and original ways. These are (personally creative) individuals
whose perceptions are fresh, whose judgements are insightful, who may make important discoveries
that only they know about.

Individuals who have changes our culture in some important way. Because their achievement are by
definition public, it is easier to write about them. (e.g., Leonardo, Edison, Picasso, Einstein, etc.) (pages
25-26)

 Creativity - Flow and the Psychology of Discovery and Invention by Mihaly

Csikszentmihalyi. Publisher: HarperCollins e-books; Reprint edition (October 13,
2009)
 Publication Date: October 13, 2009

Creativity and Economic Development:

We are living in the age of creativity. Daniel Pink in his book, A Whole New Mind: Why Right-Brainers
Will Rule the Future defines Economic Development as:
1. Agriculture Age (farmers)

2. Industrial Age (factory workers)

3. Information Age (knowledge workers)

4. Conceptual Age (creators and empathizers)

Pink argues that left-brain linear, analytical computer-like thinking is being replaced by right-brain
empathy, inventiveness, and understanding as skills most needed by business. In other words, creativity
gives you a competitive advantage by adding value to your service or product and differentiating your
business from the competition. Without creativity, you are doomed to compete in commodity hell!

Paperback: 304 pages

Publisher: Riverhead Books; Reprint, Updated edition (March 7, 2006)

Language: English

ISBN-10: 9781594481710

ISBN-13: 978-1594481710

Creativity is the Most Crucial Factor for Future Success

IBM’s 2010 Global CEO Study stated:

The effects of rising complexity calls for CEOs and their teams to lead with bold creativity, connect with
customers in imaginative ways and design their operations for speed and flexibility to position their
organizations for twenty-first century success.

The Creativity Gap

A 2012 Adobe study on creativity shows 8 in 10 people feel that unlocking creativity is critical to
economic growth and nearly two-thirds of respondents feel creativity is valuable to society, yet a
striking minority – only 1 in 4 people – believe they are living up to their own creative potential.

Can creativity be learned?

The short answer is yes. A study by George Land reveals that we are naturally creative and as we grow
up we learn to be uncreative. Creativity is a skill that can be developed and a process that can be
managed.
Creativity begins with a foundation of knowledge, learning a discipline, and mastering a way of thinking.
You can 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.

Studies by Clayton M. Christensen and his researchers uncovered The Innovators DNA: Your 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:

Associating: drawing connections between questions, problems, or ideas from unrelated fields

Questioning: posing queries that challenge common wisdom

Observing: scrutinizing the behavior of customers, suppliers, and competitors to identify new ways of
doing things

Networking: meeting people with different ideas and perspectives

Experimenting: constructing interactive experiences and provoking unorthodox responses to see what
insights emerge

Sir Richard Branson has a mantra that runs through the DNA of Virgin companies. The mantra is A-B-C-D.
(Always Be Connecting the Dots). Creativity is a practice, and if you practice using these five discovery
skills every day, you will develop your skills in creativity and innovation.

Additional creativity resources:

Creativity and Innovation workshops

A curated list of creativity tools and techniques

Overcoming myths about creativity

Beliefs 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 masterwork. Moreover many high performers achieve
levels of excellence today that match the capabilities of a Mozart, or a Gold Medallist from the turn of
the century.” (The Vancouver Sun, Sept.12/98)

Fostering Creativity at Work: Rules of the Garage

Follow these simple rules and you will foster a culture of creativity and innovation: These were defined
by HP, which in fact started in a garage.

Believe you can change the world.

Work quickly, keep the tools unlocked, work whenever.

Know when to work alone and when to work together.

Share – tools, ideas. Trust your colleagues.

No politics. No bureaucracy. (These are ridiculous in a garage.)

The customer defines a job well done.

Radical ideas are not bad ideas.

Invent different ways of working.

Make a contribution every day. If it doesn’t contribute, it doesn’t leave the garage.

Believe that together we can do anything.

Invent.

-1999 HP Annual Report

Creative Process

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi wrote that the creative process normally takes five steps (Creativity, 1996,
p.79):
 Preparation - becoming immersed in problematic issues that are interesting and arouses
curiosity

Incubation - ideas churn around below the threshold of consciousness

Insight - the “Aha!” moment when the puzzle starts to fall together

Evaluation - deciding if the insight is valuable and worth pursuing

Elaboration - translating the insight into its final work

Importance of Creativity

1. Give Employees Time To Think

Offering up as little as thirty minutes of work time a week for exploratory thought could send the
message that creativity is valued, no matter when, where, or how ideas are conceived,” says Amy Fries,
author of Daydreams at Work: Wake Up Your Creative Powers.

At 3M, every engineer gets an hour of time each day to do what they want, whether it’s working on a
side project or a hobby

At Maddock Douglas, a company that helps companies develop and market new products, the team is
allowed 100 to 200 hours a year for pursuing anything of interest

Software company Atlassian gives employees the opportunity to take “FedEx Days" - paid days off with
an expectation of value delivered 24 hours later

The maker of Turbotax, Intuit, also awards employees with time - 3 months of “unstructured time” can
be allocated all at once or spread of six months for innovators to explore new ideas

After the invention of Gore-Tex in 1969, WL Gore & Associates, Inc., decided to prioritize experimental
innovation with “dabble time,” which allows employees to spend 10% of their work week on self-
selected initiatives. Founder Bill Gore liked to say, "Communication really happens in the car pool."
2. Use Software To Aggregate and Organize Ideas

Many large corporations utilize collaboration software to keep track of inspiration, insights and creative
ideation across business functions. For example, Batterii is used by several of the companies*, including
Adidas and P&G, who appear on Forbes world’s most innovative company list and world’s most valuable
brand list. Teams inside of these companies use Batterii to design better experiences, bringing together
research, strategy, design, development and marketing. Platforms like this help individuals and teams
see their "dots" and connect ideas faster.

batterii-wallpaper-desk.jpg*Batterii is respecting client confidentiality to honor the requests of our

business partners and uphold the integrity of our agreements

3. Build New Skills with Internal Teams

Try doing your next research or project activities as a cross-functional team. At West Paw, a company
producing pet products in Bozeman, MT, the entire company takes part in designing and producing
prototypes for new products.

As a part of this initiative, provide opportunities for your internal teams to learn new methods, like
Ethnograhy, Coolhunting or Co-creation. Having your team play an active role, from doing the research
in the field or co-designing with consumers helps unlock new ideas and experiences vital to what
consumers expect today from brands.

Motivating employees goes beyond financial incentives. We all want to learn something new, test it in
the wild and gain mastery. Give your teams multiple opportunities to develop new creative skills, from
research to strategy and ideation.

4. Encourage Risk Taking

Sheryl Sandberg’s million-dollar mistake at Google, chronicled by Fortune magazine in an article titled,
Chaos by Design, highlights the company’s dedication to innovation and commitment to taking risks
even at a very high level with significant money at stake. Larry Page’s response sent a very explicit
message to Googlers about what was expected of them.
"I’m so glad you made this mistake," he said, "Because I want to run a company where we are moving
too quickly and doing too much, not being too cautious and doing too little. If we don’t have any of
these mistakes, we’re just not taking enough risk."

5. Encourage Diversity of Thinking

At Ziba, employees get to see different kinds of work and skills through its Ambassador Program, which
sends staff members out for three months to work with different “tribes” and experience the specialties
of different team members. Diversity of thinking is important for helping your team see different
perspectives and understanding different elements of the business.

6. Align with a Higher Mission

The software company Intuit, developer of Quicken, Quickbooks, and Turbotax—is very explicit about its
mission: "To improve our customers’ financial lives so profoundly they can’t imagine going back to the
old way." By aligning with a higher mission, employees feel more motivated to actively pursue
innovation. When people feel like they're working on something bigger there's a deeper connection to
the work. Deeper meaning makes work more satisfying and enhances employee happiness.

Make Creativity Part of Your Culture

Share these ideas with a colleague and discuss how you can make creativity more of a cultural habit at
your organization. To learn more about how Batterii can help teams design better experiences, signup
for a free trial or contact sales@batterii.com.

CHAD REYNOLDS Chad Reynolds is the Founder of Batterii, a collaboration platform designed to help
teams create better experiences. Over the past 15 years, Chad has worked with brands like Adidas, GE
Healthcare, Nike and Procter & Gamble to re-imagine their brand experiences for the next generation of
consumers.

by Chad Reynolds

on January 29, 2015

CREATIVITY

How 3M, Nike And P&G Are Fostering A Creativite Culture

http://blog.batterii.com/foster-creativity-culture-nike-3m-pg
Like Google, HubSpot is another company that is famous for a great company culture.

It also brings in speakers and teaches classes. But one unique thing it does, as part of its culture of an
“uncomfortable level of transparency,” is to let employees join another team for a while to learn about
that part of the business, HubSpot cofounder, CTO, Dharmesh Shah, told Business Insider.

So engineers can learn more about marketing for instance, or vice versa.

Vogue / YouTube screencap

Another great thing Google does to stir creativity is to invite all kinds of famous people onto its campus
to give lectures. It calls this program @Google Talks and the guests range from celebrities, like Lady
Gaga and Tina Fey to artists, authors, performers, activists and politicians.

The goal of these talks is to “keep our brains learning, growing and thinking,” the company says. It also
shares the talks on YouTube.

Recent research shows that dim lighting boosts creativity. San Francisco-based ticket-sale company
Eventbrite has taken that lesson to heart.

Its office includes a Zen Room, with low-lights and no noise. It’s a place where employees can meditate,
think or nap on the comfy couches.