Not brawn. Not brains. It's...

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Created on Thursday, 12 January 2012 21:08

Illustration: Hiro Shibata

It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent,
but rather the one most adaptable to change.  — Charles Darwin 

Darwin spoke about the evolution of species. Today, as we watch the typewriter ribbons and floppy discs of our youth dwindle to extinction, we realize Darwin's words apply just as aptly to business in the Internet Age. 

It's not brawn. It's not brain. It's adaptablity that allows you to survive. It's an organization's ability to problem solve in real time — to identify gaps and opportunities and find valuable ways to fill them. That's the very definition of innovation, according to some experts, and it requires creative thinking. "Creativity is the key," says professor Gerard Puccio, PhD. "The problem is, we have a cultural belief that you can't teach creativity — that you are born with it. That's a flawed belief. To the contrary what the research shows is that creative thinking and creative problem solving can be enhanced through training and deliberate practice."

Puccio is the chairman of the International Center for Studies in Creativity. He has dedicated his career to teaching creativity—to making its research, its process and its secrets accessible to the rest of us. He heads up the graduate program (a Master of Science) in creativity, innovation and change leadership at Buffalo State College and has co-authored the books Creative Leadership and The Innovative Team.

The problem is, we have a cultural belief that you can't teach creativity.
That's a flawed belief. — Gerard Puccio

"I'm an absolute believer that you can develop creativity in yourself and others," says Puccio. Nearly 15 years ago, while he was collaborating on the creation of a new complex model for creative problem solving, he simultaneously developed FourSight: Your Thinking Profile, a 36-question assessment to bring simple language and memorable models to the incredibly complex world of creativity.

What he witnessed: Teams that learned a common language for creativity and gained a respect for other people's unique problem solving approaches could transform their ability to innovate. "Based on the impact studies of teaching creative problem solving to individuals and groups, you'd be hard pressed to come up with a better way to invest training and development dollars in today's economy," says Puccio. "Creativity is a core competency in any organization that hopes to survive the Internet Age." — S. Thurber (Jan 2012)

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