Innovator's Toolkit

11

Human Creativity

The Starting Point of Creativity

Key Topics Covered in This Chapter

• Creativity and the creative process
• Myths and realities
• The components of individual creativity: expertise, flexible and imaginative thinking, and motivation
• Managing for creative output

EARLIER CHAPTERS OF this book focused on the front end of the innovative process: idea generation, opportunity recognition, and the processes that companies use to choose between many innovative ideas and move them toward commercialization. Very little was said, however, about the creativity from which ideas and innovations emerge, or about the things that managers can do to encourage it. We turn to these here and in chapter 12. But first, let’s examine the concept of creativity ...