BUS505 UNE Eight Myths In Relation To Creativity And Innovation Overview: You will select an article on creativity/innovation that expresses a point of vie

BUS505 UNE Eight Myths In Relation To Creativity And Innovation Overview: You will select an article on creativity/innovation that expresses a point of view. (the myths of creativity articles in this week’s unit are examples). You will ultimately write a 4 page paper on the article that incorporates the double loop analysis. We would expect your paper to have an introduction, information on the article, your point of view, back up for your point of view, the opposing point of view with back up, and ultimately a conclusion.Part 1 – to make sure you are on the right track we ask that in week 2 you submit a one page paper that describes the article and explains what point of view you will be taking and why. Please see the rubric for specific requirements for this paper. Keep in mind that a page of text for an assignment does not include the cover page or the reference page. Rubric is in Unit 2. This part was already turned in and will be back to you soon.Part 2 – Once you finish the 1 page summary and feel confident you can continue on to complete the 4 page paper. The summary can be a part of the paper, but be sure to incorporate any comments from your professor. Again, please see the rubric for specific requirements for the paper. creative business myths
debunked
Business creativity is shrouded in unhelpful myths. Greg Orme cuts his way through the folklore to
enable some clear creative thinking
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Brainstorming works best Advertising legend Alex Osborn (the “O” in the global agency BBDO)
invented brainstorming in the 1940s. Osborn boasted that brainstorming doubles the quantity of ideas from any group. He stipulated two
rules:
First, everyone in the group should get involved, throwing in ideas in an explosion of almost random thoughts. Te thinking is, if you sift
through enough grit, mud and dirt, eventually you will find glistening nuggets of gold. Osborn advised groups: “Focus on quantity. Quality
will come later.”
Second, participants must avoid negative feedback on what they hear. Te assumption is that people will not risk embarrassing
themselves if they are likely to hear their idea being trashed by others. Osborn called creativity a “delicate fower”.
Brainstorming is now the most popular creative technique of all time. It is used in advertising ofces and design frms, the classroom and
the boardroom. But there’s a small problem: it doesn’t work. A famous test in 1958 found people working alone came up with far more
ideas (twice as
many) and their solutions were also of a higher quality. It turns out that brainstorming has the opposite efect on people panning for
ideas: they fnd less gold and the gold they do find is of an inferior quality.
It speaks volumes about the state of creativity in modern business that brainstorming is a dud. It means the limited amount of time
companies devote to being creative is not being managed efectively.
Creativity is the root of all new ideas and profts, but most businesses don’t spend enough time and energy on being creative. When they
do, they use a technique that doesn’t work as well as the most obvious alternative. It’s as if we were running modern businesses on a
1940s size-of-a- room Bakelite computer with less processing power than a modern wristwatch.
Deputy chairman of Saatchi & Saatchi Richard Hytner acknowledges the reservations about brainstorming, but still uses it with his teams
and with clients: “I’m a fan of brainstorming. I think the reason it’s become debased is because
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©LONDON BUSINESS SCHOOL ISSUE 4 – 2014 45
illustration LEIgH pEarCE
the people running the brainstorms have run out of ideas, run out of juice. Brainstorming at its best is where people are really skilfully
facilitated.”
I would still advise you to use brainstorming with teams – not because it is the most efcient way to come up with ideas, but because it
encourages people to collaborate and engage in non- judgmental, electric conversations. One warning: make sure to practise your
facilitation skills first – brainstorming needs a listening and skilled group leader who understands the divergent/convergent nature of
the creative process.
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You need to be a genius People touched by genius dominate our perception of creativity: Albert
Einstein, Charles Dickens, Charlotte Brontë , Ernest Hemingway, William Shakespeare, Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and
Pablo Picasso. Te way their life stories get told often perpetuates the idea that creativity is the preserve of a handful of slightly
unhinged titans. Te mythology of creativity being the sole preserve of the lone genius goes back a long way in Western thought –
from Plato’s “divine madness” through Romanticism and Freudian psychoanalysis. Clearly, some people are very gifted. But
that should not act as a stop sign for others.
Robert Weisberg analysed the “genius” myth of Mozart, Picasso and Coleridge and argues that their stunning achievements can
be explained through logical progressions, memory, training, opportunity and hard work. Malcolm Gladwell provides even
more context with Outliers: Te Story of Success, his study of the factors that contribute to great achievement. Taking Bill Gates
and Te
Beatles (among others) as examples, he argues that success in any feld is often a matter of practising a specifc task for a long
time. Te magic number, according to Gladwell’s research, is 10,000 hours. Tat’s eight hours a day for about fve years.
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You’re either creative
or you’re not
Te myth of the genius also leads to a general condemnation by some of any techniques or approaches to help “normal” people to
develop a more creative attitude. Tis isn’t useful. Clearly, some people are brighter than others. Some people will run the 100
metres faster than the vast majority of the population, however hard the rest of us train. Tat’s life. And some people are more
creative than others. Business should try to hire as many of these creative powerhouses as they can. Meanwhile, we should all
try
to develop a more creative outlook on life – and develop what gifts we have.
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5
3
All businesses must be
creative all of the time
All businesses can benefit from encouraging more creative ideas from their people, but no business can be creative 100 per cent of the
time. That would be ridiculous. It will always be a balance between exploiting well-trodden processes and proven products against
investing time and resources in developing new ideas.
You need to be
very clever
Intelligence correlates with creativity only to a point – and a fairly modest point at that. To put this into context, two-thirds of us have an
IQ between 85 to 115, and the average IQ in an industrialised country is 100. Te ability to be creative is positively correlated with IQ only
up to an IQ of 120. Above that, the link evaporates.
Creativity belongs to
the young
Creativity often comes from outsiders, people who don’t know how things “should be done”. Te young are naturally sceptical of
the status quo, but age is not a predictor for creativity. Counter-intuitively, it is expertise that inhibits it. Experts fnd it difcult to
see or think outside the patterns they have learned. Te tragedy is that our school system seems to want to produce expert
minds, rather than creative ones. Creativity and education expert Sir Ken Robinson tells the story of a little girl busily sketching
in class when her teacher stops next to her desk to ask what she’s drawing. “It’s a picture of God,” the girl says. Te teacher
patiently explains that nobody knows
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what God looks like. “Tey will in a minute,” the girl replies. It’s a shame most of us have that kind of creative confidence
knocked out of us.
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Creativity is a solitary act When we think of creativity we see Van Gogh in his Parisian garret,
Archimedes in his bath and William Wordsworth wandering lonely as a cloud sniffing the odd daffodil. But business creativity is by
defnition a team sport. And the increasing complexity of the modern world means creative collaboration is required more than ever
before. More and more of the world’s new products come from creative collaborations. Tis is only likely to increase.
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You can’t manage creativity Creativity doesn’t respond to many people’s perceptions of traditional
hierarchical management. True. Organisational culture plays a big part in encouraging creativity, but there are managerial
interventions to lead the culture in the right way (start with the ten leadership habits in my book The Spark). Also, management
skills make it easier for ideas to get a fair hearing and be developed. Leadership makes a big diference. And organisational
culture can be positive, or very destructive, to business creativity.
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Creativity will happen only in “creative departments” This is the idea that creativity can
happen only in marketing or R&D teams – or at the ofces of your advertising agency. Of course, businesses will always have some teams
that are hotspots for creativity, and ideas do need a special climate to grow. But one of the biggest barriers to break down in any business
is the one in people’s minds – the barrier between who is creative and who isn’t. It’s the same rationale that says everyone should be
aware of the bottom line, whether they are an accountant or not. Creativity is too valuable to be left to the experts.
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Tere are agonised and divisive debates in the halls of academia about the nature of creativity. The divide is around the
difference between problem solving; what often happens in business, connected with intelligence and reasoning, applied
creativity – and pure creativity; what artists do, connected with the unconscious “Aha! moment” that creeps up on you and then
announces itself. Pure creativity is cartoonist Matt Groening inventing the idea of the Simpsons. Applied creativity is the writing
More and more of the world’s new products come from creative
collaborations
and animation teams trying to make it funny and relevant 25 years later after 500-plus episodes.
In reality, this is not a valuable distinction for business leaders. Tere are specifc problems to be solved: everything from responding to a
client brief to improving how a production line runs and developing a new product. And there are creative leaps – Aha! moments – which
produce solutions to problems “we never knew we had”.
Transformative, pure-creativity solutions to problems we never knew we had do crop up in business. Tink of Pixar’s Toy Story, Kindle’s
e-reader, the bar code, self-service supermarkets, Velcro and Google, to name a few.
One thing is certain: people tend to make huge profits if they manage to innovate and commercialise good ideas. Human creativity plays
its part in both pure and applied creativity. Both are highly valuable and lead to innovation and new revenues.
Greg Orme (gregorme.org) is an Associate Programme Director at London Business School. He is the author of Te Spark: How to Ignite
and Lead Business Creativity (FT Publishing, 2014)
It’s important to distinguish between applied and pure creativity
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©LONDON BusINess sCHOOL Issue 4 – 2014 47
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Running head: ARTICLE ON CREATIVITY AND INNOVATION
Eight Myths in Relation to Creativity and Innovation
Jennifer Gonzalez
Post University
1
ARTICLE ON CREATIVITY AND INNOVATION
2
Eight Myths in Relation to Creativity and Innovation
Creativity and innovation are a broad topic that elicits mixed reactions from all angles.
For instance, myths have cropped up regarding the aforementioned topic; however, I will be
taking the realities approach since it provides an actual representation of creativity and
innovation. The first myth that comes up is that some people possess a creative gene while others
do not. A reality of the same is provided whereby it is revealed that creativity is not limited for
certain people since they can also play a pivotal role in the contribution of an idea.
The second myth is that when innovation is not taking place, people will have to wait for
the time when they will suddenly realize that they have a problem (Burkus, 2014). From there
they will take measures through innovation. Nonetheless, the truth of the matter is that a winning
concept is based on the platform of hard work.
The third myth says that for employees to be innovative, they have to be rewarded
through benefits and rewards. From my perspective, this is not the case since extrinsic thinking
does not have a role in creative thinking. Another myth is that brainstorming session creates new
ideas. This is not what happens since in a 60-minute group meeting, one cannot come up with
something realistic (Burkus, 2014). It is also revealed that true creativity is only witnessed when
a team is set out to perform a task. I disagree with this since all innovative plans must be
assessed by reasonable factors such as stakeholders.
The other myth elaborates that to be successful experts have to be sought. Nonetheless, it
is better to receive the opinion of the team members than to hire experts. Notably, there is the
myth that fabulous creations are recognized immediately while the fact is that organizations
should provide support and gain traction. It is evident, the reality on creativity and innovation is
ARTICLE ON CREATIVITY AND INNOVATION
better than myths. Therefore, organizations should rely more on reality than myth since it will
provides an assurance of results. Some myths sideline the efforts of team members while in
reality all the opinions and efforts of all people should be considered
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ARTICLE ON CREATIVITY AND INNOVATION
References
Burkus, D. (2014). The myths of creativity: The truth about how innovative companies and
people generate great ideas. John Wiley & Sons.
4
Rubric for Part 1
Description
Points
Possible
20
Points
Earned
20
25
24
25
23
10
9
Article Selection – How
appropriate is the article
selected? Appropriateness
includes relevance to course
content, level of scholarship
and depth of information in the
piece.
Summary – Is the summary
accurate and effective in
explaining the article? Are
critical thinking skills
demonstrated?
Point of view – Is the point of
view clearly identified? Is the
point of view relevant?
Organization and
Structure – Is the paper
organized effectively in a
logical manner? Do the ideas
logically flow together? Are
transitions logical and smooth?
Technical/APA – Does the
paper meet APA expectations
in terms of spacing, margins,
headers, indents, proper in-text
citations, end of paper
references?
Style/APA – Is the paper
written in the 3rd person
voice? Does the paper use
active voice v. passive voice?
Headings used where needed
to enhance readability?
Paragraphs appropriate length
and clear? Is spelling,
grammar and sentence
structure appropriate, clear and
at a graduate level?
Total
10
9
10
8
100
93

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