Managing for Creativity and Innovation - Essay Example

Robinson distinguishes the concepts of imagination, creativity and innovation which are all interrelated and often mistaken as one for another. Imagination was defined as the process of bringing to mind things that are not present to our senses. This is usually engaged in by children as they dream of whimsical things that they cannot concretize. Creativity is the process of developing original ideas that have value. It is called for every time a problem needs to be solved and ideas which make sense are summoned.

Innovation is the process of putting new ideas into practice, as in the case of inventions or new strategies implemented that are bound to create a strong impact. From the first chapter, Robinson claims that creativity can be found anywhere – in schools, business establishments, etc. It is just a matter of looking into the details of what is being done to ignite the creative spark. He said that everyone has the ability to be creative, but it just needs to be tapped and developed. A culture of creativity is one wherein everyone collaborates to encourage creativity to thrive.

Robinson explains the themes tackled in the book. The first theme is about us living in times of revolution. The speed of change that overwhelms us also affects governments and businesses, and these organizations point to education and training as the crucial factors that are needed for the future. Such education is expected to develop people’s creativity and innovation. The reasons why these two are highly anticipated are the following: In order to maintain a competitive edge, creativity and innovation are necessary to generate new ideas for products and services.

Flexibility and adaptability to change must be developed by people in their education and training. The world is changing fast and survival will depend on one’s capacity to be creative and innovative. The second theme running through the book is the need to think differently about one’s abilities and how to use them. Nowadays, people need to learn to think out of the box, as old ways of thinking and doing things may no longer be relevant. Education has the responsibility of cultivating talents and sensibilities of children in order for them to live their best lives in the present and create bright futures.

This then leads to the third theme, which claims that organizations, especially the educational system, should be transformed radically to meet the needs of the 21st century. People should have a paradigm shift in terms of viewing intelligence and creativity. The second chapter stresses the fact that digital technology is developing at an immensely fast rate that our brains need to keep up with it if we do not want it to overtake us. Digital culture is changing lifestyles as new innovations generate new patterns of behaviours affecting people’s time management, work, education and even relationships.

Technology does make the world smaller. This gives more reason for education to be transformed so that students will be able to cope with such changes. However, Chapter 3 explains that the current education system is not designed to meet the challenges of the future. The dominant forms available nowadays do not equip students with the necessary skills to help them thrive in the real world. A lopsided emphasis on academics over arts and the humanities neglects the development of creativity. Robinson cites three roles of education, namely