Step 1: Self-Assessment – What’s your creative strength?

We’ll begin this online program by raising your awareness about how you approach creativity whether it be in problem solving, creative thinking or more every day approaches. Once you know where you’re at you can then focus on building your creative advantage.

As you’ll learn we’re all creative , so how do you express your creativity?

Undertake Activity 1 - the Creativity Self Assessment.

This activity aims to raise your awareness about the multifaceted elements of creativity. All the topics in the assessment will be covered in more detail throughout the online program.

After listening to the videos undertake the second activity to help relate this information covered to your own ways of expressing creativity.

Learn the how, what, why and when of creativity. How we define creativity, when humans evolved to be creative, why we need to be creative and what’s going on in the creative brain.

Learn about the whole brain at work and how the brain can be rewired to become more creative. Then dissect problem solving to explore deliberate and spontaneous creative modes in action.

"Creativity is the innate quest for originality driven by an enduring human passion for novelty, the discovery of the new, solving of old challenges and the evoking of a new thrill."

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We are not only born to be creative, we find greater fulfilment when we are creative.

The sentiment behind this statement provides insight into our need to express our individualism through creativity.

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“The ability to change anything was the change that changed everything”

Our ability to think creativity isn’t just a nice thing to have, it evolved as a survival skill.

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Let’s explore the neuroscience that provides an explanation as to what happens in the brain to uncover the brain regions that are most active during problem solving and creativity.

In this section we’ll cover

- A simple way to explain the two different forms of creativity we experience. These are known as the analysis and insight creative modes;

- we dispel the right and left brain creativity myth and introduce how the whole brain is involved in creative thinking;

- the role that imagination plays in generating creative ideas through its brain links;

- how the brain communicates with itself and how this relates to learning something new;

- and the fascinating new area of neuroplasticity and how the brain rewires to stay adaptative to life’s experiences.

Let’s consider what happens when you are confronted with a problem.

Do you sit down and analytically work through it, or do you more often just wait for a sudden insight where a solution pops into your head out of mid-air? More often than not, you probably have experienced both. These are the so called ‘analysis verses insight’ creative modes.

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What’s actually going on in the brain, neuroscientists have begun to uncover the brain regions that are most active during problem solving and creativity.

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There’s a lot of interest in the brain’s ability to change or rewire referred to as neuroplasticity. Appreciating the brain’s ability to learn helps us understand the potential for greater creative processes in our lives.

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There’re numerous models that have been developed to explain the creative problem solving process. This lecture highlights two of these to help you to visualise the thought cycles we undergo during creative thinking, via both the analysis and insight modes. Both have a four step process that take us from problem to resolution phase. They both start with a question that has come to you either from an idea driven by curiosity or a challenge you’re grappling with.

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Then undertake 2 activities to reinforce your learning's.

Step 3: Explore the Creative Elements

Learn how to manage the four elements that influence every creative outcome. They’re mindset and motivation, domain expertise, creative skillsets and your social and work environment. Understanding the science behind each element provides you with a means to leverage these to your creative advantage.

The Creative Elements Model provides a unifying model that helps makes sense of the various elements involved in building our internal creative capacity as well as how we might influence the external environment to achieve better creative results. When working together these elements can influence how creative an individual can become. When organisations understand and apply this model, this can support their staff to be their best creative selves.

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The Creative Advantage program fosters a mindset that encourages an open mind, sees errors as opportunities to learn and recognises that creativity skills can be learnt and enhanced through practice.

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The next element of the Creative Elements Model is called our Domain Expertise. Any Big C creative has worked hard to get to where they are, specifically in gaining the education, technical skills and knowledge needed to be the successful in their domain. Let’s focus on the additional value to be gained through deliberate practice. It turns out the way practice has a large bearing on how we can learn and the sorts of abilities that can be developed.

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Let’s now explore how personality and our behavioural traits can influence our approach to creativity. In particular the specific skills you can develop to become more creative.

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The final element of this model is an external element and refers to the areas of influence in across your personal, social and work environments.

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In the early 20th century Einstein pretty much rewrote the way we thought about how the universe worked. Overtime he has become a symbol for creativity, intelligence and genius. Naturally researchers and historians have been curious about what made him tick.

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Step 4 : Creating the Conditions for Creativity

Learn where ideas and creativity intersect to unlock how to generate more and better ideas. Increase your brain’s creative capacity to harness spontaneous insights, the value of slow motion multitasking, the unexpected benefits of procrastination and boredom and the power of play. Then learn how to leverage visualisation to rewire your brain power.

In Becoming More Creative we’ll cover

· The most important way to have good ideas, is to have a lot of ideas,

· New ideas are built upon existing, reusing and borrowing ideas,

· Environments like cafes and conferences, are not only conducive to social interaction, but are an important method to create, diffuse, share and combine ideas in new ways,

· People who are good at having creative ideas are good at seeing connections, connecting ideas and people, and

· The single most important thing you can do to increase creativity in the workplace… is to have a diverse workforce.

In much of the discussion about creativity, there’s a consistent theme that emerges about how we can generate creative ideas by having many ideas and from placing ourselves in a diverse and connected environment.

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Certain environments enhance the brain’s natural capacity to make new associations and connect ideas. Creativity emerges when different people, from different disciples mix, even collide, in living, office or social environments.Its known as the ‘coffeehouse model’ of creativity.

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The term ‘contagion’ is used to describe the potential impact of our social connections. Seeking increased diversity in our networks, who we work with and our tribes can significantly support us to generate ideas.

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While we’re having lots of ideas , how do we capture these? Filtering, sorting and storing ideas is a matter of creating a system that works for you.

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Then undertake the activity. Making connections helps you see new options and create unusual solutions, often leading to original ideas. You can train your ability to see, make connections and improve your capacity to think creatively.

Let’s explore techniques to develop, capture and turn vague thoughts into creative ideas.

In this section we’ll cover

· How you can induce an aha creative insight,

· The value of having multiple projects on the go at the same time to cross fertilise and help to reframe problems ,

· Why it may not be a coincidence that some of the most original thinkers in history were procrastinators and how this could assist ideas subconsciously develop,

· What elite sportspeople, musicians and scientists all have in common, they all use visualisation to their advantage,

· From a neuroscience perspective, imagining an act and doing it are not as different as they sound.

Sometimes the brain needs time to incubate thoughts before they make sense. So how do we create the right conditions for this insight to be incubated? It's about noticing ‘breakout moments’ that can get you to the other side of a problem when you’re stuck.

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Both artists and scientists have confirmed they use something called slow motion multitasking. While slow-motion multitasking feels counterintuitive, the term describes having multiple projects on the go at the same time and moving between these projects as your mood or situation demands. In essence it’s about slowing thinking down and enabling the connections between ideas to emerge.

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It may not be a coincidence that some of the most original thinkers and inventors in history were procrastinators. Rather than seeing this as a negative behaviour, it might actually help you to be more creative.

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Neuroscience points to the use of mental imagery as a technique used by sports people and encouraged by their sports psychologists as part of their preparation. Referred to as visualisation, it’s proven to provide a competitive advantage and increase confidence as it provides a way to mentally rehearse before an event.

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Then undertake the activity and reflect on the many ways you can use this extraordinary advantage in your creative thinking.

We intuitively know that play is beneficial for children’s development, so what about in adults? In this lecture we’ll cover

· How animals evolved to incorporate play into our lives,

· The different ways you can express playfulness as an adult,

· And the growing research behind living a playful life can assist in the workplace, relationships , in our learning and to be more creative

Then undertake the activity to bring play back into your home, work and way of life.

With a culture obsessed with efficiency and productivity, how might we view our inner environment of daydreaming or boredom?

In this lecture we'll cover the latest research on both states of mind and its links to creativity.

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