Art of Being Creative

7/28/2019 Art of Being Creative

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possibilities in them or connections that are invisible to less creative minds.

That conclusion brings enormous relie. You do not have to conjure up new ideas

rom the air. Your task as a creative thinker is to combine ideas or elements that already

exist. I the result is an unlikely but valuable combination o ideas or things that hithertowere not thought to be linked, then you will be seen as a creative thinker. You will have

added value to the synthesis, or a whole is more than the sum o its parts.

Use AnalogyPut yoursel into the shoes o an inventor. You have become dissatised

with the solution to some existing problem or daily necessity. You are casting about in your

mind or a new idea. Something occurs to you, possibly suggested by reading about other

peoples attempts in the les o the patent oce. You go home and sketch your invention,

and then make a model o it.

The point is that the model you have reached may well have been suggested by an

analogy rom nature. Indeed you could look upon nature as a storehouse o models waiting

to be used by inventors. Remember that what the natural model suggests is usually aprinciple that nature has evolved or employed to solve a particular problem or necessity

in a given situation. That principle can be extracted like venom rom a snake and applied

to solve a human problem. Radar, or example, came rom studying the uses o refected

sound waves rom bats. The way a clam shell opens suggested the design or aircrat cargo

doors.

The same undamental principlethat models or the solution to our problems

probably already exist, we do not have to create them rom nothingcan be applied to

all creative thinking, not just to inventing new products. Take human organization or

example. Most o the principles involved can be ound in nature: hierarchy (baboons 1),

division o labor (ants, bees), networks (spiders webs), and so on. I you are trying to

create a new organization you will ind plenty o ready-made models in human society,

past or present. Remember, however, that these are only analogies. I you copy directly

you are heading or trouble.

Widen your span o relevance Farming in his native Berkshire in the early

eighteenth century, the British agriculturalist, Jethro Tull, developed a drill enabling seeds

to be sown mechanically, and so spaced that cultivation between rows was possible in the

growth period. Tull was an organist, and it was the principle o the organ that gave him his

new idea. What he was doing, in eect, was to transer the technical means o achieving a

practical purpose rom one eld to another.

Tulls case indicates that inventors may have knowledge in more than one eld. They

may even work in a quite dierent sphere rom the one in which they make their names asdiscoverers or inventors. Look at the ollowing list o inventions with the occupations o

their inventors:

Invention Inventors main occupation

Ballpoint pen Sculptor

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Saety razor Traveling salesman

Kodachrome lms Musician

Automatic telephone Undertaker

Parking meter JournalistPneumatic tyre2 Veterinary surgeon

Long-playing record Television engineer

The lack o expert or specialized knowledge in a given eld is no bar to being able

to make a creative contribution. Indeed, too much knowledge may be a disadvantage.

As Disraeli said, we must learn to unlearn. Sir Barnes Wallis, the British aeronautical

engineer who helped to develop the Concorde supersonic airliner and the swing-wing

aircrat, ailed his London matriculation examination at the age o 16. I knew nothing,

he said in a television interview, except how to think, how to grapple with a problem and

then go on grappling with it until you had solved it.Experience has shown, wrote Edgar Allan Poe, and a true philosophy will always

show, that a vast, perhaps the larger, portion o the truth arises rom the seemingly

irrelevant. That is a great reason or traveling. For one seeing is worth 100 hearings. Go

and look or yoursel. You may discover technologies that are ripe or transer.

CuriosityThe important thing is not to stop questioning, said Einstein. Curiosity

has its own reason or existing. One cannot help but be in awe when one contemplates the

mysteries o eternity, o lie, o the marvelous structure o reality. It is enough i one tries

merely to comprehend a little o this mystery every day. Never lose a holy curiosity.

Such curiosity isor should bethe appetite o the intellect. The novelist, William

Trevor, or example, sees his role as an observer o human nature: Youve got to like

human beings, and be very curious, he says, otherwise he doesnt think it is possible to

write ction.

O course, curiosity in this sense must be distinguished rom the sort o curiosity

that proverbially kills the cat. The latter implies prying into other peoples minds in an

objectionable or intrusive way, or meddling in their personal aairs. True curiosity is

simply the eager desire to learn and know. Such disinterested intellectual curiosity can

become habitual. Leonardo da Vincis motto was I question.

Curiouser and curiouser! cried Alice in Wonderland. Too oten it is only something

curious, rare or strange that arouses our curiosity. But what excites attention merely

because it is strange or odd is oten not worth any urther investigation. We do have to be

selective in our curiosity.In creative thinking, curiosity about what will happen next is an important ingredient

in motivation. It is not simply a case o being curious in order to gather inormation,

the raw materials o creative thought. Rather, creative thinking is itsel a way o learning

something new.

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Chance avors only the prepared mind Beore the development o the foat process

by a research team led by Sir Alastair Pilkington, glass-making was labor intensive and

time-consuming, mainly because o the need or grinding and polishing suraces to get a

brilliant nish. Pilkingtons proprietary process eliminated this nal manuacturing stageby loating the glass, ater it is cast rom a melting urnace, over a bath o molten tin

about the size o a tennis court. The idea or rinsing glass over a molten tin bath came

to Sir Alastair when he stood at his kitchen sink washing dishes. The foat process gives

a distortion-ree glass o uniorm quality with bright, ire-polished suraces. Savings in

costs are considerable. A foat line needs only hal the number o workers to produce three

times as much glass as old production methods. Since the introduction o the process, it is

estimated to have earned Pilkington over $2 billion in royalties.

It is interesting to relect how many other inventions have been the result o such

unexpected or chance occurrences. The classic example, o course, is the discovery o

penicillin by Sir Alexander Fleming. The sweetening eect o saccharine

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, anotherexample, was accidentally discovered by a chemist who happened to eat his lunch in the

laboratory without washing his hands ater some experiments. Ira W Ruel observed the

eects when a eeder ailed to place a sheet o paper in a lithograph4 machine, and the

work on the printing surace let its ull impression upon the printing cylinder: it led

him to invent the oset method o printing. The idea o the mirror galvanometer5 rst

occurred to William Thompson when he happened to notice a refection o light rom his

monocle.

Charles Goodyear discovered the vulcanization6 o rubber in 1839 by similar

observation o a chance event. He had been experimenting or many years to ind a

process o treating crude or synthetic rubber chemically to give it such useul properties as

strength and stability, but without success. One day as he was mixing rubber with sulphur

he spilt some o the mixture on to the top o a hot stove. The heat vulcanized it at once.

Goodyear immediately saw the solution to the problem that had bafed him or years.

As Goodyear pointed out, however, chance was by no means the only actor in

his useul discovery. He said: I was or many years seeking to accomplish this object,

and allowing nothing to escape my notice that related to it. While I admit that these

discoveries o mine were not the result o scientic chemical investigation, I am not willing

to admit that they are the result o what is commonly called accident. I claim them to be

the result o the closest application and observation.

Goodyears words highlight the importance o having a wide ocus o attention and

keen powers o observation. His message is admirably summed up in Pasteurs amouswords: In the eld o observation, chance avors only the prepared mind.

(1 805 words)

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Notes

1. baboon:

2. pneumatic tyre:

3. saccharine:

4. lithograph:

5. galvanometer:

6. vulcanization: ,

Exercises

A. Determining the main idea.Choose the best answer.

The main purpose o the text is to show .

a. how easy creation is

b. why we should be creative

c. what practical creative thinkers should do

d. when chance avors the prepared mind

B. Comprehending the text.

Choose the best answer.1. When Ford said Every man starts with all there is, he meant that when we create, .

a. we create rom nothing

b. we make use o things available to us

c. materials we have are secondary

d. creation is actually in the mind

2. Using analogy means .

a. working or new ideas

b. putting onesel into the shoes o an inventor

c. reading others experiences

d. making use o models in the world around us

3. The examples o radar and aircrat cargo doors illustrate that .

a. sometimes there are examples in nature or the creators to learn

b. the principles o radar and aircrat cargo doors came to us easily

c. principles o creation exist in nature waiting or us to nd

d. everything that is invented comes rom nature

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c. constitutions

d. consistence

2. O course, the artist, writer or composer needs skill and technique to orm on canvas or paper

what is conceivedin the mind.a. received

b. believed

c. evaluated

d. conceptualized

3. You will have added value to thesynthesis, or a whole is more than the sum o its parts.

a. analytic thinking based on good reasoning

b. deductive thinking rom the general to the particular

c. inductive thinking rom the particular to the general

d. making a complex whole by combining ideas

4. Remember that what the natural model suggests is usually a principle that nature has evolvedoremployed to solve a particular problem or necessity in a given situation.

a. developed

b. resolved

c. envolved

d. volved

5. That principle can be extracted like venom rom a snake and applied to solve a human problem.

a. fuid

b. ejection

c. bite

d. poison

6. Sir Barnes Wallis, the British aeronautical engineer who helped to develop the Concorde

supersonic airliner and the swing-wing aircrat, ailed his London matriculation examination at

the age o 16.

a. judicial

b. mathematics

c. admission

d. expertise

7. Pilkingtons proprietary process eliminated this inal manuacturing stage by loating the glass,

ater it is cast rom a melting urnace, over a bath o molten tin about the size o a tennis court.

a. properly planned

b. with priorityc. ingeniously made

d. with the exclusive legal right

8. Goodyears words highlightthe importance o having a wide ocus o attention and keen powers

o observation.

a. reveal

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b. emphasize

c. play down

d. indicate

2 Reading Skills

Newspapers and Headlines

Do you have the habit o reading newspapers in English? What newspapers do you

like to read? The ollowing is a list o the major newspapers in Britain and the United

States.

The major newspapers in Britain

Dailies: Sundays:

The Times News of the World

The Guardian The Observer

Financial Times The Sunday People

The Daily Telegraph Sunday Mirror

Daily Express The Sunday Telegraph

Daily Mail The Sunday Times

Daily Mirror

The major daily newspapers in the United States

The New York Times USA TodayThe Washington Post The Chicago Tribune

The Los Angeles Times The Detroit News

The Wall Street Journal New York Daily News

The Christian Science Monitor

Newspapers, along with reporting the news, instruct, entertain, and give opinions.

A newspaper has separate sections: world news, national and local news, sports,

business, entertainment, opinions, comics, classied ads, etc.

You can be a better reader i you know what to expect in a newspaper. For example,

when you read a newspaper you usually look quickly at headlines irst. Newspaper

headlines have a language o their own and it is necessary to learn about it. Please readthe ollowing headlines:

Moscow ofcial wounded by gunmen

Earthquake rocks Turkey

Husband to sue wie

Boy on cli rescued

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Young Sudanese reugees endured amine, separations rom amily

From above we can see two prominent eatures o English newspaper headlines:

Headlines are almost always in the present tense and even uture events are putin the present tense

Headlines generally omit unnecessary words, especially articles and the verb to

be. And is oten replaced by a comma.

Newspaper headlines can be classied into several types:

Straight headlines give you the main topic o the story. They are the most

common type o headline and are the easiest to understand.

Snow has chilling eects on South

Clinton oers Bush advice

Headlines that ask a question, report a uture possibility or oer some doubt

about the truth or accuracy o the story. Can technology fx ballot woes?

Do market analysts have bad aim or bad intentions?

Headlines that contain a quotationwhich is important or which shows that a

statement is not proven.

Mother: Let my baby go

We wont quit

Double headlines are two-part headlines or the same story and are oten used

or major events.

How Express broke diplomatic silence

HUSH-UP ON SPY ENVOYS

Feature headlines are used or stories that are either highly unusual or

amusing. Headlines or such stories try to be as clever as possible to catch the

readers interest.

Teletubbies maker seeks unds or expansion

Dead student ell under the crush during clashes

Practice

Add the missing words to the following headlines.1. Council leader raps school decision

2. Bush, leaders meet in D.C.

3. Fed policy may start to ocus on risk o slowing economy

4. Last call on the horizon

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5. Regulators approve $72B drug merger

6. Bad weather knocks retailer or loop

7. United admits mistakes with passenger

8. Women elected to corporate boards9. Gillette to cut 2 700 jobs, close 8 actories

10. Infuenza season gets o to slow start

3 Testing Your Reading Comprehension and Speed

Directions: Read the following passages and do the multiple-choice exercises. Record

the time you have used and the number of correct answers you have got.

Fast Reading

1 The root word o creativity is create. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi notes that the termcreativity originally meant to bring into existence something genuinely new that is valued

enough to be added to the culture. Amit Goswarmi oers his deinition o creativity as the

creation o something new in an entirely new context; newness o the context is the key. Carl

Rogers adds another layer to this view by dening the creative process as the emergence in action

o a novel relational product, growing out o the uniqueness o the individual on the one hand,

and the materials, events, people, or circumstances o his lie on the other.

This challenge o deining creativity has led academic researchers to distinguish Big

C creativity rom little c creativity. The criteria or Creativity generally includes a mix o

originality, utility, a nal product, and recognition by the community. Creativity (with a capital

C) is reserved or those rare souls who societyespecially colleagueshave labeled creative

geniuses, such as Nobel prize winners, groundbreaking pioneers and inventors, master poets,

artists, and composers. Creative geniuses also have an audience that admires their geniusthink

William Shakespeare, Robert Frost, Albert Einstein, Sir Isaac Newton, William Blake, and

Vincent Van Gogh.

Creativity (with a little c), then, is used to denote everyday creative acts outside the worlds

limelight, like nding a new way to explain something, brainstorming a new business strategy, orcreating a new recipe or lasagna ().

While this somewhat arbitrary delineation might be helpul or studying creativity in an

academic setting, it inhibits our ability to understand the essence o the creative impulse. The

essence o creativity is present in any creative actregardless o how big or small it may seem

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rom societys viewpoint. Maslow challenged the limiting notion o Big C creativity, saying,

When a little boy discovers the decimal system or himsel, this can be a high moment o

inspiration, and a high creative moment, and should not be waived aside because o some a priori

denition which says creativeness ought to be socially useul or it ought to be novel, or nobodyshould have thought o it beore, etc. Our current culture doesnt celebrate

our individual discoveries suiciently. As children, many o us rarely had

our inner discoveries recognized and celebrated by adults, which can lead us

to grow up with low sel-esteem and sel-worth.

(393 words)

1. According to Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, the term creativity originally reerred to the making o

something .

a. genuinely useul to the society

b. highly valued by the societyc. both useul and valuable

d. truly new and valuable to the culture

2. When Carl Rogers denes creativity, he emphasizes .

a. newness o the context

b. both the creator and the society

c. the material world the creator lives in

d. the uniqueness o the individual

3. Creativity (with a little c) is used to denote creative acts which are .

a. highly praised by the society

b. very original

c. infuential on a large scale

d. small and could be seen everyday

4. The example o a little boy discovering the decimal system is used by Maslow to show that

.

a. creativity should be highly creative

b. creativity should be socially useul

c. creativity should be novel

d. our impulse or creativity is oten unrecognized

5. The distinction between Creativity and creativity, according to the author o the above passage,

is .

a. misleadingb. useul

c. reasonable

d. scientic

Time

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2 Festo has added to its robotic menagerie () with the creation o a robotic seagullthat weighs just 450 g (15.87 oz) and boasts a wingspan o 1.96 m (6.4 t). Dubbed the SmartBird,

the ultralight lying robot was inspired by the herring gull and can take o, ly and landautonomously, without the help o any additional drive systems.

In creating the SmartBird, Festo says it has succeeded in deciphering the light o birds.

The robots wings not only beat up and down, with a lever mechanism increasing the degree o

defection () to increase rom the torso to the wing tip, but also twist at specic angles along

their length in the same way that a real birds do so that the leading edge is directed upwards

during the upward stroke.

Directional control is achieved through the opposing movement o the robots head and

torso sections, which is synchronized by means o two electric motors and cables. This enables

it to bend aerodynamically, with simultaneous weight displacement, and is responsible or the

SmartBirds agility and maneuverability.As with a real bird, the SmartBirds tail isnt just or show either. It produces lit and

unctions as both a pitch elevator and yaw rudder (). In addition to stabilizing the robot

in a similar way to an aircrats conventional vertical stabilizer, the tail also tilts to initiate let and

right turns and rotates about the longitudinal axis to produce yaw.

Packed inside the SmartBirds torso are the battery, engine and transmission, the crank

transmission and control and regulation electronics. Wing position and torsion can be monitored

via two-way ZigBee protocol radio communication and can be adjusted and optimized in real

time during fight.

Festo says developing the SmartBird has provided insights that will help it in a variety

o areas. The robots minimal use o materials and lightweight construction will help increase

eciencies in resource and energy consumption, while the unctional integration o its coupled

drive units have provided ideas the company says it can transer to the

development o hybrid drive technology. Additionally, analysis o its fow

characteristics during development has provided insights into ways to

optimize uture designs. Another plus is that it wont try and steal your

chips at the beach.

(371 words)

6. The SmartBird, which can take o, fy and land autonomously, .

a. does not need additional drive systems

b. beats its wings up and down without increasing defection degreec. uses its wings not exactly as a bird does

d. extends its wings at ull length while fying upwards

7. Agility at the close o the third paragraph means .

a. gawkiness b. nimbleness

c. heaviness d. eciency

Time

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8. The unction o the SmartBirds tail includes all the ollowing EXCEPT .

a. giving signals b. liting

c. stabilizing d. tilting and rotating

9. Within the body o the SmartBird we nd all the ollowing EXCEPT .a. the yaw rudder b. the battery

c. the engine d. the transmission set

10. Which o the ollowing is NOT true?

a. The robot does not waste materials.

b. The robot is energy-ecient.

c. The robot can contribute to hybrid drive technology.

d. The robot sometimes steals chips at the beach.

3 In exact parallel with a preerence or the rewards o using ones skills, creative personalitiesappear to have a greater than usual propensity to seek out novelty. By this I do not simply mean

the twentieth-century preerence or an avant-garde position; novelty does not necessarily imply

an eort to supersede traditional orms. Picasso was one o the artistic giants o our world not

only because he was the originator or co-inventor o an unusual number o ormal innovations

(such as the cubist style, collage, or welded metal sculpture) but also because he was able to work

within established traditions (or example, that o neoclassical dratsmanship) to achieve novel

expressive possibilities.

Within every discipline there is never-ceasing tension between the pull o traditions and

the need or renewal through innovation. Although traditionalism is quite consonant with

creativity, without concurrent change every tradition eventually becomes exhausted, lapsing into

some orm o tired academicism. This sequence is just as applicable in the sciences as it is in

the arts and humanities: no eld better illustrates the point than does psychoanalysis. The most

creative o psychoanalysts, Sigmund Freud, was a tireless innovator; in his old age he conessed

with malicious pleasure that he thought his disciples needed to be shaken in their complacent

acceptance o the conventional wisdom! Yet the vast majority o analysts react to proposed

innovations with pronounced skepticism, not to say aversion. I believe that this conservative bent

extends to their own scientic position almost as much as to those o colleagues: most analysts

(most people!) react to new ideas as the start o a slippery slope into the unknowneven into

perdition ().

There can be no question that one o the most important eatures o a congenialenvironment is a rate o change slow enough to permit comortable accommodation, but o

suicient degree to avoid boredom. For most people it is diicult enough to adjust to the

changes wrought by others; hence they do not spontaneously seek novelty on their own. Creative

activity o any sort thereore poses an unwelcome challenge or all but a minority o personsit

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is comparable to the experience o visiting a oreign country or the rst time. Most o us adapt

to the overwhelming strangeness o such an adventure by seeking out experiences that are as

amiliar as possible: Japanese tourists abroad preer Japanese restaurants, Americans gravitate to

MacDonalds! Creative work is comparable to orging constantly ahead, into terra incognita.Those persons who are ever eager or such a challenge are probably the products o

relatively unusual ormative experiences or special constitutional endowments, or both. We know

very little about the transactions in early childhood that may tip the balance in either direction,

but it is clear that by the third or ourth year o lie some children are more

adventuresome than most in exploring the unknownothers are more

reluctant to expose themselves to anything unamiliar.

(480 words)

11. The example o Picasso is used to indicate that .

a. creative people tend to seek new ormsb. creative people preer an avant-garde position

c. creative people also work within traditions or new possibilities

d. novelty means breaking away with traditional orms

12. Which o the ollowing is NOT true?

a. In every discipline there are conficts between tradition and innovation.

b. Traditionalism is opposed to creativity.

c. Tradition also needs change.

d. Tradition exhausted is no better than tired academicism.

13. Which o the ollowing is true?

a. Sigmund Freud was sad to nd that his students were not wise.

b. Sigmund Freud thought that conventional wisdom was questionable.

c. Sigmund was malicious and ound pleasure in his students complacency.

d. Most analysts were clearly skeptical about, though not quite averse to, Freuds innovations.

14. According to the author, a congenial environment .

a. enables people to adapt to change quickly and comortably

b. is a place that encourages change

c. is oten boring because o slow change

d. is easy and comortable or most people

15. The examples o Japanese and American tourists abroad are

used to show .

a. that as tourists people like adventureb. that people preer their own cultures

c. that most people have diculties adjusting to new things

d. that creative people need to orge ahead

Time

Total Time

Score

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4 Home Reading

Mapping Creativityby J. DeGraf and K. A. Lawrence

It has become a truism that organizations today are acing a wider array o competitive

pressures than ever beore. What allows a company to respond proactively7 to diverse pressures

is the development o creativity as a core competence. We dene creativity here as a purposeul

activity (or set o activities) that produces valuable products, services, processes, or ideas that

are better or new. And dierent orms o creativity are appropriate or dierent purposes. To be

specic, our research identies our main types o creativity, which we have conceptualized as

creativity proles.The Imagine Profle

The Imagine prole is one o radical breaks with the past and breakthrough ideas that can

change the marketplace. Individuals with the Imagine proile tend to be generalists or artistic

types who enjoy exploring and easily change direction when solving a problem. The culture

that supports their work is characterized by experimentation and speculation; the ocus is on

generating ideas.

Imagine companies seek to create something new that has been thought impossible. Typical

purposes are innovation or growth. They strive to orient their products, services, and ideas to

the uture. Leaders build the organization by developing a compelling vision and emphasizing

new ideas and technologies, fexibility, and adaptability. The Imagine prole taken to an extreme

becomes chaotic.

Disneys Grand Experiment. Walt Disney saw the uture

rst. The man who drew Mickey Mouse also created the rst

ull-length animated ilm, the theme park, and the modern

multimedia company. His name has become synonymous

with leading-edge ventures, rom Snow White and the Seven

Dwars to the Epcot Center. Disney created such optimistic,

intimate experiences inside a uturistic utopia that children

and adults eagerly await each Disney product.

Disneys git was his ability to recognize a good opportunity on the horizon. Condent in

his vision, he took on enormous risk to undertake his ventures. In contrast to his public persona,Disney was a complex and controlling leader whose vision carried him rom childhood poverty

to commercial artist to entrepreneur to media mogul. Disney was one o the irst to try new

entertainment technologies: quality sound, Technicolor, advanced animation techniques, and

robotics. The result has been an organization that could embrace a trend beore it happened,

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growing rom lm to television to amusement parks. Perhaps his greatest triumph was his last.

Disney World and the Epcot Center were considered modern miracles o imagineering and

urban planning when they were built. In the process, he turned the mosquito-inested swamps

o central Florida into one o the top tourist destinations in the world. Today, his characters andemblems are some o the most readily recognized brands.

The Invest Profle

The Invest prole encompasses the kinds o people and practices that many people associate

with Wall Street. This is a proile that shows the intensity o competition and achievement

everyone is either a winner or a loser.

Individuals with the Invest proile are ocused on perormance and goals. Their culture

emphasizes these results and the discipline necessary to create them. This group typically

includes members o the nance department and marketing. People with the Invest prole are

competitive and love a good challenge, which motivates them toward a speedy and proitable

outcome.Invest companies seek to create quickly beore competitors can. Typical purposes ocus on

prots through market share, revenues, and brand equity, or through speed o response. Leaders

build the organization by clariying objectives and improving the irms competitive position

through hard work and productivity. These companies seek to deliver results to stakeholders as

quickly as possible. Beating the competition is not only a matter o strategy but also a matter o

pride. The Invest prole taken to an extreme becomes a sweatshop.

Watsons Challenge. In the early years o computing, Thomas Watson Jr.s IBM ruled the

technology universe through aggressive strategy and relentless marketing. Leading through

ambition and challenge, Watson was a master o competition. At Watsons IBM, i you werent

rst, you werent much. He promoted winners and expected them to perorm by meeting each

new backbreaking deadline. His amous corporate mantra Think was more than just something

to aspire to; it was an admonition to anyone who did not develop the world-class competencies to

leap over all obstacles.

Watsons ather had ounded IBM. Thomas Jr. was anything but ambitious in his youth,

moving rom school to school beore graduating rom Brown University. Ater a brie stint as a

sales manager at IBM, he enlisted in the armed services, serving as a pilot. There he developed

his celebrated courage while lying missions throughout the Paciic. He returned to IBM a

motivated leader who would never again retreat.

IBM did not invent the computer; others started that revolution. But under Watson, IBM

set the pace or technological advancement and learned to keep an enormous enterprise changing

constantly. Watson spent three times IBMs annual revenues to create a new line o computers;eectively changing the industry. He brought projects in on time, and even ousted his younger

brother Dick as head o engineering and manuacturing when a key project was o schedule.

Competence and motivation led to perormance at Watsons IBM in the 1950s and 1960s,

and perormance typically led to success and promotion. By the time Watson stepped down

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at IBM, it had destroyed its core business in avor o a new one, and set the quick pace or all

technology companies that would ollow in its ootsteps.

The Improve Profle

The Improve proile represents incremental creativitytaking something that exists andmodiying it to make it better. This is the proile o large, complex organizations that create

products and services that must not ail.

People in the Improve prole are systematic, careul, and practical. Their culture ocuses on

planning, creating systems and processes, and enorcing compliance. Improve people are typically

ound in engineering departments or in operational groups that must maintain complex systems

and reduce errors. They seek to keep things running and ecient.

Improve companies seek to create something better so as to build on the present. Typical

purposes are quality or optimization, sometimes expressed as predictability or productivity.

Leaders build the organization by optimizing processes, cutting costs, and establishing rules

and procedures. Role denition is important here. These companies tend to elaborate or extendexisting products with minor variations. The Improve prole taken to an extreme becomes an

immobile bureaucracy.

Krocs Hamburger System. No matter where you may be in the world, two things are

certain: one, there is a McDonalds hamburger restaurant around the corner; and two, the

burgers taste exactly the same as they do every other place youve eaten one. Ray Kroc, who grew

the McDonalds restaurant chain, helped transorm American dining rom a personalized sit-

down experience into standardized ast ood or a generation on the go. Instead o having ches

prepare ood as an art, Kroc turned cooking on its head and made ood service an engineering

science. A ormer piano player, ambulance driver, and paper-cup salesman, Kroc obtained

exclusive marketing rights or a high-speed multimixer machine and sold it across America or

seventeen years. In 1954 in San Bernardino, Caliornia, he sold eight mixers to a restaurant

owned by two brothers, Dick and Mac McDonald. The

restaurant, McDonalds, had a limited menu, ocusing on a ew

items: burgers, French ries, sot drinks, and milk shakes. Kroc

saw a system that could easily be replicated. Ater buying out

the McDonald brothers in 1961 or $2.7 million, Kroc set to

the task o rening the system. Kroc laid out the goo-proo8

McDonalds Way, including restaurant design, marketing,

procurement9, and training at Hamburger University, a

requirement or all ranchisees10 beore running a restaurant. One size ts all.

The rst McDonalds had no tables or silverware. There were drive-up stands where youcould get a decent meal or less than a dollar. Dine-in and drive-through options were added

later, but quality and service remained the cornerstones o Krocs company. Krocs process o

getting it done right made McDonalds the largest ood service company in the world.

Kroc didnt invent ast oodWhite Castle, Howard Johnsons, and other chains had

been around long beore McDonalds. Kroc had an ability to understand the complexities o

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the system, both in terms o ood preparation and restaurant development. He could improve

processes at every turn so that a person could learn the science o making ood quickly, with ew

errors. The result o his process improvement and systems is a consistent product and experience.

Like Henry Ford, who used the assembly line to transorm automobile manuacturing, Krocachieved peak perormance through his understanding o process.

The Incubate11 Profle

The Incubate prole encompasses the kinds o people who believe in something greater than

the business itsel and run their business to refect those values. This is the prole associated with

having a great place to work and learn.

People in the Incubate prole are committed to their community, ocusing on shared values

and communication. Their culture strives to learn over time, and once these competencies

are established, the amount o time required to understand a situation and act appropriately is

shortened. They are likely to eel that creativity should be timeless. This group is oten in human

resources, training, or organizational development unctions.Incubate companies seek to create something sound that is appreciated by the community.

Typical purposes are community and knowledge, achieved by drawing on communication,

cooperation, and learning-oriented partnerships. Leaders build the organization by encouraging

trust, commitment, and relationships, and by nurturing a community o empowered individuals.

Their unied behavior produces a strong organizational image in the marketplace. Customers

may be considered partners in an extended community. The Incubate prole taken to an extreme

becomes a pleasure cruise that goes nowhere.

Bill W.s Community. Bill Wilson may have saved more lives around the world than the

leader o any state or enterprise in the twentieth century. Known as Bill W. to members

o Alcoholics Anonymous, the organization he co-ounded with Dr. Robert Smith, Bill

Wilson proved to be a healer on an incredible social and cultural scale. What made Wilson so

extraordinary is not that he learned how to stop his own raging alcoholism but that he ormed

an organization with the sole purpose o teaching others how to overcome their addictions and

supporting them in their eorts. In the process, he overcame his own drinking problem. Today,

twelve-step programs are applied to all kinds o xations including gambling, eating disorders,

drug abuse, and sex addictions.

Wilson had come rom a amily with a history o alcoholism. When he was a boy, his ather

and mother abandoned him and let him with his grandparents. First

as a soldier, then as a businessman, Wilson drank to ease his depression

and to celebrate his success. This dependence on alcohol soon made him

unemployable, and he turned to panhandling and living o relatives.One day in 1934, while staying at a hospital in Manhattan, Wilson

had a spiritual awakening that led to the development o the twelve-

step remedy or alcoholism. Ater years o intoxication, Wilson had

been dry or ve months when he went to Akron, Ohio, on business.

UN

ITY

SERV

IC

E

RECOVER

Y

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Unit 1

The deal he was pursuing ell through, and he wanted to have a drink. In his panic, Wilson had

a revelation that he could save himsel only by helping another alcoholic, because that person

would understand his suering. He tracked down Dr. Robert Smith, both a physician and an

alcoholic, and together they endured without a drink. Soon Wilson and Smith were meeting withother alcoholics in Akron, and they began to codiy and share the principles that lead to sobriety.

Ater years o revision, a book called Alcoholics Anonymouswas successully published, and the

organization rom which it took its name received limited support rom John D. Rockeeller

and national attention rom magazine articles in the popular press. To the end, Wilson took no

money or his coaching or good counsel.

Today Alcoholics Anonymous has more than two million members in 150 countr ies.

Members share stories about the most intimate details o their lives. Wilson, too, preerred to

remain anonymous and always reerred to himsel as a student, never a teacher. Wilson showed

his vulnerabilities and shared his pain with others so that they could also bring their demons

out o the shadows. Bill Wilsons leadership style was to welcome involvement and openness,encouraging a culture that invested in education through common experience, leading to

increased knowledge and healing.

As these our stories illustrate, not all creativity is the breakthrough type associated with

the Imagine prole. Other kinds o creativity are equally valid and equally important, depending

on the circumstances. Walt Disney may have refected the Imagine prole, but his companys

success results in part rom the act that this was the type o creativity that suited his business

challenge. By the same token, Ray Kroc didnt need breakthrough creativity so much as he

needed the kind o creativity that takes an existing idea, improves on it, and results in a superbly

ecient and dependable system. Indeed, Kroc might have ailed in the ast-ood business had he

brought to it a Disney style o creativity.

Being able to identiy and value dierent kinds o creativity is a irst step toward better

creativity management. Once you recognize the basic orms o creativity, you can begin to think

much more clearly about how to make appropriate creativity happen in your rm or your work

group. At any given time, you can diagnose the type o creativity you need, the right people or

the job, and the specic practices to try.

(2 282 words)

Notes

7. proactively: acting in anticipation o uture problems, needs, or changes

8. goo-proo: protected against mistakes9. procurement: buying

10. ranchisee: ,

11. incubate: ,

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Follow-up Exercises

A. Comprehending the text.Choose the best answer.

1. The Imagine prole tends to be all o the ollowing EXCEPT .

a. experimentative

b. speculative

c. explorative

d. traditional

2. Which o the ollowing best ts Walt Disney?

a. Ability to see new visions.

b. Love o things or children.

c. Better city planning.

d. Spirit o entertaining.3. Investment companies love competition and challenge and the danger or the extreme Invest

prole is to become .

a. a battleeld

b. a ailure

c. a sweatshop

d. an example o strategy

4. Which o the ollowing is true?

a. Watsons ather ounded IBM, which invented the computer.

b. Thomas Watson, Jr. was ambitious in his youth beore graduating rom Brown University.

c. Returning to IBM, Watson paid great attention to the amount o computers produced.

d. Competence, motivation and rst-rate perormance were highly stressed at Watsons IBM.

5. People in the Improve prole are rst o all .

a. highly artistic

b. very experimental

c. imaginative

d. scientic

6. Krocs Hamburger System is marked by all the ollowing EXCEPT .

a. variety o ood

b. exact duplication

c. standardization

d. understanding o process7. The Incubate prole stresses all the ollowing EXCEPT .

a. commercial products o the business

b. the spirit the business embodies

c. community o empowered individuals

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d. shared values and communication

8. What made Bill Wilson so extraordinary is that .

a. he learned how to stop his own raging alcoholism

b. he proved to be a healer on an incredible social and cultural scalec. he succeeded in orming an organization with the sole purpose o teaching others how to

overcome their addictions

d. he established himsel as a convincing teacher

B. Discussing the following topics.

1 What are the characteristics or each o the our types o creativity? Please give more

examples to illustrate.

2 What can you learn rom the people representing the our creativity proles?

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Documents

Art of Being Creative