Creativity & Innovation: From boardroom to classroom

Mathilda Marie Joubert Swan Christian Education Association

© SoftNotes 2011

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Outline • What is creativity & innovation? • Why is it important?

–  In business –  In education

•  How can we enable it? –  In business (Balancing innovation and operation) –  In education (Where we teach, what we teach and

how we teach)

•  Reflection: Lessons learnt from the boardroom and classroom

What is creativity & innovation?

Invention Exercise •  Work in groups of 3 •  In your threes identify who is A,B & C •  Each write down secretly the name of an object •  A & B share their objects with the group and then

work with C to loosely combine the objects or their key characteristics to create a new object or product

•  At the given signal take C’s object and loosely combine it with the new object to create a second new object or product

•  Use all the time to develop or improve your invention – e.g. a name or slogan for your invention

•  Your new invention can be illegal, immoral, impossible or totally absurd

Albert Einstein

“If at first the idea is not absurd, then there is no hope for it.”

Diageo: New Product Development

Creativity is not...

• Only the arts • Always the arts • Only for the few (creative geniuses) • Freedom without purpose or

discipline

Creativity is …

Creativity is …

The application of independent original

thinking (Joubert)

(Having new ideas)

Creativity is … •  A skill, not a talent •  A process, not only a product •  Involves imagination, originality and value (at historic,

relative or individual level) •  Can involve doing different things and doing things

differently •  Is purposeful (creativity versus eccentricity) •  Is a rigorous enabling device •  Can be learnt, developed and nurtured •  Requires practice to get better •  Helps develop flexibility of mind •  Can be encouraged or stifled by educators •  Innovation – the application of creative thinking

Why is creativity & innovation important?

Questions

• How important do you think creativity is to your school/organisation?

• How good do you think you are at it?

Does innovation matter?

• Synectics Innovation survey – 80% of companies consider innovation

important

– 4% rate their organisation superior at it

Excellence in innovation: the prizes

Stars Spectators

Annual sales increase 10.8% 5.7%

Annual profit increase 51% 15%

% having market share

increase 59% 27%

© EXCITE 2010

© EXCITE 2010

© EXCITE 2010

© EXCITE 2010

Shifting Sands

•  All the knowledge available in the world today will represent only 1% of the available knowledge by 2020.

•  A third of the careers that our current students will have don’t exist yet.

•  Young people will have to shift careers 3-7 times in their life

• Who will create these opportunities if young people cannot think for themselves?

(Kruger)

Changing world The only certainty our young

people will have is uncertainty

The only thing we can predictably prepare them for

is unpredictability.

Creativity can empower young people to invent the future they want,

rather than having to just accept the one they get.

How can we enable creativity & innovation?

Innovation world

Rules Speculate Experiment

Problem solve Known

solutions

Routines

Yes/No Develop solutions

Balancing the Cycling Worlds

(Copyright Synectics)

Operational world

“The paradox about innovation is that in order to be really creative and turn your creativity into innovative new products, services and offers, you need a system to be able to manage that creativity. Without structure you simply have the kind of sporadic bright ideas which, at best may yield fruit, but at worst may actually rock your organisation because you have no means of dealing with the internal changes that those new creative ideas demand.”

(Claire Hewitt)

Excellence in innovation: some ingredients

Stars Spectators

Productive/innovative meetings 25% 2% Have CPS process 83% 35% Mission mentions innovation 59% 26% Rewards for creativity/innovation 75% 36% Specific budget for innovation 49% 21%

Spend more than competitors on

R&D 35% 12%

(Synectics research)

Where do our ideas come from?

Unilever: Working with others

The ‘Creatives’

•  All people have creative abilities, but some have developed these skills further (‘creatives’)

•  You don’t have to be weird to be creative •  There are conservative and radical creatives •  Conservative creatives are often not noticed •  Radical creatives can be difficult to manage

since they think differently • We call them creative mavericks

Managing Creative Mavericks

• Decision: do we want/need to cope with them?

• Do we have the mechanisms to cope? • Can we recognise, reward and

motivate them? • What are the consequences of not

doing so?

Unilever: Why does it matter?

•  $40 billion international consumer products company

•  By mid 1990’s the company had become a sprawling global organisation – 300,000 employees – 1,600 product brands – Little synergy, high costs – Reducing operating profits, margins and share

price •  In 1999 Unilever launched its ‘Path to growth

initiative’ to turn things around

Unilever •  Goals of the 5-year program were:

–  Reduce the number of brands by 75% (to +/- 400) –  Focus R&D on the brands that matter –  Shut down 100 out of 250 manufacturing sites –  Streamline business processes –  Exit under-performing businesses

•  Workshops were conducted all over the globe and in every function, to encourage teamwork, to train and tap the creativity of employees, to find inventive ways to reach those goals and simplify the business

•  Since 1999 operating margins at the slimmed down Unilever have jumped nearly 60%, even though revenues have fallen 6%

Embedding Creativity in Education

What

Where

How

Sustainable Creativity

• Emotional climate or culture

• Teaching style or pedagogy • Curriculum

content

• Physical environment

Where we teach

Creative Climate (Synectics)

Energy for ideas or creativity

Energy required for emotional survival

Negative climate

Positive climate

(Copyright Synectics)

Total energy of individual or group

Discounting Game

• Divide in pairs • One person talks about a topic he/she

feels passionate about • The other person tries to discount the

speaker through verbal, tonal and non-verbal discounts

• Swap roles • How did it feel?

What we teach

...is the heart of creativity

Connection-making...

Connection Chain Exercise

Engaging through Connections •  Divide into two sub groups (A and B) •  Group A: List some topics or concepts that we

teach from any subjects •  Group B: List some things that young people

are interested in, e.g. hobbies, films, TV shows, etc.

•  Now create connections between the top one of each list, then the second of each list, etc. to plan a new learning activity

•  Do as many as you can in the time allowed •  How can we empower students to make such

connections?

How we teach

Creative Teaching and Learning • Teaching creatively (adult creativity) • Teaching for creativity (child creativity)

leads to

• Learning for creativity

(NACCCE, 1999)

Guess the quali0es of military leadership? 

Bravery

Communication

Honour

Planning

Which one is the best military leader and why? 

Creative Teaching and Learning

• Teaching creatively (adult creativity) • Teaching for creativity (child creativity)

leads to

• Learning for creativity

Who does the original thinking?

Reflection

Vincent Nolan

Creativity is like charity – it begins at home (or should). The world is full of people who have lots of creative ideas for others to implement. People who are prepared to take the risk of doing something new themselves are in much shorter supply!

What else can we do to make creativity & innovation sustainable in our schools and organisations?

Any Questions?

Thank you

Mathilda Marie Joubert Education Consultant Swan Christian Education Association eMail: mathildaj@scea.wa.edu.au