Week 4 Reading Reflection

Chapter 5 mostly talks about creative thinking and the idea around it. The chapter examines how important the creative process is and the ways to develop creativity were presented. It also touched on innovation, how to identify opportunities and went on to describe the 4 different types of innovation. Before we hit on these two important topics, I wanted to mention something that the author said that relates to both creativity and innovation. He hits a point which I wish he would have expanded more on. He said that it’s important to not just acquire information and knowledge but it’s just as important to transfer it. I think this is that missing piece, that little detail that makes entrepreneurs different from others. In order to be successful you need to not just identify an opportunity or a solution but you must be able to transfer your idea to others. If others don’t understand what you’re trying to do, or the product you’re trying to sell, how do you expect to be successful? So I just thought that point was very important and sort of hidden in the text. What I found most interesting was his discussion of the nature of creativity. I am such a strong believer in children and their education and this is why this intrigued me so much. He went on to say that creativity is not something you’re born with, or only intelligent people acquire. Everyone is creative in some degree, some more than other, but everyone has this quality. And this kind of relates to my previous point. Everyone is creative is just a matter of who transfers their creativity the best. Like I said before, I’m a huge believer that children are our future and when the textbook says stuff like “for some creativity is more difficult because it’s not positively reinforced”, this just makes me think of kids. It’s so important to at a young age steer children in the right direction and to foster a positive thinking process. Imagine if we gave every child in the world, or even just in America, the opportunity to be creative, to allow them to look at the world illogically, these kids would be unstoppable. We would plant this seed of creative thinking, which if reinforced through time would just grow and grow. If we could stop putting down kinds but saying things like “that’s a dumb idea” or “yeah, but if you did that…” or “you can’t do that”, if we were to eliminate these “idea killers”, their imagination would be able to run free. I have such high respect for teacher, not because my mom is one, but because I truly believe they hold the future in their hands. A good teacher at a young age could make all the difference. For adults it’s a lot harder. Adults have been doing and thinking the way do for years. It’s hard to change the way they think. But the textbook mentions some good creative climate ideas which I thought were also pretty good. Things like trustful management, willingness to accept change, promoting employees on the basis of merit, and suggestive systems and brainstorming. I think these are good ideas to allow hidden creative thinkers come out of their cave but I don’t believe they will create creative thinkers. Which leads to the one point I don’t agree with about this chapter. When it comes to a creative innovative mindset, like I said before, that’s something that needs to be planted early in a child’s mind and through time it needs to be supported to allow to grow. Yes everyone is creative to a point, for those adults that are barely creative, I think that boat of high creativity has sailed. There’s a difference between a hard worker and a creative innovative one. And if an adult happens to be creative out of nowhere, I think that was just a dormant trait. That seed was planted in the individual a while back, but it has just been hiding, waiting for the right moment to come out and when the opportunity arose then that seed started to grow again and started flourishing.