Being born creative

A lot of people think that creative ability is a trait inherent in one’s heritage or genes. In fact, there is no such thing as a creative breed.

Creative minds are not born, they are made. People who have confidence in themselves and work the hardest on a problem are the ones most likely to come up with a creative solution.

There's a long-standing myth about intellectual property - the idea that a creative idea is proprietary to the person who thought of it.

But history and empirical research revealed that new ideas are actually combinations of older ideas and that sharing those helps generate more innovation.

This myth encourages the belief that creativity is a passive process. It suggests you have to wait and hope that you’ll make a breakthrough.

That Eureka moment is actually the last step in a long, involved process and not the only step. For this to happen, your unconscious mind needs material to work with. You have to put in the hard work of studying and mastering your field and exposing yourself to different perspectives.

In reality, creativity is a team sport.

The lone genius myth is a stereotype and it’s unhelpful because it suggests the route to innovation is to cut oneself off from colleagues and collaboration. You need a modest amount of intelligence to be creative, but extremely high IQ is neither sufficient nor necessary for being an innovator.

New research suggests that managers can innovate better by embracing and working with constraints, instead of viewing them as a hindrance to innovation.

When there are no challenges in the creative process, complacency comes in, and people tend to go for the most intuitive and easy ideas rather than investing in the development of better but difficult to implement ideas.

An intrapreneur can be defined as someone who thinks like an entrepreneur but brings their ideas to the company where they are employed instead of launching their own business. 

Instate a "no idea is a bad idea" policy, gather the support your employees need to try out their ideas and let them pitch decision-makers at your company.

This allows employees to spend 15 % of their paid work time daydreaming, doodling or experimenting with ideas that don’t necessarily have to do with their work at the company.

This kind of daydreaming is the genesis of invention and fosters passion for one’s work.

• Centers on the customer process or journey and supports a clear business target.
• Involves employees from all relevant areas to find different ways of working a problem. 
• Challenge participants to reimagine an existing method to try to find the most efficient way to improve the customer experience.
• Sessions start with ideas but end with a working prototype.
• Output includes a clear development path that highlights all the steps needed to accelerate production and implementation.
• The hackathon concludes with a presentation to senior leaders, including a real-life demonstration of the new prototype and a roadmap of IT and other capabilities needed to bring the final version to market.
• Once the teams agree on what to do, those responsible for execution create a virtual model that the group vets, refines and re-releases in continual cycles until the new process or app meets the desired experience criteria.
• Management prevents the dissipation of enthusiasm and energy created on the hackathon by placing new processes to sustain it. 

Encouraging people to be curious generates workplace improvements.

When we are curious, we view tough situations more creatively. Studies have found that curiosity is associated with less defensive reactions to stress and less aggressive reactions to provocation.

Curiosity encourages members of a group to put themselves in one another’s shoes and take an interest in one another’s ideas rather than focus only on their own perspective.

Thus, conflicts are less heated, and groups achieve better results.

Myth: "Some people are naturally creative and other people aren’t."

It’s true that some people spend more time on creative activities than others. But brain science is clear about the fact that there are creative brain states that can be turned on by some fairly simple actions. This means that everyone can learn how to be more creative.

Myth: "Creativity means creating works of art."

Creativity is not just about being artistic. There are many ways to be creative, and creating works of art is just one way. Creativity includes many things, for example, cooking, programming, interface design, and problem solving.