Creative approach to creativity training
Can adults learn how to be creative? Yes, claim researchers, especially since children reportedly lose their creativity after four or five years of schooling when educational instruction focuses more on logic, semantics and memory training.
Until recently, creativity training employed a 1950s technique known as divergent thinking—a “computational approach” that treats the brain as a logic machine. Expected results have fallen short because the methodology relies on past data and information about problems and successes.
Project Narrative, recently developed at Ohio State University, derived its approach from observations of how children and artists imagine new worlds and easily shift perspectives depending upon the situation. In a business setting, employees might be asked to think about their most unusual customer, imagine if all their customers were like that and explore how that would impact their business. They would also be asked to respond from the perspective of another team member to expand their possibility thinking.
The narrative approach to creativity helps adults unlock their ingenuity that may have been previously sidetracked. With this new method, companies can employ a more diverse group of people, and train them to be creative, rather than specifically hiring creative people who can be similar in nature. It’s a very creative approach to creating a corporate culture full of creativity.