Refresh Teaching

Non-disciplinary competences, 1.12.2015, 12.15 – 13.15

Part B: Skills for Creativity and Innovation

As a second example of ways to teach non-disciplinary competences, Carmen Kobe introduced D-MAVT’s elective course “Skills for Creativity and Innovation”. In this course, taught by Ina Goller and Carmen Kobe, students have an opportunity to try out and develop skills which contribute to creativity and innovation in team settings. The skills portfolio the course covers (see Figure 1) includes personal skills such as openness, willpower/self-regulation, and self-awareness building; methodological skills, i.e. methods for problem analysis, problem-solving, divergent thinking and decision-making; and social skills, i.e. communication, cooperation and team cohesion.

Figure 1: List of skills covered in the course “Skills for Creativity and Innovation”

To enable students to analyse and evaluate why what type of behaviour contributes to creativity and innovation, the skills discussed are linked to important theories on the prerequisites for creativity (Amabile), creative thinking processes (CPS), the team climate for innovation (Anderson & West), and team development phases (Tuckman) (see blue section of Figure 2).

Figure 2: Content of the course “Skills for Creativity and Innovation”

ETH students enter new teams after finishing their studies, and they must be able to transfer and multiply their creative skills sets to new scenarios and their new teams. To prepare them for the role of multiplier the course also gives opportunity to practice “facilitation skills”, i.e. skills in preparing and facilitating workshops, and in team intervention (see Figures 1 and 2).

To show how skills can be practised in groups Carmen Kobe invited her audience to take part in a creative exercise which deployed the Walt Disney method (for a description of this method see (e.g.) http://becreate.ch/en/methods/disney-method.aspx ).

Creativity methods are designed to trigger behaviour which fosters creativity and innovation. However, they do not in themselves enforce such behaviour or make people self-aware. To further behaviour awareness, some participants were invited to act as observers and provide feedback (see Figure 3 and 4).

Figure 3: Observation Tasks

Figure 4: Instruction for Observation

The topic we addressed with the Walt Disney method was “fostering non-disciplinary competences at ETH”. Although it was only an exercise, the results were valuable – worth taking a look at, and perhaps implementing.

Figure 5: Step I “Dreamer”

Figure 6: Step II “Critique”

Figure 7: Step III “Realist”

Table 1: Resulting suggestions on how to foster non-disciplinary competences at ETH

Recommended literature

Practising skills for creativity and innovation

Goller, I. 2011. Creativity in an organizational context: Innovation capability in R&D departments (doctoral thesis). ETH Zurich.

Amabile: Individual prerequisites for creativity

Amabile, T. M. 1983. The social psychology of creativity, New York, NY, Springer Verlag.

Amabile, T. M. 1988. A model of creativity and innovation in organizations. In: Staw, B. M. & Cummings, L. L. (eds.) Research in organizational behavior. Greenwich, CT: JAI Press.

Amabile, T. M. 1996. Creativity in context, Boulder, CO, Westview Press.

Amabile, T. M. 1997. Motivating creativity in organizations: on doing what you love and loving what you do. California Management Review, 40, 39-58.

Amabile, T. M. 1998. How to kill creativity. Harvard business review, 76, 76-87.

Amabile, T. M., Hill, K. G., Hennessey, B. A. & Tighe, E. M. 1994. The work preference inventory - assessing intrinsic and extrinsic motivational orientations. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 66, 950-967.

Anderson & West: The team climate for innovation

Anderson, N. R. & West, M. A. 1994. The Team Climate Inventory (TCI) and group innovation: A psychometric test on a Swedish sample of work groups, Windsor, UK, ASE/NFER-Nelson Press.

Anderson, N. R. & West, M. A. 1998. Measuring climate for work group innovation: development and validation of the team climate inventory. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 19, 235-258.

Burningham, C. & West, M. A. 1995. Individual, climate, and group interaction processes as predictors of work team innovation. Small Group Research, 26, 106-117.

West, M. A. 1990. The social psychology of innovation in groups. In: West, M. A. & Farr, J. L. (eds.) Innovation and creativity at work: Psychological and organizational strategies. Chichester, UK: Wiley.

West, M. A. 1997. Developing creativity in organizations, Leicester, UK, The British Psychological Society.

West, M. A. & Anderson, N. R. 1992. Innovation, cultural values, and the management of change in British hospitals. Work and Stress, 293-310.

West, M. A. & Anderson, N. R. 1996. Innovation in top management teams. Journal of Applied Psychology, 81, 680-693.

The creative problem-solving process

Diehl, M. & Stroebe, W. 1987. Productivity Loss in Brainstorming Groups: Toward the Solution of a Riddle. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 53, 497-509.

Funke, J. & Anderson, J. R. 2007. Kognitive Psychologie Heidelberg, Springer.

Gardner, H. 1988. Creativity: An interdisciplinary perspective. Creativity Research Journal, 1, 8-26.

Gardner, H. 1993. Creating minds: An anatomy of creativity seen through the lives of Freud, Einstein, Picasso, Stravinsky, Eliot, Graham, and Gandhi, New York, NY, Basic Books.

Gardner, H. 1999. Intelligence reframed: multiple intelligences, New York, Basic Books.

Guilford, J. P. 1950. Creativity. American Psychologist, 5, 444-454.

Guilford, J. P. 1956. The structure of intellect. Psychological Bulletin, 53, 267-293.

Guilford, J. P. 1967. The nature of human intelligence, New York, McGraw-Hill.

Isaksen, S. G. 2011. Creative approaches to problem solving : a framework for innovation and change, Los Angeles : SAGE.

Isaksen, S. G. & Treffinger, D. J. 1985. Creative Problem Solving: The basic course, Buffalo, NY, Bearly Limited.

Isaksen, S. G. & Treffinger, D. J. 2004. Celebrating 50 years of Reflective Practice: Versions of Creative Problem Solving. Journal of Creative Behavior, 38, 75-101.

Mednick, S. A. 1962. The associative basis of the creative process. Psychological Review, 69, 220-232.

Nijstad, B. A., Stroebe, W. & Lodewijkx, H. F. M. 2003. Production blocking and idea generation: Does blocking interfere with cognitive processes? Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 39, 531–548.

Osborn, A. 1953. Applied Imagination, New York, Charles Scribner's Sons.

Osborn, A. F. 1952. Wake up your mind, New York, NY, C. Scribner’s sons.

Sternberg, R. J. & Grigorenko, E. L. 2000. Guilford's structure of intellect model and model of creativity: contributions and limitations. Creativity Research Journal, 13, 309-316.

Sternberg, R. J. & O'Hara, L. A. 1999. Creativity and Intelligence. In: Sternberg, R. J. (ed.) Handbook of Creativity. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.

Stroebe, W. & Nijstad, B. A. 2004. Warum Brainstorming in Gruppen Kreativität vermindert: Eine kognitive Theorie der Leistungsverluste beim Brainstorming. Psychologische Rundschau, 54, 2-10.

Tassoul, M. 2005. Creative Facilitation: A Delft Approach, Centraal Boekhuis.

Treffinger, D. J., Isaksen, S. G. & Stead-Dorval, K. B. 2006. Creative Problem Solving: An Introduction, Waco, Texas, Prufrock Press Inc.

Tuckman: Team development

Tuckman, B. W. 1965. Developmental Sequence in Small Groups. Psychological Bulletin, 63, 384-399.