innovation leadership article

by Evangeline Caridas
Creative Management

In my extensive work with primary health care I have found that operations research is not only an effective management tool, but that it can also be a catalyst to promote community development. Operations research has a lot in common with health education and development. The three components of Operations research are quite similar to Covey's intersection of knowledge, skills and desire. Thus, the management process is linked to both the learning and creative process.

It is feasible, therefore to demonstrate the connectivity between various learning, management, and creative processes (see table below). This table makes several important points.

First, the management process can and should go hand in hand with the learning process and the creative process. Managers should be "foraging" and borrowing methods and tools from the learning and creative processes to improve the planning and management process.Second, amid a abundance of management, learning and creative processes there are more similarites than differences. It is not necessary to learn a dozen different independent processes, but rather to understand one general process with variations and terminology applied to your working environment. For me, FRANK's creative management is this unifying process.

FRANK'S Creative Management is meant to emphasize that the creative management process should be personalized to the individual. I feel that everyone should personalize the creative process, so I've included a special personalization matrix to help you to create your own creative management acronym.

The matrix of action verbs for each letter of the alphabet and each component of the creative process. This permits you to choose from 11,881,376 five-word combinations to design your own personal acronym for creative management. For example RETHA'S Creative Management might be:

Researching is collecting information

Examining is generating lots of ideas

Taking up is embracing an idea

Honing is improving your idea

Advocating is never giving upYou can design a personalized acronym as a daily reminder to apply creative management in all your learning, management and creative activities.

ما هو التحفيز؟

التحفيز هو: عبارة عن مجموعة الدوافع التي تدفعنا لعمل شيء ما.

والخيرون يتحفزون لعمل ما يعتقدونة أكثر ارتباطاً بمصلحة دينهم مما يجعله يقودهم إلى إنجازات عظيمة و أعمال إنسانية كبيرة.

ولو نظرنا إلى عملية التحفيز من وجهة نظر إدارية فمن المهم جدا أن ندرك الحقيقة التالية: وهي أنك لا تستطيع أن تحفز الآخرين ، ولكنك تستطيع فقط أن تؤثر على ما يحفزهم.

العوامل المهمة في تحفيز العامل

يجب على المسئولين أن يهتموا بشكل خاص بثلاثة عوامل :
1. التعاون مع المؤسسة: يشعر العاملون بتحفز أكثر للعمل عندما يدركون أهمية التعاون مع المؤسسة التي يتعاملون معها.
2. القناعة: حينما يدرك العاملون أن ما يقومون به من عمل يشكل إضافة نوعية إلى عمل المؤسسة يتحفزون للاستمرار بنفس الجد والاجتهاد.
3. الاختيار: يشعر العاملون بالتحفز للعمل أكثر وبجدية عندما تعطيهم الصلاحية لاتخاذ القرار أثناء العمل ، ومع ذلك حاول أن تفتش عن طرق أخرى مناسبة للتشجيع: كمنحهم العلاوات ، أو توفير مكتب جديد ،أو إعطائهم يوماً ،أو يومين عطلة إضافية وهكذا. ولكن في كل الأحوال يجب أن تركز على العوامل التي تؤثر على حماس العاملين في العمل ؛ وخاصة العوامل الكامنة في داخل كل واحد منهم.

I've always had a fascination with creativity. I think I inherited a creative bent from my mother whose hobbies included drama and calligraphy. I'm a strong believer in the therapeutic value of creative pursuits in preventing professional burnout. I've discovered, however, in my reading and quote collecting that there are differing views about the creative process.

To some it is an ungovernable process:

You cannot govern the creative impulse; all you can do is to eliminate obstacles and smooth the way for it.

-Kimon Nicoliades

To others it is a matter of governing work habits:

If you want to develop your creativity, establish regular work habits. Allow time for the incubation of ideas, and adhere to your individual rhythm. Violations of this rhythm can retard your creative efficiency.

-Eugene Raudsepp

To Chagall it is a affair of the heart:

If I create from the heart, nearly everything works; if from the head almost nothing.

-Marc Chagall

While to others creativity is a matter of the mind:

To be creative, relax and let your mind go to work, otherwise the result is either a copy of something you did before or reads like an army manual.

- Kenneth H. Gordon, Jr.

Creativity has also been described as a series of phases:

• For most, it will be seen that the process of such high creativity consists of three phases:

• 1) the prelude ritual;

  2) the altered state of consciousness or creative spell during which the creative idea is born, starting with vibrations, then mental images, then the flow of ideas which are finally clothed in form... and, 3) the postlude in which positive emotions about the experience suffuse the participant.

-John Curtis Gowan

Gail Sheehy in Pathfinders defined four phases of the creative process:

• 1) Preparation - gathering impressions and images

• 2) Incubation - letting go of certainties

  3) Immersion & Illumination-creative intervention/risk 4) Revision - conscious structuring and editing of creative material

Roger von Oech in A Kick in the Seat of the Pants feels the creative process consists of adopting four roles:

The hallmark of creative people is their mental flexibility... Sometimes they are open and probing, at others they're playful and off-the-wall. At still other times, they're critical and faultfinding. And finally they're doggedly persistent in striving to reach their goals. From this I've concluded that the creative process consists of our adopting four main roles, each which embodies a different type of thinking... These roles are: Explorer, Artist, Judge and Warrior.

And finally some feel that creativity doesn't follow any system at all:

I don't follow any system. All the laws you can lay down are only so many props to be cast aside when the hour of creation arrives.

-Raoul Dufy

In my personal pursuit of the creative process I also found that compilers of quotation books have their own ideas about creativity. I found that the quotations I was looking for were indexed under such diverse topics as aptitude, success, talent, genius, inspiration, questioning, discovery, imagination, idea, innovation, invention, simplification, courage, common sense, determination, perseverance, persistence, failure, knowledge, education, patience, accomplishment, proficiency, and originality.

I wanted to index my collected quotations into a system which made sense to me. I began to see similarities between the "phases" of Sheehy and the "roles" of von Oech as shown in the table below. I finally settled on an indexing system based on five components of the creative process which I initially labeled as: Ability, Inspiration, Innovation, Modification, and Perseverance. I never was very satisfied with using those five nouns as component identifiers. I wanted the system to be more personalized and action oriented. I eventually changed the components to action verbs as part of FRANK's Creative Process: Forage, Reflect, Adopt, Nurture and Knuckle Down. These components are discussed in Components for Creativity

FRANK'S CREATIVE PROCESSVON OECH'S "KICK"SHEEHY'S "PATH"FORAGEEXPLORERPREPARATIONREFLECTARTISTINCUBATIONADOPTIMMERSION & ILLUMINATIONNURTUREJUDGEREVISIONKNUCKLE DOWNWARRIORContinue to Creativity and the Learning Process

Critical Thinking Problems
1. There is a building and in one of the rooms there is a table. On that table there is bowl and in the bowl there is an orange. You walk into the room and see two different hands grabbing for the last orange. The children start to fight. What do you do?
2. It is a hot summer day and you are very thirsty. You open the door of the refrigerator to get your bottle of water and it is frozen. For some reason the refrigerator was turned up to the highest degree and froze everything in it. You want the water now. What should you do?
3. There is a classroom where four children are playing. One child decides to play with his beanie babies and invites the others to join him. He only has three manatees and one zebra with him. You walk in as they start to play and after some time, all of them want to play with the manatees. They start to argue. How are you going to handle this?
4. There is an island the size of this room and all of you are stranded on it. The main land is 1/16 of a mile away and there is a river of lava surrounding the island. One of you finds a pair of magic shoes that can be used to walk across the lava and your feet will not burn. The only problem is that each foot can only wear the shoe once, meaning, the right foot can only wear the right shoe once and one way and the same for the left foot. You want to get everyone across with no injuries. How are all of you going to get off the island?

Critical and Creative Thinking - Bloom's Taxonomy

What are critical thinking and creative thinking?

What's Bloom's taxonomy and how is it helpful in project planning?

How are the domains of learning reflected in technology-rich projects?
Benjamin Bloom (1956) developed a classification of levels of intellectual behavior in learning. This taxonomy contained three overlapping domains: the cognitive, psychomotor, and affective. Within the cognitive domain, he identified six levels: knowledge, comprehension, application, analysis, synthesis, and evaluation. These domains and levels are still useful today as you develop the critical thinking skills of your students.
Critical Thinking

Critical thinking involves logical thinking and reasoning including skills such as comparison, classification, sequencing, cause/effect, patterning, webbing, analogies, deductive and inductive reasoning, forecasting, planning, hyphothesizing, and critquing.
Explore the Georgia Critical Thinking Skills Program. It contains links to lessons and resources in many areas of critical thinking
Creative Thinking


Creative thinking involves creating something new or original. It involves the skills of flexibility, originality, fluency, elaboration, brainstorming, modification, imagery, associative thinking, attribute listing, ****phorical thinking, forced relationships. The aim of creative thinking is to stimulate curiosity and promote divergence.

Read the article Teaching Thinking Skills and Critical and Creative Thinking for additional background information.

While critical thinking can be thought of as more left-brain and creative thinking more right brain, they both involve "thinking." When we talk about HOTS "higher-order thinking skills" we're concentrating on the top three levels of Bloom's Taxonomy: analysis, synthesis, and evaluation.
Knowledge

collect
describe
identify
list
show
tell
tabulate
define
examine
label
name
retell
state
quote
enumerate
match
read
record
reproduce
copy
select
Examples: dates, events, places, vocabulary, key ideas, parts of diagram, 5Ws

Comprehension

associate
compare
distinguish
extend
interpret
predict
differentiate
contrast
describe
discuss
estimate
group
summarize
order
cite
convert
explain
paraphrase
restate
trace

Examples: find meaning, transfer, interpret facts, infer cause & consequence, examples


Application

apply
classify
change
illustrate
solve
demonstrate
calculate
complete
solve
modify
show
experiment
relate
discover
act
administer
articulate
chart
collect
compute
construct
determine
develop
establish
prepare
produce
report
teach
transfer
use
Examples: use information in new situations, solve problems


Analysis

analyze
arrange
connect
divide
infer
separate
classify
compare
contrast
explain
select
order
breakdown
correlate
diagram
discriminate
focus
illustrate
infer
outline
prioritize
subdivide
points out
prioritize
Examples: recognize and explain patterns and meaning, see parts and wholes


Synthesis

combine
compose
generalize
modify
invent
plan
substitute
create
formulate
integrate
rearrange
design
speculate
rewrite
adapt
anticipate
collaborate
compile
devise
express
facilitate
reinforce
structure
substitute
intervene
negotiate
reorganize
validate
Examples: discuss "what if" situations, create new ideas, predict and draw conclusions


Evaluation

assess
compare
decide
discriminate
measure
rank
test
convince
conclude
explain
grade
judge
summarize
support
appraise
criticize
defend
persuade
justify
reframe

Examples: make recommendations, assess value and make choices, critique ideas


Affective Domain


Domain Attributes: interpersonal relations, emotions, attitudes, appreciations, and values accepts
attempts
challenges
defends
disputes
joins
judges
contributes
id praises
questions
shares
supports
volunteers




Resources on Bloom's Taxonomy

Bloom's Taxonomy by J. Prado - This site contains the levels, example words, products, and example questions.
Other Sites with an Overview and Key Words:
Bloom's Taxonomy: An Overview from Family Education Network's TeacherVision
Taxonomy of Educational Objectives developed by A. Harrow, adapted by T. Allen - This page provides sample questions.
Learning Skills Program: Bloom's Taxonomy from University of Victoria - This page lists the six levels of the cognitive domain with examples.
Other Sites Listing the Taxonomy:
Designing and Managing MCQs from University of Cape Town, South Africa
Major Categories in the Taxonomy of Educational Objectives by G. Krumme, University of Washington, Seattle
Question Types Based on Bloom's Taxonomy from University of Colorado
Bloom's Taxonomy from University of Mississippi
Critical Thinking Across the Curriculum by B. Fowler, Longview Community College - Explore the questions associated with each Bloom category.

Critical Thinking Resources

Critical Thinking from The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga - This webpage provides an overview of critical thinking.
Critical Thinking on the Web by T. van Gelder at The University of Melbourne - This links page provide connects to lots of teaching and learning resources related to critical thinking.
Free Brainstorming Training from Infinite Innovations Ltd - Learn basic and advanced techniques for brainstorming.
Mission: Critical from San Jose State University - This website provides an advanced look at critical thinking and specifically analysis of arguments and persuasion.

Examples and Applications of Critical Thinking

Evaluating Primary Sources from Library of Congress's American Memory - This website does a great job providing an example of using Bloom's Taxonomy for evaluating primary resource materials.
Integrating Critical Thinking Skills Into the Classroom by A. Buchanan - This article defines critical thinking and provides steps for integrating the ideas into the classroom.
Layered Curriculum by K.F. Nunley - The Layered Curriculum approach focuses on increasing levels of complexity. Explore some of the many examples.
What Is a Thinking Curriculum? by T.F. Fennimore & M.B. Tinzmann, North Central Regional Educational Laboratory (NCREL) - Join the authors in exploring the characteristics of a "thinking curriculum."

Creative Thinking Resources

Creativity Links by C. Osborne - This page links to great resources on creative thinking.
Creative Problem Solving from Burris Laboratory School, Muncie, IN - This page highlights six steps in creative problem solving.
Creativity Web from C. Cave - This page contains ideas on linking creative thinking to critical thinking and multiple intelligences.
Within this Website:
Six Hats of Thinking by S. Labelle
Techniques for Creative Thinking
Edward de Bono's Methods & Concepts of Lateral Thinking - This page provides an overview of deBono's ideas about creativity. Here you can also learn about the Six Thinking Hats.
Introduction to Creative Thinking by R. Harris from VirtualSalt - This page compares critical and creative thinking and discusses the myths of creative thinking.
Inventive Thinking Curriculum Model from The United States Patent and Trademark Office - This page provides ideas for invention and creative thinking.
Classic Lateral Thinking Puzzles by P. Sloane and adapted by A. Ottens - A collection of thinking puzzles is found on this page.
Tutorial on Creativity, Brainstorming and Innovation from Infinite Innovations Ltd. - This tutorial provides basic information about creativity, brainstorming, and innovation. It also provides ideas and activities.

Creativity Pool - This is a database of creative and original ideas. Submit your own or check to see if someone else has thought of the same thing.
Build A Project

Select a topic and a technology. Brainstorm examples of outcomes at different levels of Bloom's Taxonomy.