What is Creativity?
Creativity is the act of turning new and imaginative ideas into reality. Creativity is characterized
by the ability to perceive the world in new ways, to find hidden patterns, to make connections
between seemingly unrelated phenomena, and to generate solutions. Creativity involves two
processes, thinking and producing. If you have ideas but don’t act on them, you are imaginative
but not creative.
The Process of Creativity
INCEPTION: Understand the task at hand
The first stage of the creative process commences by establishing the brief or the scope of the
task. Through properly defining the task at hand one is able to pinpoint the problem that requires
solving and determine the paths that may lead to a solution.
Once the task is identified, we must analyse and absorb all relevant information. This allows us
to intimately understand the individual components that concern our subject. Study the
conventional approaches and ask why those conventions exist. Don’t be afraid to question their
validity.
When research is concluded, test your immediate assumptions by conducting some preliminary
ideation. Write down or sketch these thoughts without prejudice. It is important not to censor
your thinking as you will place limits on your creativity. All thoughts have potential.
INCUBATION: Push the task out of your immediate attention
Once the problem has been defined, research completed and preliminary ideation has
commenced, push the task out of your immediate attention. Quite simply—forget about it.
To understand why this is important, we must understand the relationship between the conscious
and unconscious modes of ‘thinking’.
Consciousness is thought with attention. Unfortunately consciousness by necessity only uses a
small subset of available information as it schematically imposes a pattern on complex reality to
assist in explaining it. Our consciousness essentially thinks within the box.
Unconscious ‘thought’, however works aschematically to weight the relative importance of
various attributes. This unconscious process may be called intuition. It is the mind’s ability to
laterally access cognitive resources (ie. knowledge, past experiences and emotions) to formulate
inferences.
Disengaging conscious attention allows the unconscious to efficiently process a mass of data.
ILLUMINATION: Inspiration is revealed in the form of an intuited notion
When discussing creativity with artists and designers, most agree that there is an urge to change
their "mental state" at the point of creativity. Whether it is to find a quiet space, turn on music or
change the surroundings, it is fundamentally an effort to find focus and enhance the brain's
cognitive reception of intuited notions.
An experienced creative will become aware that a glimmer of an idea is about to emerge through
a ‘feeling’ they have. Emotion is essential because it creates a chain of associations that lead
expectation. Such ‘feelings’ enable the use of past experiences to subjectively recognise the
potential of certain directions.
Inspiration is revealed in the form of an intuited notion that illuminates our consciousness. This
notion however is intangible; it is structured as an abstract synthesis of emotion, memory and
imagination.
REALISATION: Give your inspiration context and structure
Intuited notions are fleeting thoughts; they have neither context nor structure. Therefore, intuited
notions need to be seized and brought into reality. Transform imagination into a tangible form by
taking out what is distracting, leaving only what is pertinent, to create a finite form that can be
put into action.
What separates a great artist and designer from the mediocre is not the quality of the inspiration,
but the ability to realise what others could not. It is about seeing potential where others see only
ambiguity.
VERIFICATION: Analyse the result against the original objectives
It is essential to test all ideas against the strategy of the brief and proposed outcomes. By
exposing the idea to analysis and synthesis, we are able to assess its validity and judge the result.
Ideas that we create are highly personal due to the nature of their creation. Therefore it is
important to be as impartial as possible when assessing your ideas. Invite critique from others.
All ideas must report back to the reason that motivated their creation. If the idea does not
sufficiently answer the brief, take what is appropriate and discard what obscure and go back to
stage one to begin the sequence again.
Creativity is a uniquely human ability that provides us with amazing potential and allows us to
achieve designs—from the most glorious, to the most heinous. We create the world we live in.
Roles of Creativity
In Entrepreneurship and decision making:
 Shalley et al. (2004) views creativity as allowing the organization to take advantage of
opportunities which develop as a result of changing environmental conditions.
 Creativity fosters new ideas generation from existing circumstances.
 Creativity facilitates attitudinal changes in employees, the ability to accept change;
flexibility.
 Creation of novel products.
 Fosters creative thinking that leads to strategy articulation and implementation.
 Encourages decisions that include an assessment of new/novel options.
 In the preparation stage of the creative process can assist in viewing a problem from
different
perspectives encouraging ‘out of the box thinking’.
 Creativity helps to generate modern approaches to solve organizational issues; it fosters
the use of new technology and new productive systems.
 Creativity encourages the decision maker to consider internal and external environment
to collect information to assist decision making.
For Individuals:
 Increases in the products of individual capabilities
 Howard Gardner proposed that, ‘Creativity is about liberating human energy.’
 Creativity develops imagination and inventive capability
 Develops the capacity for entrepreneurship
 Creativity encourages problem solving in innovative ways
 Develops the ability to ‘think outside the box’.
For Economic Development:
 Creativity fosters new approaches to problem solving.
 Labour market changes requiring skills that will meet the challenges of globalization and
the digital era requires a creative approach.
 Creativity enhances the possibility of business development, capitalizing on opportunities
and income generation.
Importance of Creativity
Apart from assessing the roles of creativity, its importance to entrepreneurship can be
underscored by looking at its function to the entrepreneur:
 As the entrepreneur is faced with changing situational factors, new ways of approaching
situations may be required. There is the need for creative problem solving in place of /in
addition to logical thinking.
 Organizations are embracing the role of creativity in mitigating the constant effects of
change, in some cases the problems are new ad there are no definite ways of dealing with
them.
 Majaro (1991) suggests that, ‘It is universally assumed that enhanced creativity can
provide a company with a competitive edge.’
 For businesses to survive it must constantly change. The development of the creative
process is essential in restructuring and redesigning systems to produce new processes
and novel ideas.
 Van Gundy (1987) points out that growth and survival of ventures is related to the
organization’s ability to be creative (produce and implement new products or processes).
 Creativity provides an avenue for the development of problem solving and decision
making strategies that can help enterprises move ahead of competition.
 Creativity is important for entrepreneurs and persons in leadership roles for reasons such
as: to identify new product-market opportunities; to meet customer needs and wants; to
improve motivation in the organization. Basically, creative thinking benefits all the
functions the entrepreneurs have to perform.