Creativity and Innovation 1

Creativity and Innovation

Creativity can be seen as the ideation component of innovation and innovation as encompassing both the proposal and applications of the new ideas. However, it is not necessary for all innovations to be creative, as in the case of adoptions of technologies already widespread. Another point to make is that innovation is change, but not all change is innovation. Amabile (1983, 1996, and 1997) has extensively researched creativity. Her theories are based on the principle that even though it is granted that personality plays a role on intrinsic motivation, it has been proven that the social environment can significantly impact a person’s level of intrinsic motivation and hence his or her creativity. Amabile’s componential model of creativity includes three major components of individual or team creativity: expertise, creative-thinking skill, and intrinsic task motivation. The theory predicts that creativity occurs when these three components overlap and that it will be higher when these three components are higher as well.

Components of Creativity
1. Intrinsic Motivation
Motivation makes the difference between what a person can do (the previous skills) and what he or she will do. The motivation can be intrinsic and/or extrinsic and they can interact synergistically, resulting in creativity. Among the primary features of intrinsic motivation protrudes a positive sense of challenge in the work, a sense of freedom and a focus on the work itself. Extrinsic motivators appeal to the desire to accomplish some goals that are apart from the work itself (rewards, deadlines, etc.). The theory suggests that creativity will be higher when a person’s skills overlap with his/her strongest interests.
2. Expertise
Expertise is seen as the foundation for all creative work. It includes all the cognitive pathways that can be followed to solve a problem. The expertise component includes knowledge, technical skills and special talents in the target work domain acquired through experience and study.


3. Creative Thinking Skills
Entrepreneurs blend imaginative and creative thinking with systematic, logical process ability.  This combination is a key to success. In addition, potential entrepreneurs are always looking for unique opportunities to fill needs or wants. They sense economic potential in business problems by continually asking "What if ...?" or "Why not ...?" They develop an ability to see, recognize, and create opportunities where others find only problems. It has been said that the first rule for developing entrepreneurial vision is to recognize that problems are to solutions what demand is to supply. Applying this rule means an entrepreneur will analyze a problem from every possible angle: What is the problem? Whom does it affect? How does it affect them? What costs are involved? Can it be solved? Would the marketplace pay fore solution? This is the type of analysis that blends creative thinking with systematic analysis.
Creative thinking skills are all the personality traits that can aid creativity. They include the ability to handle problems with new perspectives, the willingness to explore new cognitive pathways, intellectual independence, and the ‘need' to be different. Even though creativity skills depend to some extent on personality, they also can be increased by the appropriate learning and training.
Creativity Process
Early inquiry into the nature and nurture of the creative process began with examinations of the mental activities and processes of highly creative individuals. These studies have yielded a variety of models of the creative process. One of the earliest models of the creative process is attributed to Graham Wallas (1926) and came with a very useful description of creative process in his book The Art of Thought.

1.    Idea Germination
The germination stage is a seeding process. Exactly how an idea is germinated is a mystery;It is not something that can be examined under a microscope. However, most creative ideas can be traced to an individual’s interest in or curiosity about a specific problem or area of study.

2. Preparation
In the Preparation Phase, we define the problem, including needs and desires, and collect all information relating to possible solutions. This is the point at which criteria are developed which help to discern and judge the quality of ideas. Expertise and knowledge of the subject at hand play a great role. To be able to judge alternatives on their application and feasibility and the competence and skill to elaborate some idea, are all aspects that play a huge role in this phase.

3. Incubation
Wallas discovered that many breakthrough ideas only come to be after one lets go of the issue. Contrary to the Preparation Phase during which one is intensively occupied with the issue, with formulating options and testing alternatives, one lets go of the issues and focuses the attention on other subjects during the Incubation phase. This change of focus can take a few instants but it may also take days or weeks before a breakthrough happens.

4. Illumination
A phase full of mystery: suddenly you have an idea, maybe in the form of ‘Wait a moment, what if we . . . ?’ or ‘Could it be that . . . ?’ one is doing something else and suddenly the issue comes back into focus with something of a ‘hint’ of the whole issue or of some sub problem, or one suddenly sees the whole issue in another light. Suddenly there is an opening from which one may develop an approach to deal with the issue at hand. Often, such an enlightening moment goes hand in hand with an emotional release, which marks this opening up of the blocked position we were in a moment before.

5. Verification
This fourth step in the process is a phase of testing an idea. In other words, Verification involves making sure that one’s creative insight or novel idea is in fact an appropriate solution to one’s problem. What first comes up as a hunch obviously does not have to work; it is a hypothesis which has to be confronted with the original problem statement and criteria that were formed during the Preparation phase to judge if it is a useful approach.