Leadership in Organizations — Week #7 Assignment
Helping People Be More Creative
This week you learned about the importance of helping people be more creative.
Write a paper on tools for helping people be more creative. Address the following tools in your paper:
Facilitating brainstorming
Promoting lateral thinking
Enabling immersion
Allowing pauses
Nurturing creative intuition
Provide an example of a tool that assisted you in being more creative and how that helped your organizational goals
Week #7 Assignment: Tools for augmenting creativity in people
An introduction to creativity
Creativity can never be inculcated within someone in a single day however it could be modified and improved with time. The most creative minds take time to produce and outshine the crowd. Many methods could help boost creativity among people.
Tools for boosting creativity among people
It is in human nature to seek a little help whenever they cannot solve any issue by themselves. Think of the time when we are about to begin a new endeavor and need a little help or a push to go for it, we always look up to our superiors in that particular field. Seeking help does not mean we are incapable of doing any job it just means we want to do it in a better way by taking different perspectives into view. Just like that, there are certain tools to help people become more creative but it does not mean they are not creative by nature. It just means that the creative aspect needs to be sharpened with the help of various tools. Some of these tools are discussed below:
- Facilitating brainstorming– The term brainstorming is becoming more common nowadays with its increased utilization in different fields. Brainstorming means an informal approach to problem-solving in groups wherein a huge amount of creative ideas and solutions flow in (org, 2021). Facilitating brainstorming is a method by which managers can create a pleasant environment, encourage the participation of all members in the group and ensure that they do not stray from the topic of discussion. When people are allowed the liberty to discuss in groups and come up with fresh ideas, definitely creativity is boosted. Moreover, it helps the collaboration of thoughts and reaching conclusions with consensus.
- Promoting Lateral Thinking– Lateral thinking means restructuring the ways of thinking in such a way that it instigates the mind for the production of better ideas than one normally could produce. It is an indirect and creative way of providing a new solution to an old problem in a different way. Simply stating Lateral thinking is thinking out of the league instead of following the old pattern. Prompting lateral thinking in the organization could help the management come up with such invigorating and innovative ideas which could give the organization an edge over its competitors. Moreover, the more one thinks without following a certain pattern, the more one could evolve as a creative human being (Relaiza et al. 2021, p.19). And the organization needs such creative minds to handle jobs in efficient and innovative ways.
- Enabling immersion– The immersion method aims at making people immerse themselves in the organizational setting. It means more and more interaction with everyone in the firm to understand the culture of the entire organizational structure. It allows them to understand their own assumption, and knowledge base to gain cultural competencies. The cognitive development of people is also boosted when they interact with their community. People also learn new things when they immerse themselves in their environment (Ahmed et al. 2016, p.340). They come across a lot of different perspectives and begin thinking in new ways thus encouraging creativity. The management must always encourage immersion of the workers in the small world inside the organization so that they could become familiar and comfortable.
- Allowing pauses- There is a term incubation which means giving the mind the required time for digestion. It simply means the continuous utilization of the mind could cause blockage of new ideas. A leap or a gap is suggested for the mind to improve its productivity (LEE, 2020, p.46). The management of an organization must allow some space to think so the workers could keep their minds at rest. After the pause, the ideas which are generated reflect some of the best productivity of the brain.
- Nurturing creative intuition- Intuition means a sense of strong feeling associated with positively knowing something. It is the inner voice that guides us toward the light. Within the organizational setup, the creative intuitions of the employees must be nurtured from time to time to help them focus on their intuitive side (Hardman, 2021, p.40). This helps in making people more creative and innovative which in turn could help solve several issues in better ways. Creativity is required to be nurtured from time to time to ensure the full participation of people.
- A tool that helped me to become more creative- The tool that assisted me toward becoming more creative is the brainstorming technique utilized by the organization in which I work at present. This process is held after the interval of two to three days wherein the topic of discussion always revolves around the itinerary. Brainstorming helped the organization in achieving its goal in a highly creative manner. Once the topic of discussion is provided to the group, the members are motivated to come up with fresh ideas without any criticism. This encourages them to speak up more openly. It helps to come up with innovative ideas regarding the efficient and effective achievement of the organizational goals within the set period.
On a concluding note
The tools for augmenting creativity could be used from time to time as per the demand of the situation and helps people become more creative. It is also necessary to use these tools carefully and properly for the best results. One should not force the mind to keep on generating ideas continuously without pausing for a long period. While some stimulation is also required from time to time to nurture the creative aspects well.
Reference list:
Ahmed, F., Shahzad, K., Aslam, H., Bajwa, S. U., & Bahoo, R. (2016). The Role of Collaborative Culture in Knowledge Sharing and Creativity among Employees. Pakistan Journal of Commerce & Social Sciences, 10(2), 335–358.
Akpsi.org (2021). The four rules of brainstorming, Retrieved from: https://akpsi.org/how-to-facilitate-a-great-brainstorming-session-in-person-or-virtually/ [Retrieved on:1/08/2022]
Hardman, T. J. (2021). Understanding creative intuition. Journal of Creativity, 31, 100006.
LEE, S. T. H. (2020). Boosting creative ideation through improving self-regulation.
Relaiza, H. S. M., Fuster-Guillen, D., Ocana-Fernandez, Y., Aparicio, P. E. G., & Tataje, F. A. O. (2021). Cognitive Processes and Creative Lateral Thinking in Students of the Naval School of Peru. NeuroQuantology, 19(5), 10-17.
