Creativity, the birth mother of Innovation.

Where does innovation come from? It comes from within. It is coaxed out by your creativity. Creativity is the seed in which innovation develops from. Creativity encourages divergent and convergent thinking. Divergent thinking is where in order to find a solution you explore many different options, routes and possibilities. The advantages of being able to think like this and exploring many different routes is that you can evaluate which one is the best and weigh up the advantages and disadvantages of each route. This then helps you to make the best decision which will produce the best outcome. Convergent thinking is the opposite of divergent thinking and generally applies to questions where there is only one correct answer, like math equations etc.

My personal opinion is that to be innovative, you have to have creativity within. I believe that the most innovative people were born with creativity; bubbling down inside and that by developing on this creativity they have gained the innovative skill.

In order for creativity and innovation to flow freely, their needs to be quite a relaxed structure within an organisation. Structures that are quite hierarchical and rigid tend to restrict creativity and innovation. Organisations that have this type of structure within their business usually prefer to encourage a rational style of decision making.

Creativity is also included in one of the idea-generation techniques, which has been adapted and summarised from Sowrey, 1987. Trying to bring out the creativity in employees can be difficult, and by using these techniques such as braining storming and encouraging lateral thinking, this can help. Brainstorming is ‘a common technique employed to generate a large quantity of ideas within a group.’ (Managing and Shaping Innovation, Conway, F. Steward, Oxford University Press, 2009, Page291.) By using brainstorming as an idea generator, people can bounce of each other’s ideas, and creativity is stimulated by the chain reaction of ideas through interaction within the group, and wild ideas are thrown into the mix.

Lateral thinking helps ideas to arrive by breaking free from normal/current ways of thinking, and effectively thinking outside the box. Lateral thinking includes ‘restructuring existing patterns of information in the mind, and by exploring alternative and novel ways of viewing a situation.’ (Managing and Shaping Innovation, Conway, F. Steward, Oxford University Press, 2009, Page291.)

So to conclude my second blog post, i invite you to answer a question for me. Has brainstorming ever helped you be innovative within the workplace? Let me know.