"Imagination is more important than knowledge" - Albert Einstein
In the ever-changing environment in which organisations find themselves today, there is a constant pressure to come up with fresh ways of looking at and doing things. But where do these ideas come from? Particularly in "power-oriented" organisations such as the military, which are highly regulated with authority based largely on position, employees may not be used to thinking "out of the box".
But don't worry. Creative thinking is not necessarily something you are born with (or not); it is a skill that can be learned and improved with practice. Interestingly, research has shown that most of us are born with a natural talent for creative thinking, but as we get older (and are affected by outside influences like school and work), there is a startling reduction. When the ability to generate original ideas between young children and adults is compared the results typically seen are:
Aged five and younger
Age seven
Adults (Age 44)
90% originality
50% originality
2% originality
The ability to take a 'child-like' outlook at different issues. This does not mean you become childish in your outlook, it just means you look at issues free from the structured way of the past. This fresh outlook gives you the freedom of mind needed to break through and discover new ideas and new solutions to old problems. The main obstacle to creative thinking is a reluctance to explore new and fresh ways of problem solving. The historical way of thinking places us in a 'fear of failure' mode, and has us captive to the additional fear of making a mistake. This becomes the walls to our 'box of limitations' or 'comfort zone'. The purpose of creative thinking training is to re-harness our innate ability and combine it with practical techniques that fit easily into our "adult world".
We recommend using a workshop approach for creative thinking training, as these skills can only really be learned by doing. The main basis of this format would consist of a number of short (15-20 minute) sessions to explain the theory, followed practical exercises to use the theory and "learn by doing", which ultimately is the best way to embed learning.
However, we also offer a truly experiential approach, where delegates are placed into unusual / different situations where they need to think "out of the box" and develop creative techniques for solving problems, followed by review and links back into the theory.
However, creativity is not just about one or two individuals attending a course and thinking differently. To make a lasting difference to an organisation, it is necessary to harness the creativity of your entire team. In addition, to teaching individuals how to think more creatively, Pearlcatchers can also provide consultancy and training to help teams and organisations adopt a culture of creativity and innovation.
This workshop aims to enhance delegates' personal creativity and improve their ability to generate ideas, innovate, think and plan. By having better creative thinking, an individual will have more raw creative output to work with, giving the opportunity for access to higher quality ideas more often. By having more creative employees a company will benefit by having access to more original ideas and material to work with.
As well as improving their personal creative abilities, delegates will leave the course having practised a range of tools and techniques, which they can utilise to facilitate creative thinking / discussion sessions with their teams. Topics can include:
Training in this area is generally tailored for each individual client. The focus could be on the managerial skills needed to harness creativity, such as:
Alternatively, we could run a workshop with practical exercises where delegates will take it in turns to run "creative workshops" with the remaining delegates acting as team members. This will both show them some of activities / techniques in action and help develop their skills as facilitators. Later the focus will turn to discussions on what actions need to be taken to develop the desired culture, in terms of areas like communication, training / development, processes (a suggestion scheme, team meetings etc).