by Aminat Abubakar – Sunday, July 30, 2017

I had a great opportunity learning about Innovative Intelligence and Creativity; has enriched and given me a better insight into my journey as a future-ready and future smart leader in management consultancy services. Dr. Sheba Husain, as well as Dr. Michael Petty, and Dr. Sheb Bishop encouraged us to succeed in this course through their extensive class instructions, discussions, and presentations.

Creativity is the lifeline for the existence of any business and its sustainability as such creative ideas must be novel, useful, and relevant. A business that encourages a creative environment thrives because leadership understands the importance of expertise and skills as an important asset that has a positive impact on business growth. Today’s leaders have become aware of the importance of creativity in problem-solving, productivity, services, and innovations to employee motivation as well as the overall success in business growth.

I have learned the different theories of creativity and its application to business. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi defines creativity as “any act, idea, or product that changes an existing domain, or that transform an existing domain into a new one” (1996, p. 28). I understood the three elements of creativity namely domain (the discipline), field (the experts/gatekeepers), and individual (creative person), and the application of the five steps to the creativity process which are preparation, incubation, insight, evaluation, and elaboration in the business decision.

The most interesting aspects of the class were when we had to design a workshop activity and develop a mobile app for our businesses.

Participating in the design and implementation of the workshop activities has given insight to one of the services that my consultancy firm would offer to clients. The workshop enabled me incorporate skills acquired from creativity tool process entailing the following modules: Ask, Learn, Look, Play, Think, Fuse, Choose, and Make from the book Zig Zag: The Surprising Path to Greater Creativity by Keith Sawyer (2013) which was designed to focus on techniques on how to discover, develop creativity and innovative thinking in problem-solving. I have learned to appreciate how people think.

I found at the beginning of the mobile app development stage a bit challenging but as I got along using one of the development tools suggested by Dr. Sheb Bishop it became quite interesting. I now appreciate the importance of business visibility in the competitive market, which creates brand awareness leading to business growth. The mobile app complements a business official website and acts as a direct channel to reach out real-time to current clients and potential clients on the go.

Just like the first and second term, the tradition continued with Dr. Michael Petty, and Dr. Sheb Bishop taking over and joining in class lectures thereby providing us with their different perspectives that were quite engaging and thought-provoking.
We continue to bond along and support each other as fellow cohorts as the doctoral program progresses.

My gratitude goes to Dr. Sheba Husain who started with us at the beginning of class, as well as Dr. Michael Petty, and Dr. Sheb Bishop who continued seamlessly with the class lectures and the interactive class discussions.

I enjoyed the class thoroughly and I look forward to the fourth term class as I journey into becoming a future ready and future smart leader.

References

Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1996). Creativity: The Psychology of Discovery and Invention (1st ed.). New York, NY: Harper Perennial Modern Classics.
Sawyer, K. (2013). Zig Zag: The Surprising Path to Greater Creativity. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.