Analysis of Cognitive Blocks to Creative Thinking - Example

Creativity and Innovation Student’s Name Subject Professor University/Institution Location Date Creativity and innovation are important terms and components for of transforming environments. Creativity is the drive behind creation actions whose products are inventions and compositions. Innovation on the other hand, involves developing new value by application of solutions to articulate and meet the needs of customers as in Fig.1 below. Creativity largely is influenced by idea time, risk taking, challenge, playfulness and freedom for members to act autonomously. Innovation is influenced by self-confidence, organizational structures and processes that enable ideas to become innovation (Yusuf 2009). This report aims to discuss some of core threats to creative thinking and how structured techniques can help overcome it by applying the relevant theories. Furthermore, reflections on group experiences in a creative session will inform this analysis. Finally a clear conclusion on this discussion followed by practical recommendation will sum it up. Analysis of Cognitive blocks to Creative Thinking Creative thinking is conscious process which differentiates it from ordinary thinking. There are influencing factors as mentioned above for an environment to become creative. However, critical cognitive barriers derail critical reasoning, problem cognition and solving. According to Chen (2008) ccognitive dissonance primarily relates to exposure to information and experiences which conflict with what is already known. The assumption holds that human minds are not rational of flexible when evaluating uncomfortable information and questioning their own beliefs. This causes the dismissal and alteration of conflicting information. The person or group ends up justifying things or blocking them out through denial and avoidance. An organization becomes devoid of curiosity of looking for the details of things. The dominant perspective makes the rationalizations when dealing with conflicting information. Since it is a necessary, natural function in every person, failure to be aware of it may lead to inhibition of the truth and objectivity quest. In an organizational set up, this is continued by refusal of management to alter the existing structure. Structures impose control that impedes free thought for creative work. Leadership based on task and control negatively impact on a creative and innovative environment. Controlling management style discourages intrinsic motivation for curiosity and exploration. Most members in such contexts fell victimized and looked in killing signs of creativity. This is because, the structure is the basis that defines what is important, possible and true for an organization. It then becomes difficult to maintain vigilance and open-mindedness to creativity. As Smith (2008) discusses, another mode of cognitive block involves unawareness of resistance in making behavioral changes. Resistance to creativity is manifested through the belief that there is no right to change, as the past trials have failed. This attitude cut the ability to think of possibilities and among organizational workers; it may prevent them from finding out if the leaders are willing to their grievances. This robs the right of making things right. The assumption that being assertive toward creativity might upset others hinders it. This ends up keeping dissatisfaction to oneself in order to avoid questioning the authority. The members remain quite in the face of a problem. In another mode, the belief that there is no need to spell out ones though, assuming that it is already known fails creative thinking. Members need to remember that it is impossible for someone to read their minds. If the thought is not articulated, the management cannot anticipate it and be sympathetic to such struggles. Unawareness of personal resistance to creative thinking also reveals itself by assumption that others should show or change first. A believe that inspiring leadership is all it takes to create success. The members study closely the clues of their leaders to emulate and this may affect creative thinking. This lead to passivity and the attitude disrupts the natural flow of thinking. Impossibility to compromise in tricky or conflicting situation blocks creative thinking. This is exhibited by workers who conflict a lot with their managers and supervisors. It is a counterproductive attitude to creativity due to vulnerability of a person. This denies a person or a group an opportunity of testing the balance they can create. Cognitive process follows some common stages to be effective in creative thinking. Disrupted process may lead to a cycle of problems. The first stage involves preparation where member(s) is obsessed with a certain problem. This leads to collection of the relevant data and an approach to it which may perhaps end unsuccessfully in solving it. The second stage involves incubation where though there is no active ways of solving the problem, the member(s) continues to work on the problem. Furthermore, the stage may involve a generative brainstorming and evaluative focusing. In such a cyclic process, it is possible to generate a new product, do evaluations and set new goals. The third stage involves illumination where consciousness is vague and coarse form. Subjective and theoretical relation enables the discovery of previous associations of underlying order. Finally the idea is verified and worked out in a form that it can be communicated and proven to others (Awang & Ramly 2008). When the necessary conditions does not exist for any of or all the above stages, creative thinking is hindered. The phenomenon reveals itself in haphazard application of creative process which may not deliver the desired success. In most cases the members involved are unsettled, indecisive, confused and uncontrollable. For instance, making an idea matter might be problematic. Getting the attention of others for the ideas one want to implement depends on the time invested to develop a persuasive stories, which begets the emotional connection with those people who are being influenced. Creative Problem Solving and Structured Techniques Process Creativity process through structured techniques can ensure possibilities of overcoming barriers related to everyday thinking. As Buijs, Smulders & Van Der Meer (2009) argues, the creative problem solving model by Osborn-Parnes has its basis on improving the imaginative ability through practice. It is a three stages model including; fact finding, idea-finding and solution-finding (Fig.3). On the other hand, Van Gundy’s structured techniques description, offers the analytical techniques of problem solving. It is a six stages process involving mess finding, data, and problem, idea, solution and acceptance findings. This constitutes and results to a creative problem solving. By connecting them, it is possible to know how and why creative process can be used both in schools and business to generate ideas and solving problems after overcoming barriers to everyday thinking. Fact finding entail brainstorming that brings together divergent thinking, free and unlimited flow of ideas. Brainstormed ideas, facts and solutions every contribution is accepted with criticism and analysis. With the use of deferred judgement the probability of generating new ideas doubles. Critical analysis follows the range of options that are available for comparison. This is the basis of defining the problem so as to implement an accepted solution. The creative process overcomes barrier by involving a divergent-thinking phases in each stage. Lots of problem definitions, ideas, facts, potential solutions, criteria for evaluation and implementations of ideas is provided. The process follows that, in the second phase, which involves convergence of ideas, the most promising of the ideas are selected. Further exploration may follow before coming to an objective concussion. This way, the involved members are able to weigh the limitations of their thoughts, viewpoints and arguments. Adopting such a process and practising it in an organization, people perceive how they are creative and practice it promoting imagination. Barriers to creative thinking are overcomed, as the model recognizes that the process is not fluent one. Thoughts and ideas move back and forth along and between these stages to produce excellent results. An important trend from the fact that in all the stages, first it involves divergent-thinking, it means that limitations of thought and cognition is broken. Creative becomes teachable and a learnable process and people keeps on improving. The relation between convergence and divergence thinking offers clear steps to guide people in practice and application across a wide range of fields and subjects. The CPS process is a tool to develop divergent and convergent, creative and critical thinking skills. An important factor in the process is that people accept all ideas, refrain from criticizing others’ contributions, allowing every person to be imaginative (Chen & Cheng 2009). As demonstrated from Pfister & Eppler (2012), a longer process provided by Van Gundy description offers a rich process which is much applicable. Mess finding scans for issues which need to be tackled. This brings in divergent techniques to identify both obstacles to overcome and desirable outcomes. Converged techniques identify the hotspots in a list, selection criteria and outlook criteria. Data finding enable a person to gather information on a problem. Divergent techniques involve the five Ws and H. Who, what, why, when, where and how help in listing wants and findings. The convergent techniques gather this information and help restating of the problem with richer understanding. Problem finding will have broad statement with many repeatable questions and reformulating it to fit the criteria. Idea, solution and acceptance will also follow both techniques refining the best outcome. According to Forster & Brocco (2008), the two techniques explain the nature of the minds and human creativity. First, divergence techniques makes the possibility of different, conflicting; opinions, wishes and interests. This opens the mental process to formulate anything, not primary as the for the end result, but for further considerations. In the second, it is possible to merger the previously distinct thoughts into a new forms creating new theories, new practices and new products. The established single set of standards is used and the combination of multiple ideas, enhance the performance of a similar task, which is in this case problem solving. The process is included in every stage, spanning more and more possibilities and creating effective creative processes. Reflection on Group Experience Lotus Blossom, a model considered in group work, followed the five Ws and H to consider ideas and solutions to come up with a central theme. The diagram has a square in the centre and eight circles surrounding it. The central idea is written as a problem in the centre with other ideas and solutions for the problem written on the surrounding circles. Finally, a process of evaluating those ideas follows, to come up with the most effective and efficient application (Doerr, Herrmann, Schmid & Schneider 2010). Our group exhibited an intrinsic motivation to creativity when working on an idea which was interesting, challenging and involving. In conclusion, there is a thin line between creativity and innovation but innovation is not an automatic outcome of creativity. More skills and structures are involved in bringing innovation to be. Creativity can be hindered in many ways having an array of cognitive blocks in play. Dissonance, disruptive thinking process and unawareness of inner resistance are all factors which inhibit creativity. However, by application of Osborn-Parnes creative process of problem solving and Van Gundy structured techniques, it is shown that the processes are accessible and effective to be used in wide range of problem solving and creative processes. This opens the possibility for all people to practice and apply skills, prove their abilities with an ideal relevant practice. Group reflections confirm that problem solving techniques and model enable intrinsic motivation toward creativity. This primarily is from the fact that any idea has certain degree of applicability, acceptance and limitations. The mechanism is very applicable in everyday life-experiences, creating the basis for creativity. The effectiveness of the process of generating creative and useful ideas can be improved through various understanding as recommended; While it is shown that there are many stages which can be followed for creativity and ideas generation, it is important to consider applicability of the stages for different context and problems. As the process might be complex, minimalist approach should consider critical elements to refine the best applicable stages for every problem. This would avoid the detrimental effects of collaborative thinking, which may end up wasting a lot of time. Creative thinking cannot be understood and be concluded on one model alone. There are multiple factors that endear creativity and which can be considered during recruitment processes. Self-confidence, rebelliousness, experience and diversity are critical pillars of high creativity. This is an effective and permanent creativity through living, working and studying experiences. Considering these factors may improve the creative process. Creativity process can be hindered if contained in such a process. There should be wide interplay of ideas to effectively create the possibility of more outcomes. This excludes the assumption of ‘right’ ideas in acceptance process. References Awang, H & Ramly, I 2008, ‘Creative thinking skill approach through problem-based learning: pedagogy and practice in the engineering classroom’, International Journal of Human and Social Sciences, 3(1), 18-23. Buijs, J Smulders, F & Van Der Meer, H 2009, ‘Towards a more realistic creative problem solving approach’, Creativity and innovation management,18(4), 286-298. Chen, K 2008, ‘Rationalization and Cognitive Dissonance: Do Choices Affect or Reflect Preferences?’. Chen, Y F, & Cheng, K W 2009, ‘Integrating computer-supported cooperative learning and creative problem solving into a single teaching strategy’, Social Behavior and Personality: an international journal, 37(9), 1283-1296. Doerr, J, Herrmann, A, Schmid, K, & Schneider, K 2010, ‘CREARE 2010 1st Workshop on Creativity in Requirements Engineering’ econstor, 6. Forster, F, & Brocco, M 2008, ‘Understanding creativity-technique based problem solving processes’, In Knowledge-Based Intelligent Information and Engineering Systems (pp. 806-813). Springer Berlin/Heidelberg. Pfister, R A, & Eppler, M J 2012, July, ‘Paths to Success: A Sketch-based Creativity Technique for Individuals and Teams’, In Information Visualisation (IV), 2012 16th International Conference on (pp. 337-342). IEEE. Smith, S M 2008, ‘Invisible assumptions and the unintentional use of knowledge and experiences in creative cognition’ Lewis & Clark L. Rev., 12, 509. Yusuf, S 2009, ‘From creativity to innovation’, Technology in Society, 31(1), 1-8. Appendices Fig 1: Idea generation, (Adopted from: Cutting Edge: Product Development). Fig. 2: Creative Problem Solving (Adopted from; Osborn-Parnes models) Fig.3 : In Creativity Engineering Frameworks, Marketing ( Adopted from: Osborn-Parnes CPS Process Strategy). Read More