Business creativity

1. Business creativity Session 1

2. Learning outcomes • Define creativity • Discuss the background to creativity • Discuss the components of creativity

3. What is creativity?? • The generation of novel ideas and solutions • Is a mental process involving the generation of new ideas or concepts, or new associations between existing ideas or concepts (Wikipedia encyclopedia) • Simply the act of making something new • The ‘mental process that leads to solutions, ideas,. theories or products that are unique and novel’ (Reber, 1985)

4. What do you say it is? • "Creativity, it has been said, consists largely of re-arranging what we know in order to find out what we do not know."George Keller • Some say it is a trait we are born with; others say it can be taught with the application of simple techniques

5. Three componentsof individual creativity

6. The systems model Environment; family traditions cognitive ability; cultural capital Made up of different domains e.g. Maths; music; religion etc. Social valuation of Ideas; society validates Creativeness; ideas

7. Traditional management education • Has emphasised technical skills and functional disciplines. Analysis of exceptional performance shows that these are only threshold competencies for any business.

8. Creative ideas • Developing New Business Ideas reports that for every 100 ideas presented to investors in the form of a business plan or proposal of some kind, a maximum of 3% will ever get funded. • In addition, over 30% of new businesses which do see the light of day fail within three years. • In light of these figures, you must avoid the temptation of rushing into action with the first apparently feasible business idea which you create without fully challenging it Bragg 2004

9. Creativity , flair and initiative • These are the qualities that underpin enterprise, whether enterprise manifests itself as entrepreneurship and the development of new businesses, or intrapreneurship - enterprise and positive change within established organisations.

10. Creativity and economic growth • Today, creativity forms the core activity of a growing section of the global economies — the so-called “creative industries" — capitalistically generating (generally non-tangible) wealth through the creation and exploitation of intellectual property or through the provision of creative services.

11. An enterprising manager • You must have the creative talent to identify new product opportunities. The same talent is required of company employees, who as intrapreneurs, are on the look-out for product innovation and process improvement

12. Managerial practice and creativity • Challenge – matching people with right assignments • Freedom – give people autonomy • Resources – allot these carefully • Work-group features – diversity • Supervisory encouragement – foster and support creative efforts • Organisational support – leadership, systems, procedures How to kill creativity by T Amabile in Henry (2001)

13. Innovation and Creativity • Innovation is often used to refer to the entire process by which an organization generates creative new ideas and converts them into novel, useful and viable commercial products, services, and business practices, • Creativity is reserved to apply specifically to the generation of novel ideas by individuals, as a necessary step within the innovation process. • For example, Amabile et al (1996). suggest that while innovation "begins with creative ideas," • ". . . creativity by individuals and teams is a starting point for innovation; the first is a necessary but not sufficient condition for the second".

14. Strategies for creativity enhancement • Introduce procedures for encouraging generation of new ideas e.g. brainstorming • Train people in the skills required for successful creative performance • Select to recruit creative individuals and allocation positions accordingly • Change structure, climate and culture to facilitate creativity

15. Creative industries in the UK • The creative industries are those industries that are based on individual creativity, skill and talent. They are also those that have the potential to create wealth and jobs through developing intellectual property. www.culture.gov.uk/what_we_do/Creative_industries/ (5.10.06)

16. UK Creative Industries

17. Session 3 16 October 2006 Based on Ch 2 DNBI

18. Recap • Having an idea is not good enough, but what you do with the idea • Rushing into implementing without adequate thought • Going for the first solution is no guarantee for success

19. Development of idea into business • Important to come up with a process to develop ideas into business project • The four steps in the idea development process (Bragg and Bragg 2005) • This calls for whole brain thinking • Benefits of developing new business idea model • 3% maximum proposals ever get funding • Low survival rates of registered new businesses (Small Businesses Services, January 2004)

20. Step one • Seeking and shaping opportunities • Exploring • Much greater insight into the market being explored • Avoid the temptation to implement the first idea immediately • Follow the steps to increase your chances • Avoid emotions and accept criticisms • No information or idea is wasted • Acid test is to be able to sell goods in sufficient quantity to generate sustainable cash flows • Combine rational and intuitive thinking

21. Session outcome • To discuss why creativity is a must • To reconnect with creativity • Understand the relationship between creativity and idea development process

22. Whole brain thinking • Identify your own preferred thinking style: Fill out at the questionnaire at page 44 of Developing New Business Ideas. • Strengthen your non-preferred thinking style: For techniques on improving your ability to switch between left-brain and right-brain thinking, and to deliberately stretch your non-preferred thinking side, see page 46 of Developing New Business Ideas. • Making the most of divergent and convergent thinking phases: Follow the ground-rules for managing each of the different phases listed at page 49 of Developing New Business Ideas

23. Managing creativity http://wps.pearsoned.co.uk/ema_uk_he_bragg_newbusidea_1

24. Diagrammatic representation of the Brain

25. Left-brain thinking is often characterised by: logic analysis mathematics sequential verbal rational goal-oriented organised Right brain thinking is often characterised by: spontaneity emotion non-verbal musical dreaming imaginative images sensory The right – left brain characteristics

26. Creativity at every step of the process • Do not front-load creativity • that is assuming that a superficial attractive business idea will be developed into a profitable business • Intuition and logics are equal partners • Have a part to play at every step of the idea development process

27. Traditional view of creativity • Held that only right-brained thinkers could be creative • Those not blessed with the artistic temperament were deemed to be logical • But creativity is wider than just the right-brain thinking. • Everyone can be creative by combining intuition (divergent or right-brain thinking) and logic (convergent or left-thinking)

28. Does education systems kill creativity? • Trained to think convergently, to find the right answer. • To acquire knowledge one step after the other • This demands the left-brain skills • The skills of imagination and intuition risk being lost from early age

29. What do you think this is?

30. Creativity and workplace • Logic fits the work place • The intuitive and imaginative often overlooked • One-correct-logical answer! • Only about 2 – 10 percent of our creative potential being used as a result • Creative without whole brain thinking results in half-brained business ideas (Bragg 2005)

31. The challenge • Reconnect with the more than 90 percent that has been educated out of us Convergent thinking Logical analysis of problems Leading to inexorably the correct answer Divergent thinking: interesting and unexpected possible directions in which to explore the problem

32. Creativity at the heart of idea development process Step 1 Step 2 Step 3 Step 4 Diverge Converge Seeking and shaping opportunities Idea generation Planning for implementation Evaluation and selection

33. Thinking style at the different stages

34. Steps to mastering whole-brain thinking • Identify your preferred thinking style • Complete questionnaire on page 44, DNBI • Strengthen your non-preferred thinking style • Deliberate stretching your non-preferred thinking style (page 46-47 DNBI) • Make the most of divergent and convergent thinking phases • Be aware of the ground rules for each of the thinking styles (pages 49 – 50 DNBI)

35. Summary • Add value at every step in the process by applying creativity • Creativity represents a set of skills which can be developed • Apply two types of thinking at each step in the idea development process • Next week Chapter 3 DNBI

36. Session 4 23 October 2006

37. Recap • Creativity represents a set of skills which can be developed • Apply two types of thinking at each step in the idea development process • Which ones?

38. Session outline • The idea developing process • Step one – seeking and shaping opportunities.

39. The disaster of headlong action • To go headlong to a market which does not exist • To stick to an unworkable business solution

40. Give yourself time to develop alternatives • Bezos and Amazon’s success story • Benefits of investing time in assessing and shaping opportunities • Thoroughly investigated the full range of products categories • Generated 20 potentials but eventually narrowed and selected two

41. Stumbling at the first fence • This mindset in businesses formation • Stumble at first fence • Gaining experience through failure than the earning fame and good fortune

42. Give yourself time to develop alternatives • Rising above solutions which will do • Research shows evidence that in 85% of decisions made no viable search for alternatives was ever reviewed • Identify the opportunity before the solution • Incorrect assumptions • Identification of the correct opportunity better than creating the means to seize it

43. Taking time to develop alternatives • Avoid ‘me-too syndrome • Establishing businesses without differentiation • Open mind • The open approach allows for opportunities and ideas to develop • Decide when to decide • The creative procrastination zone • Neither too soon nor too late • Maximise the time for you to suspend judgement

44. Look at all possibilities • Treat your first idea as purely tentative • Gather clues • Remove blinkers • Detach yourself from emotions • Opportunity shaping step is investment which will increase your chances of successful implementation

45. The cardinal rule at this stage • Pursue quantity • Total immersion unearthing aspects not previously considered • Whole-brain thinking • Fact- finding to increase overall understanding • The detective • Rework the facts

46. Creativity and problem solving • Problems often described as varying in structure with Mintzberg et al (1976) defining an ill-structured problem as a task calling for decision processes that have not been encountered in quite the same form and for which no explicit set of ordered responses exists

47. Phases in problem solving • Preparation • Understanding and identifying the problem • Defining the problem • Production • Development of different solution alternatives • Judgement • Choice of best solution • Review • Evaluating past choices (Henry J)

48. ‘I like your vacuum cleaner, but when will you make one that you don’t have to push around?’

49. Tools for seeking and shaping • The power of ‘Why?’ • Creative capacity of asking questions • Challenging assumptions • Creating additional perspectives on existing opportunities

50. The 5 ‘W’ plus ‘H’ • Borrowed form journalism • Technique asks e.g. :- • Who uses the product? • What are the biggest draw backs? • When is the product required ? • Why? • How? • The effect is to deconstruct the opportunity into multiplicity of smaller elements, can then be reassembled. • Break free from conventional thinking, challenging received wisdom