Why Do We Need To Have a Creative Process

Why Do We Need a Creative Process?

There is a misconception that creativity is very much associated with people in artistic arena such as performing artistes, painters or writers. However, in today’s highly competitive professional environment, the need for creativity in the business world has become increasingly important for organisations.  

Creativity plays a big role for organisations - whether to distinguish themselves from competitors, solve problems internally or that of their clients’, or even elevate themselves to match international standards.  From the employees’ perspective, the ability to generate new ideas to meet organisational objectives is crucial.  

“We are in a creativity workshop.  And creativity is supposed to be chaotic.  Why we then need a creative process?” asked one of my participants, during a creative problem solving workshop I conducted in 2008.

Everyone has a creative mind; but as humans, we do get stuck for ideas once in awhile.  More so, attracting creativity into our daily work activities may not be something easy to do.   That is why, everybody in the organisation needs to have a creative process, no matter what role or function we play in the organisation. The creative process would facilitate us to get unstuck and move forward.

If you read books on creative problem solving, there are many types of creative process that are being offered that you can use.  Some use a three-step process, whereas others have 7 steps.  In the design thinking module I’m currently lecturing on at polytechnic, we use a 5-phase model - Empathise, Define, Ideate, Prototype, Test.

As a rule of thumb, a creative process has two stages:  Divergent stage; followed by the Convergent stage.

Divergent Stage is where you generate ideas.  There are various brainstorming techniques and tools you can use.

Once the ideas are listed down, the next stage is the Convergent Stage.  This is where we select suitable ideas.  Ideas are selected based on set criteria.

What if these two stages are reversed?  You will be stuck.  

We often heard company meetings that take up so much time, so much so that employees started to feel tired and bored.  This is usually the case when the leaders who call for these meetings are not sure which stage of the creative process they are at.  This is something we need to avoid.

In conclusion, as humans, we have this ability to be able to think creatively.  As humans too, we do have the tendency to get stuck for ideas, and that is when a creative process will come in handy.  For it to work effectively, there is a need to understand which stage of the process you are at.

Hope this helps.

If you need more assistance on personal and workplace creativity, do keep yourself available on Saturday 29 June 2019.   On that day, together with 17 other international speakers, I will be taking the stage at the World Success Summit 2019, and will be speaking on the topic “How to Unlock Your Creative Process”.  For details and tickets, visit: worldsuccesssummit.com.



Keep moving forward,

Hazriq Idrus
Workplace Creativity & People Engagement Strategist
Author of 8 books, including "The Stage Fright Antidote"

Hazriq Idrus is a professional speaker on Workplace Creativity & People Engagement.  Using techniques from the theatre he learnt as a stage actor, Hazriq delivers keynote talks and training programmes that are interactive and experiential in nature. He founded The Speaking Factory Pte Ltd with a mission to help people & teams unlock their creative potentials so that they can connect, communicate and co-create with impact. Hazriq is also currently an adjunct lecturer at Ngee Ann Polytechnic delivering the module on Creativity & Innovation.  
Hazriq is contactable at [email protected].