RESPOND WITH AT LEAST 200 WORDS EACH....PLEASE SEPARATE EACH RESPONSE

POST 1:

Hello, Prof Towns and Fellow Colleagues,

“All creative-thinking efforts start as a response to a situation” (Puccio, Mance, Switalski & Reali 2012, p. 18). Until reading the articles in this week’s class and consciously thinking about what it means to be creative, I had not actually thought about creativity in this way. I fell into the misconception that creativity is a result of imagination or uniqueness. As Puccio and Cabra 2010, has stated, innovation is the driving force of any organizations success. After watching the media, Myths of creativity; Nadia demonstrated the ability to decipher creativity, even though she had doubts about her creativity skills initially. The myths and misconceptions of individuals who believe creativity is a natural trait or that one’s ideas are unique have been commonly observed in my workplace. These myths and misconceptions have created many roadblocks to healthy collaboration in the workplace. As leaders, holding these myths to be true, directly or indirectly, can affect one’s ability to give their team what they truly need from you as a leader.

With my current employer, there is a level of traditional management style that would contribute to these misconceptions and myths. I, myself, have never seen myself as someone who is ‘creative’ which can be seen as a limiting factor in my career. However, research in this field shows that anyone is capable of doing some degree of creative work as per Sir Ken Robinson (HSM Global 2010). Experience, skills, talent, ability to think in different ways, and motivation are characteristics which enhance creativity (Puccio, Mance, Barbero-Switalski & Reali 2012). It is important for organizations to spend the time needed to understand and nurture the components of creativity in their environments. They need to make it a core priority at all levels of the organization. Leaders in the work environment create the environment in which the employees thrive, therefore, they will need to work hard and fast to stabilize the work environment so ideas can flourish. In turn, it is key for employees to take the initiative.

Anyone can deliver creative and innovative new ideas, projects, processes, and programs. We all have certainly had our own opinions and ideas of what creativity is. I am motivated at work as I truly enjoy and care about what I do. Having support from my management team encourages me to be fully engaged at work. Now that I understand what is meant by being creative I can see that I use creativity regularly. I have developed, implemented, and managed our concierge program at our private hospital and I am the first Hospital Concierge Director in the Cayman Islands. All because I had a vision. Believing and trusting in yourself is the first step to success. Creativity, a maturing and trainable skill is linked to innovation; a valuable, positive, and sought-after skill. Which benefits all of us.

Jennifer

References:

HSM Global. (Producer). (2010a). Sir Ken Robinson: Expert on innovation and creativity. [Video file]. Retrieved from https://class.waldeu.edu

Puccio, G. J., & Cabra, J. F. (2010). Organizational creativity: A systems approach. In. J. Kaufman & R. J. Sternberg (Eds.), The Cambridge Handbook of Creativity (pp. 145-173). New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.

Puccio, G. J., Mance, M., Switalski, L. B., & Reali, P. D. (2012). Welcome to the world of change: Life in the 21^st century. In Creativity rising: Creative thinking and creative problem-solving in the 21^st century (pp.13-20).

POST 2:

Hello Professor Towns and Classmates,

In this week’s interactive media presentation, we discuss the myths and popular misconceptions related to creativity. There are many ways to be creative, and all people possess creativity. Myths and misconceptions regarding creativity mentioned in the presentation are that Children are more creative than adults, only people like artists and musicians are creative, Creativity is about inspiration, not hard work, Creativity can’t be taught, and Creativity and originality are the same thing. These misconceptions relate to my own past understandings of creativity because I always believed them to be true. I always thought that I was not a very creative person because I could not draw, sing, or play a musical instrument. I thought that being creative meant that you were an artist, but as discussed in the presentation, creativity has a much broader definition that can affect all types of industries and people.

One myth that has been present in past practices where I have worked was that creativity can not be taught. I experienced this at my first organization where I started two weeks after graduating from college. All new employees were required to take a four-week training course that was intended to teach us the basics of the new software and processes we would be utilizing. Managers within the organization were responsible to teach a different part of the course. One assignment within the course was to develop creative excel solutions to some of the problems we might face while performing our everyday job responsibilities. Although there were many ways to solve the problem through excel, the managers made everyone feel that if they did not have previous experience or an inclination to this type of work, that it would be difficult to learn. This impacted my creativity by lowering morale and increasing the stress affiliated with a new job. I was nervous that I would not be able to perform job tasks due to my lack of theoretical excel knowledge. This turned out not to be true because as I spent time performing tasks through excel, I was able to teach myself a lot of the functionality that helps to perform tasks quickly and efficiently. Grivas and Puccio also proves this to be false in their book, the innovative team: Unleashing creative potential for breakthrough results. In the foreword they state “Our training program was built upon a process proven to promote breakthrough thinking for problems that do not have easy answers. We taught participants how to look at challenges and opportunities from new perspectives, how to use their imaginations to generate original ideas, ways to evaluate and strengthen the most promising solutions”

Another myth that I have experienced was that creativity is uncontrollable. Creativity always seems as a AHH-HAH moment that comes to you when you least expect. However, what really powers creativity is hard work and dedication. In work place settings, when asked for my suggestions or feedback I would also look up at the ceiling with my thoughts, as if the great new idea was going to be just pop into my head. What this presentation has made me realize is that if I utilized my experiences and past hard work, I would be able to develop creative strategies of substance based off what I have seen succeed and fail. This ability would be extremely beneficial because it promotes innovation and allows organizations to remain competitive by adapting to changes. Puccio and Cabra state in Organizational creativity: a systems approach that “It is now widely argued that to remain competitive, organizations must not only adapt to change but also drive change through innovative business practices, processes, products, and services.” This means that organizations are realizing that their success relies on their ability to be innovative and encourage staff members to develop creative strategy skills.

I believe that the myths and misconceptions affiliated with creativity have limited people’s natural abilities to be creative.

• Joseph Sardella

References:

-Laureate Education (Producer). (2012f). Myths of creativity. [Interactive Media]. Retrieved from https://class.waldenu.edu

-Puccio, G. J., Cabra, J. F. (2010). Organizational creativity: A systems approach. In J. Kaufmann & R.J. Sternberg (Eds.), The Cambridge Handbook of Creativity (pp. 145-173). New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.

-Grivas, C., & Puccio, G. J. (2012). The innovative team: Unleashing creative potential for breakthrough results.