Creativities: the what, how, who, where and why of the creative process

Abstract

The title to Creativities,with its nod to the five of the servingmen of Rudyard Kipling, serves its purpose well. It captures what is provided in the book, which is essentially a template for stimulating creativity. Or, more precisely, for stimulating the plurality of creativities found across its various contexts in use. Importantly within this book, there isn’t really a plan of how to do creativity, it is more about using the tools within to develop your own version of creativity. Some of these principles for creativity, relate closely to some of the approach promoted by Reg Revans, founder of the Action Learning Approach, where he describes the importance of insightful questioning, to deepen understanding of the work-based challenge/issue. The system also reminded me of other techniques designed to support group interactions and problem solving. For example, I worked with the in-house approach known as ‘Critical Examination’ developed at Imperial Chemical Industries (ICI), which for much of its existence was the largest manufacturer in Britain. In the 1970s, the company introduced an approach known as Critical Examination, described in Carson and Rickards (1979):