Creativity and innovation

Creativity and Innovation Effectiveness Profile

Dr. Jon Warner

HRD Press • Amherst • Massachusetts

Copyright © 2004, Team Publications. All rights reserved.

Published by:

HRD Press, Inc. 22 Amherst Road Amherst, MA 01002 (800) 822-2801 (U.S. and Canada) (413) 253-3488 (413) 253-3490 (Fax) http://www.hrdpress.com

In association with Team Publications.

All rights reserved. Anyreproduction of this material in any media without written permission of the publisher is a violation of international copyright law.

ISBN: 0-87425-782-4

Cover design by Eileen Klockars Production services by Anctil Virtual Office

Introduction and Instructions
Creativity and Innovation is a complex subject area, with a considerable amount of debate about what it is, and how it ispracticed. To be creative or innovative can be said to be original, expressive, inventive, imaginative, ground breaking, or idea-generative. However, all these labels are context sensitive, or relative terms. In other words, we can only be truly creative if we have an alternative or different perspective from everyone else. This often happens in commonplace or familiar situations, where most peoplegenerally think in the same way. In this sense, creativity doesn’t need to be seen as only the domain of “creative types.” Any individual in the right circumstances can exhibit it, just by having a new or different view. We all have the opportunity to translate our unique personal perspectives and views of the world into new ideas and concepts that can be potentially useful not only to ourselves, butalso to others. Consequently, we can often help other people think beyond their existing mental boundaries, or provide fresh insights that can take their thinking to entirely new planes, connecting them with new opportunities previously hidden from view. Since everyone is capable of engaging in creative and innovative behavior, the skills or competencies to be able to do this more of the timeshould be readily discoverable and common to everyone, in varying strength or degree. This assessment is a self-scoring creativity/innovation effectiveness instrument, designed to help individuals understand more about their relative skills in this critical area. Extensive research suggests that there are seven uniquely identifiable competencies that contribute to effective creativity/innovationskills. These are: • • • • • • • Creative Consciousness Levels of Curiosity Pattern Breaking Skills Idea Nurturing Ability Willingness to Experiment and Take Risks Courage and Resilience Levels Energetic Persistence

These competencies are the main factors that constitute the relative ability to be creative or to innovate, and can be reviewed as individual competency components in the overallcreativity skill mix. Each competency is explained briefly in the paragraph under each respective heading. It should be noted that every statement for each competency should be viewed as an “aspirational” goal for those wishing to improve their skills in areas where they wish they were stronger. In other words, the statements help to describe and define not only the competency, but what you should aimto “almost always” do in order to be effective in your future efforts.

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Completing this Booklet
Completing this booklet is simple. At the top of each page, read the introductory paragraph to help you understand the competency, and then shade in all the boxes to the score you select from 1 to 5. Always select a full score (1, 2, 3, 4, or 5), not a half score. For example, if you score thestatement “I enjoy regular travel,” as a 2 (meaning “occasionally”), shade in only the first two boxes on the left. If you score it as a 5 (meaning “almost always”), shade in all five boxes from the left. By continuing to do this, you will build up a bar graph, or “histogram,” to give you a quick visual reference of your scores. Example: Score = 3
1 2 3 4 5

Because the scores are always 1 to...