MODULE 1- CREATIVITY

To live a CREATIVE LIFE,

we must lose our fear of
being wrong.
1. One thing you would frequently
notice in the professional world
is that people are most creative
when they have a Problem
and are pushed to their breaking
point trying to solve it.
2. There may also be people who
are more fascinated by numbers
and facts / DATA, and may
believe that they are not very
creative.
 I. Respect any IDEA = Be more open minded
 A. Break Assumption = Don’t think within
the box
 C. Be Curious = The power of W&H
questions?
 P. Prototype = trial and error
 P. Persevere = Keep trying
 R. Take Risk = Don’t be AFRAID to get it
wrong
 Creativity is the ability to discover new solutions to problems, or
to produce new ideas, inventions, or works of art. It is a special
form of thinking, a way of viewing the world and interacting with
it in a manner different from that of the general population
(Levin, 1978).
 The creative process is any process by which something new is
produced—an idea or an object including a new form or
arrangement of old elements. The new creation must contribute
to the solution of some problems (Wilson, Guilford &
Christensen, 1974).
 Creativity may be defined as the capacity of an individual to
create, discover, or produce a new or novel idea or object,
including the rearrangement or reshaping of what is already
known to him/her, which proves to be a unique personal
experience (Mangal, 2011).
1. Creativity is universal
2. It is innate as well as acquired
3. It produces something new or novel
4. It is adventurous and open thinking
5. It is a means as well as ends in itself
6. It has a wide scope
7. It may not go hand-in-hand with Intelligence, but
cannot be completely separated from Intelligence
either
8. Creativity and School Performance are not
correlated
9. Creativity and Sociability are often negatively
correlated
10. Creativity and Anxiety may often go together
 Convergent thinking refers to intelligence rated
by IQ tests, or tests that measure rational,
problem- solving abilities. Convergent thought is
analytical,
logical and controlled. It means one “right answer”
for a given problem. Standardized tests and
intelligence tests measure convergent thinking.
 Divergent thinking refers to the ability to come
up with many solutions or ideas for problems that
don’t
have one solution. It refers to associative and
intuitive
thought, and thinking that requires flexibility. It’s
 Brainstorming is a strategy or technique
for allowing a group to explore ideas
without judgement and censure.
 In practice, people sit in a group for solving a
problem, and attack it without any inhibition from
many different angles, in fact literally storming it
with a number of possible ideas and solutions.
 In the beginning, students may be provided with a
focus, e.g., a particular problem like ‘student
unrest’, or the growing unemployment scenario in
India, etc. The students are then asked to suggest
ideas as rapidly as possible.
1. All ideas are encouraged and appreciated. Therefore,
no criticism is allowed during brainstorming sessions.
2. Group members are encouraged to come up with as
many ideas as possible, even unusual and
unorthodox ones.
3. They are not restricted to new ideas only, but are also
encouraged to enlarge upon ideas put forward by
fellow group members.
4. No evaluation or comments of any sort are made until
the session is over. At the end of the session, all the
ideas received are discussed in a free, frank and open
environment, and the most viable ideas are accepted
for solution of the problem in question.
A MODEL OF CREATIVITY /
CREATIVE THINKING
Developed by Geoffrey
Petty
 Inwhich you generate a large number of
ideas

 This is the research or idea-generation

phase.
The process is uninhibited and
characterised by spontaneity,
experimentation, intuition, and risk-
taking.
 Many people wonder where creative
 Creativity is like mining for diamonds,
most of what you dig is thrown away,
but that doesn’t make the digging a
waste of time. If you ‘can’t think of
anything’ you are having difficulty with
this inspiration phase, perhaps because
you are too self-critical, or expect good
ideas to come too quickly.
 In which you focus on your
goals.
 Key ◊ what
questions are:am I trying to achieve
 ◊ here? what am I trying to say?
 ◊ what exactly is the problem I am trying to
 ◊ solve? what would I like the finished work to
 be like?
 And in more open ended
◊
 work: how could I exploit the ideas I have had?
 ◊ where could this idea take me --- what could I
it? make of

 The aim here is to clarify the purpose or objective of the work.
It is easy to lose your sense of direction while dealing with
detailed difficulties in creative work. So you need occasionally
to disengage from these obstacles and ask: “what exactly am I
trying to do?”.
 Ifyou ‘get stuck’ in the middle of a project,
then rather than dreaming up a stream of
alternatives you need to clarify where exactly
you want to go. How to get there is then often
straight- forward, or even blindingly obvious.

 Ifyou feel lost, stuck, bogged down, confused,

or uncertain about how to proceed, then
clarification is what you need. In this
clarification phase you have your eye on the
ball, you are being strategic and logical,
focussing on how the finished work will look.
 This is a review phase in which you look back over
your work in progress
 In the evaluation phase you examine your work for
strengths and weaknesses. Then you need to
consider how the work could be improved, by
removing weaknesses and also by capitalising on
its strengths.
Then there will probably need to be another
perspiration phase to respond positively to the
suggestions for improvement. Perspiration and
evaluation phases often alternate to form a
cycle.
 Hardly anyone gets things perfect first time.
 Many people dislike the evaluation phase at
first.
 Actually this evaluation phase can be very
rewarding, and no work of real merit will
be produced without it.
 If Shakespeare and Picasso found they had
to revise their efforts, then I expect even
you will need to!
 In which you look through the ideas you
have generated and try to determine which
ones to work on

 Here ideas from the inspiration phase are

sorted through and evaluated usually in the
light of the findings of a clarification phase.
The best ideas are chosen for further
development, or are combined into even
better ideas.
 Distillation
 This is a self-critical phase. It requires cool
analysis and judgment. However it should
not be so critical as to inhibit productivity
entirely.

 Remember, the ideas you have had are

only ideas, not complete solutions --- you
must not expect too much of them. It is
where the ideas can take you that counts,
not the ideas themselves.
 In which you leave the work alone, though
you still ponder about it occasionally ,
leaving it ‘on the surface of your mind’.
 Many brilliant ideas have occurred in the bath,
or in traffic jams. If you are able to stop work
on a project for a few days, perhaps to work
on other things, this will give your
subconscious time to work on any problems
encountered, it will also distance you
somewhat from your ideas so that you are
better able to evaluate them.
 Incubatio
n
 'Incubation' is particularly useful after an
'inspiration' or a 'perspiration' phase, or if a
problem has been encountered.
 Creative people are often surprisingly patient and
untidy, and are content to let half-baked ideas,
loose ends and inconsistencies brew away in their
sub- conscious until 'something turns up'.
 Whenever Sir Isaac Newton had a particularly
thorny problem he always worked on it just before
he went to sleep. He said "I invariably woke up with
the solution"
 Inwhich you work determinedly on your
best ideas.

 This is where the real work is done. You

are involved in determined and persistent
effort towards your goal, this will usually
involve further 'inspiration' ‘distillation’ and
'clarification' phases.
 Ideally we should be able to use all of the ‘ICEDIP’
phases in the creative process with equal ease, and
should always choose the most appropriate one for the
circumstances.

 Very few people manage this!

 In practice we tend to have preferences for some phases

over others. Sometimes the way we are forced to work
means some phases are not given due emphasis.

 Your preference for a given phase is not a fixed matter of

personality; you can change the way you work if you want
to.