Creativity & Innovation

These days, there’s hardly a mission statement that doesn’t herald it, or a CEO who doesn’t laud it. And yet despite all of the attention that business creativity has won over the past few years, maddeningly little is known about day-to-day innovation in the workplace. Where do breakthrough ideas come from? What kind of work environment allows them to flourish? What can leaders do to sustain the stimulants to creativity -- and break through the barriers?

We live in a world of turbulent change. New date. New people. New technologies. New problems. We are bombarded every day with something new. Realities shift faster than we can deal with them. In this turbulent world, traditional problem-solving methods no longer are effective in all situations. Routine, analytical approaches rarely work now. Instead, we must look for new ways to deal with change – creative solutions we can customize to fit any situation. Above all, we need new solution options, rather than relying on "the tried-and-true." The more solution options we have, the greater the odds that one will achieve our goals. Conventional brainstorming is not sufficient. Groups need exposure to diverse idea generation approaches and training in how to apply them.

More organizations than ever now offer training in how to use idea generation methods. This should be a priority, since it obviously is more beneficial over time to train employees how to apply skills themselves, rather than a single spoon-feeding of the steps needed to implement one or more idea generation activities. It is better if employees also can learn how to use some of these methods and incorporate them into their problem-solving activities. Every training session that can teach employees how to apply even rudimentary skills obviously can be valuable in the long run. Thus, a unique aspect of this workshop is its duality in providing step-by-step guides to idea generation methods while simultaneously providing participants with training in how to use them. As is fairly well known, practicing a new skill within a relevant domain can enhance significantly participant learning and applied behaviors. That is, the training is more likely to "take" if it uses challenges faced by the participants. As a result, many training sessions also can serve as idea generation methods that deal with specific organizational challenges.

Updating is important because most of the new principles of creative thinking and innovation disprove conventional wisdom.

The workshop is divided into four parts:

Part 1

The myths of creativity

Part 2

The importance of idea generation
Major creative thinking principles
The general nature of problems
Problem solving

Part 3

Activities for individuals and for group use

Part 4

Brainstorming and Brainwriting
Group activities