Process and Techniques of Creativity in Management

In the modern dynamic environment, creativity is a vital ingredient in successful decision making. It is particularly useful in perceiving problems and in generating alternative courses of action through which the problem can be solved. In case of unique and non-repetitive situations, past experience is not enough and creative thinking is necessary. Creativity may be defined as the ability to think originally and to bring out something new or novel. It is a human faculty for evolving unique or unusual association of ideas and to look at events in a new or unconventional manner. Creativity involves implementing the new idea. However, all unusual or new ideas are not created. The creative ideas should be capable of being accepted and implemented.

Creativity is a complex process consisting of the following steps:

1. Preparation stage

creative ideas need some preparation before they take shape. Creative ideas do not occur instantaneously or overnight. The creative thinkers toy with some vague imagination for quite some time. He turns and twists the problems and looks at them from different angles. His subconscious mind concentrates on some new idea or hypothesis. During this stage, the creative thinker often suffers from anxiety and frustration. This stag is related to intelligence phase of the decision-making process.

2. Incubation stage

In case no creative solution is found in the first stage, the creative person attempts to share the problem and to forget about it. He may seek solace in other activities to take off his mind from the problem. But his subconscious mind continues to work on the problem. He formulates new ideas and modifies ideas not by design but by default. This stage in creativity process is linked to the design phase of decision-making.

Creativity Techniques

A large number of techniques have been developed to encourage creative thinking. Some of these techniques are described below:

1. Attribute listening

this type of techniques was involved in the listening to all attributes of an object or problem. Then an attempt is made to modify each attribute or group of attributes in as many ways as possible. No idea is accepted or rejected until all the ideas have been enumerated. All obstacles to new ideas ways to overcome and the novel idea is selected through the evaluation process.

2. Brainstorming

under this increasing technique, a group of persons is given a problem and they are encouraged to suggest whatever solutions come to their mind. The discussion is free and uninhibited. Criticism is prohibited and members are allowed to generate as many alternatives as they can. Some of the ideas may be crazy and impracticable. But very often creative ideas emerge out of modification or combination of apparently impracticable ideas. By removing the inhibitions of the participants, their imagination is free to think new. All the ideas are then scrutinized and future experimented. It is a time-consuming and expensive technique used to solve complex technical problems.

3. Gordon Techniques

This type of techniques comes under brainstorming. The participants may confine to a narrow discussion and may tend to be superficial. In order to encourage wider and a more innovative outlook, the participants are kept in dark about the exact nature of the problem. They are given only an outline of the problem.