Creative Intelligence: Discovering the Innovative Potential in Ourselves and Others

by Alan J. Rowe

Overview

Creative Intelligence: Discovering the Innovative Potential inOurselves and Others How to Foster Intuition, Innovation, Imagination, andInspirational Leadership in Your Organization Alan J. Rowe

"Organizations will not be in the phone book five to seven years fromnow unless they understand the significance of creativity and creativeleadership. Rowe's useful and readable book provides rich insightsabout how creativity affects the bottom line."

–Warren Bennis, Distinguished Professor and co-author of Geeks andGeezers, Harvard Press

"In Creative Intelligence, Alan Rowe makes a compelling case thatcreativity is essential for success in today's complex, rapidlychanging world, and that all of us can discover and unlock our creativepotential. He presents a clear and practical roadmap for how we canunderstand, measure, and apply our creative capabilities. Moreover, Roweshows how leaders can develop creative talent and support creativitythroughout their organizations. This book is a must read for anyoneseeking creative solutions to life's difficult and messy problems."

–Tom Cummings, University of Southern California School of Management

"Creative Intelligence convinces you that you do possess creativity. Itshows you how to determine the types you have, and encourages you to dosomething with your talents."

–Gerald Nadler, IBM Chair Emeritus in EngineeringManagement, University of Southern California, and co-author of thebestselling Breakthrough Thinking

Now's the time to tap your hidden creativity, and unleash more of it inthe people around you. One book will show you how–CreativeIntelligence. Begin by evaluating yourself with the world's mostadvanced psychological test for assessing creativity. Discover yourstrengths. Uncover your potential. Then, learn from the world's mostcreative individuals as you transform your potential into reality.

Along the way, you'll discover techniques for strengthening yourintuition and your imagination...your receptiveness to innovation...evenyour ability to inspire.

Creativity is power. Take that power into your hands with CreativeIntelligence.

How creative are you? How can you be more creative? Alan J. Rowe drawson the latest research to help you understand creativity, identify it,measure it, promote it, and apply it more effectively.

Rowe introduces four types of creativity: intuition, innovation,imagination, and inspirational leadership. Next, he presents theCreative Potential Profile, a systematic test for measuring creativepotential. This test instrument is an outgrowth of the highly successfulDecision Style Inventory that has been adopted by the Irish ManagementInstitute and other leading organizations.

Discover what creative people have in common, and learn powerfulstrategies for tapping into your hidden creative potential. See how mostorganizations suppress creativity, and discover start-to-finishstrategies for attracting more creative people and unleashing thecreativity of the people you're already working with.

The heart of creativity

What creativity really is...and how it differs from general intelligence

What's your creative style?

Discovering your personal mix of intuition, innovation, imagination, andinspiration

Making the most of your personal creativity

Specific techniques for becoming a more successful problem solver

Unleashing creativity in business and education

Promoting creativity throughout any organization

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780138157920
Publisher:	FT Press
Publication date:	03/26/2004
Pages:	192
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.50(d)

About the Author

Alan J. Rowe is an Emeritus Professor of Management and Organization, USC Marshall School ofBusiness. He has authored or co-authored 11 books, including Intelligent Information Systems,Managing with Style: A Guide to Understanding, Assessing, and Improving Decision Making, andStrategic Management: A Methodological Approach, Fourth Edition (Addison Wesley). He was also amember of the corporate staff at General Electric and Hughes Aircraft company.

Read an Excerpt

PrefaceFinding Your Creativity

We all follow different paths as we go through life. Which is the rightone? How do we choose? These are questions with which we are allconfronted. For example, have you ever wondered how you compare withEdison, Shakespeare, or Churchill? We take for granted that they werecreative, but are you also creative? A basic premise of this book isthat "everyone" has creative potential and that anyone can "discover hisor her hidden creative potential." Often, we are not aware of ourpotential or the environment does not encourage our being different.

Is there a straightforward way for you to determine whether you arecreative? One way is to review the lives of famous people, such asGalileo, who have clearly demonstrated their creative ability. What werethey like? What did they have in common? What price did they pay inorder to be creative? These and similar questions will be examined bystudying a number of well-known individuals to determine whichunderlying factors or conditions helped them to be creative.

Another important consideration is can we determine what "drives" somepeople to "go beyond" the ordinary? The evidence shows that certainpersonalities have the drive to achieve outstanding results. Thisappears to be true regardless of the field in which the person works.The perspective here is that we can determine Creative Intelligenceusing a test instrument that will be described in Chapter 2. We defineCreative Intelligence as a combination of the personality we have, howour mind processes information, what are our personal values, and doesthe environmental support our efforts? These factors form the foundationthat will be used to explore creativity and to show how one can applytheir creative potential to the greatest extent possible.

What is Creative Intelligence?

Creative Intelligence can be as grand as producing a world-renownedmasterpiece, or as mundane as knowing how to solve a routine problem.Creative Intelligence reflects how we perceive the world around us. Itis concerned both with the way we do things and the outcome or resultachieved. An activity can be considered creative if it involves a new orunique approach, and if the results are considered useful and accepted.

Today, Creative Intelligence is determined after the fact. The object here is to determine creative potential without this prior evidence. Atest instrument that has been developed can be used to determine aperson's "Creative Intelligence." It does this by first exploring theirCreative Potential. The test instrument, that will be described inChapter 2, was based on how people respond to 25 specific questions. Thevalue of the test instrument is that helps us to identify our CreativeIntelligence. Too often, this goes unrecognized. The Creative Potentialtest is similar in design to the Decision Style Inventory that wasdeveloped by the author in 1981. That earlier test instrument focused onwhich occupations correlated with out personality. In that sense,Creative Intelligence also relates to which occupations match ourcreative ability. A question often raised is whether Mozart andBeethoven would have been great musicians if they did not have pianosreadily available to them as children. They obviously had the"potential," but they needed a way to support their talent.

There are many ways that people use their creativity. however, we oftenmake assumptions about how people respond to various opportunities when,in fact, each individual acts and perceives the world from a uniqueperspective. Knowing a person's Creative Intelligence helps to predicthow they most likely would behave in differing situations. The testinstrument also has the potential of predicting who could be the aninventor, writer or musician.

Why is Creative Intelligence Important?

In an increasingly complex and chaotic world, it is important to expandour focus on creativity. New approaches are needed to cope with the manyseemingly unsolvable problems that confront us. We need to be able todeal with issues of global warming, terrorism, violence, homelessness,education and an aging population, to name just a few of the challenges.

With the uncertainty inherent in the world today, there is anopportunity for Creative Intelligence to make an even more significantcontribution today than ever before. Can Creative Intelligencecontribute to a quick response to SARS or a cure for cancer? Or howabout the ability to save lives with new cardio surgery techniques? Allthese life-affirming examples also point to the value of CreativeIntelligence to society. A critical problem facing nations today isterrorism. Can creative intelligence help stop another disaster? Likethe Space Race of the 1960s, anti-terrorism is our Space Race, for thisgeneration.

Creative solutions often are a direct response to problems that surroundus. Creative individuals respond to these problems in different ways.For example, the response to terrorist attacks in recent years has leadto a focus by scientists on various kinds of new safety materials. Oneinnovative result was the development of a material for hardenedaircraft containers that can withstand explosions and fires withoutbursting apart. Called Glare (for glass reinforced), the materialabsorbs the blast by expanding on impact. At the same time, the fire'sheat melts the aluminum core and carbonizes the underlying adhesive bondthus forming a firewall that helps maintain its structural integrity.While Glare's shape will distort under extreme conditions, it will notcollapse.

The current challenge is to reduce the weight of the material to becloser to the much lighter weight aluminum. Glare was originallydeveloped by the Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands inresponse to the Pan Am Flight 103 bombing over Lockerbie, Scotland. Now,however, there is renewed interest in Glare following the terroristattacks of September 11, 2001 in New York and Washington, D.C., possiblyto reinforce cockpit doors on airplanes. This represents the kind ofsolution that Creative Intelligence can make a reality. After readingthis book, you can expect to have a better understanding of the fourareas that will be helpful for your future.

• Learn how to use your Creative Intelligence. This would encourage you to plunge into doing things that utilizes your hidden creative potential.
• Explore the opportunities you could have to apply your creativity. Can you afford to overlook the opportunity of using your creative ability to benefit yourself and others?
• You can help people you know or ones in your organization to utilize their Creative Intelligence.
• Recognize that creativity responds best in an open environment where there is support for creative endeavors.

The future is yours to take or to leave! You can make the choice andexploit your Creative Intelligence or lose the opportunity to contributeto your future and to benefit others.

Table of Contents

Preface.

1. Finding Our Creative Intelligence.

Why Is the Study of Creativity Critical? What, Then, Is Creativity? The Four Styles of Creative Intelligence. Intuitive. Innovative. Imaginative. Inspirational. How Do We Identify a Person's Creative Intelligence? General Intelligence vs Creative Intelligence. What About Our Ancestors? Can We Measure Creative Intelligence? What Is the Creative Potential Profile? Other Views of Creativity. Who, Then, Is Creative? Environmental Influences on Creativity. Kinds of Creativity. The Many Faces of Creativity. The Role of Personality in Creativity. Can We Really Understand Creativity?

2. Finding Your Creative Potential.

Why Is Creativity Important? How Do We Use Creative Intelligence? How We See the World. Cognition and Creativity. Creative Visualization. The Creative Potential Profile. Intuitive. Innovative. Imaginative. Inspirational. The Creative Potential Profile Test Instrument. Personality Traits. What Leads to Creativity? Applying the Creative Potential Profile.

3. What Can We Learn From Creative Individuals?

Those Who Create. How to Enhance Creativity. Exploring the Creative Process. Nobel Prize Winners. What Is Different About Creative Individuals? Creativity Is Not Affected by Age. What Can We Learn from These Outstanding Individuals? A Sampling of Creative Individuals. Katherine Hepburn. Rembrandt van Rijn. Jean Piaget. William Shakespeare. What Have We Learned?

4. Using Our Creative Ability.

Creative Problem-Solving. How We See Problems. Finding Solutions. How Are Problems Defined? A Problem-Solving Example. Where Does Creative Problem-Solving Start? Approaches to Creative Problem-Solving. Other Approaches to Creative Problem-Solving. Is Creative Problem-Solving Possible? The Brain: A Key to Understanding Creative Intelligence. How the Brain Functions. Understanding the Brain. The Brain and Reality.

5. Applying Creativity to Education.

Creativity in Education. How Education Is Viewed. The Tradition of the Active Mind. Problems Confronting Education. How Do We Learn? How Education Is Changing. New Approaches to Learning. Introducing Change in Education. Differences in Students. Learning Theory. Testing and Learning. The Relationship Between Math and Music. The Environment and Education. Can Computers Enhance Education? The Role of Technology in Education. Teacher Involvement with Distance Learning. Alternative Schools. Where Do We Go from Here?

6. The Challenge of the Future.

Drivers of the Future. How Creative Leaders Function. How Change Is Introduced. Organizational Change. Creativity and Organizational Culture. Creativity at Work. The Importance of Creative Individuals. How Creative People Behave. Applying Creativity. The Future Is Now.

Bibliography.

Index.

What People are Saying About This

Warren Bennis

Organizations will not be in the phone book five to seven years from now unless they understand the significance of creativity and creative leadership. Rowe's useful and readable book provides rich insights about how creativity affects the bottom line. (Distinguished Professor and co-author of Geeks and Geezers)

Burt Nanus

Alan Rowe makes an important contribution to our understanding of human creativity in the most comprehensive book yet written on this subject. He offers a powerful new instrument for measuring creative intelligence and provides penetrating and provocative insights on how education can be reformed to produce more creative individuals, and how organizations can position themselves to tap the creative potential of all their employees. (Co-author, with Warren Bennis, of Leaders: Strategies for Taking Charge; author of Strategies for Taking Charge, Visionary Leadership, and Leaders Who Make a Difference)

Introduction

Preface

Finding Your Creativity

We all follow different paths as we go through life. Which is the rightone? How do we choose? These are questions with which we are allconfronted. For example, have you ever wondered how you compare withEdison, Shakespeare, or Churchill? We take for granted that they werecreative, but are you also creative? A basic premise of this book isthat "everyone" has creative potential and that anyone can "discover hisor her hidden creative potential." Often, we are not aware of ourpotential or the environment does not encourage our being different.

Is there a straightforward way for you to determine whether you arecreative? One way is to review the lives of famous people, such asGalileo, who have clearly demonstrated their creative ability. What werethey like? What did they have in common? What price did they pay inorder to be creative? These and similar questions will be examined bystudying a number of well-known individuals to determine whichunderlying factors or conditions helped them to be creative.

Another important consideration is can we determine what "drives" somepeople to "go beyond" the ordinary? The evidence shows that certainpersonalities have the drive to achieve outstanding results. Thisappears to be true regardless of the field in which the person works.The perspective here is that we can determine Creative Intelligenceusing a test instrument that will be described in Chapter 2. We defineCreative Intelligence as a combination of the personality we have, howour mind processes information, what are our personal values, and doesthe environmental support our efforts? These factors form the foundationthat will be used toexplore creativity and to show how one can applytheir creative potential to the greatest extent possible.

What is Creative Intelligence?

Creative Intelligence can be as grand as producing a world-renownedmasterpiece, or as mundane as knowing how to solve a routine problem.Creative Intelligence reflects how we perceive the world around us. Itis concerned both with the way we do things and the outcome or resultachieved. An activity can be considered creative if it involves a new orunique approach, and if the results are considered useful and accepted.

Today, Creative Intelligence is determined after the fact. The object here is to determine creative potential without this prior evidence. Atest instrument that has been developed can be used to determine aperson's "Creative Intelligence." It does this by first exploring theirCreative Potential. The test instrument, that will be described inChapter 2, was based on how people respond to 25 specific questions. Thevalue of the test instrument is that helps us to identify our CreativeIntelligence. Too often, this goes unrecognized. The Creative Potentialtest is similar in design to the Decision Style Inventory that wasdeveloped by the author in 1981. That earlier test instrument focused onwhich occupations correlated with out personality. In that sense,Creative Intelligence also relates to which occupations match ourcreative ability. A question often raised is whether Mozart andBeethoven would have been great musicians if they did not have pianosreadily available to them as children. They obviously had the"potential," but they needed a way to support their talent.

There are many ways that people use their creativity. however, we oftenmake assumptions about how people respond to various opportunities when,in fact, each individual acts and perceives the world from a uniqueperspective. Knowing a person's Creative Intelligence helps to predicthow they most likely would behave in differing situations. The testinstrument also has the potential of predicting who could be the aninventor, writer or musician.

Why is Creative Intelligence Important?

In an increasingly complex and chaotic world, it is important to expandour focus on creativity. New approaches are needed to cope with the manyseemingly unsolvable problems that confront us. We need to be able todeal with issues of global warming, terrorism, violence, homelessness,education and an aging population, to name just a few of the challenges.

With the uncertainty inherent in the world today, there is anopportunity for Creative Intelligence to make an even more significantcontribution today than ever before. Can Creative Intelligencecontribute to a quick response to SARS or a cure for cancer? Or howabout the ability to save lives with new cardio surgery techniques? Allthese life-affirming examples also point to the value of CreativeIntelligence to society. A critical problem facing nations today isterrorism. Can creative intelligence help stop another disaster? Likethe Space Race of the 1960s, anti-terrorism is our Space Race, for thisgeneration.

Creative solutions often are a direct response to problems that surroundus. Creative individuals respond to these problems in different ways.For example, the response to terrorist attacks in recent years has leadto a focus by scientists on various kinds of new safety materials. Oneinnovative result was the development of a material for hardenedaircraft containers that can withstand explosions and fires withoutbursting apart. Called Glare (for glass reinforced), the materialabsorbs the blast by expanding on impact. At the same time, the fire'sheat melts the aluminum core and carbonizes the underlying adhesive bondthus forming a firewall that helps maintain its structural integrity.While Glare's shape will distort under extreme conditions, it will notcollapse.

The current challenge is to reduce the weight of the material to becloser to the much lighter weight aluminum. Glare was originallydeveloped by the Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands inresponse to the Pan Am Flight 103 bombing over Lockerbie, Scotland. Now,however, there is renewed interest in Glare following the terroristattacks of September 11, 2001 in New York and Washington, D.C., possiblyto reinforce cockpit doors on airplanes. This represents the kind ofsolution that Creative Intelligence can make a reality. After readingthis book, you can expect to have a better understanding of the fourareas that will be helpful for your future.

• Learn how to use your Creative Intelligence. This would encourage you to plunge into doing things that utilizes your hidden creative potential.
• Explore the opportunities you could have to apply your creativity. Can you afford to overlook the opportunity of using your creative ability to benefit yourself and others?
• You can help people you know or ones in your organization to utilize their Creative Intelligence.
• Recognize that creativity responds best in an open environment where there is support for creative endeavors.

The future is yours to take or to leave! Y choice andexploit your Creative Intelligence or lose the opportunity to contributeto your future and to benefit others.

Editorial Reviews

Advanced praise for Creative Intelligence–

"Organizations will not be in the phone book five to seven years fromnow unless they understand the significance of creativity and creativeleadership. Rowe's useful and readable book provides rich insightsabout how creativity affects the bottom line."

–Warren Bennis, Distinguished Professor and co-author of Geeks andGeezers, Harvard Press

"In Creative Intelligence, Alan Rowe makes a compelling case thatcreativity is essential for success in today's complex, rapidlychanging world, and that all of us can discover and unlock our creativepotential. He presents a clear and practical roadmap for how we canunderstand, measure, and apply our creative capabilities. Moreover, Roweshows how leaders can develop creative talent and support creativitythroughout their organizations. This book is a must read for anyoneseeking creative solutions to life's difficult and messy problems."

–Tom Cummings, University of Southern California School of Management

"Creative Intelligence convinces you that you do possess creativity. Itshows you how to determine the types you have, and encourages you to dosomething with your talents."

–Gerald Nadler, IBM Chair Emeritus in EngineeringManagement, University of Southern California, and co-author of thebestselling Breakthrough Thinking

"Like passion, creativity is highly prized in people and companies, yetso difficult to manufacture. Creative Intelligence shows how both peopleand companies can harness creativity as a competitive advantage to getto their goals."

–Louis Columbus, Sr. Analyst, AMR Research

"Alan Rowe makes an important contribution to our understanding ofhuman creativity in the most comprehensive book yet written on thissubject. He offers a powerful new instrument for measuring creativeintelligence and provides penetrating and provocative insights on howeducation can be reformed to produce more creative individuals, and howorganizations can position themselves to tap the creative potential ofall their employees."

–Dr. Burt Nanus, co-author, with Warren Bennis, ofLeaders: Strategies for Taking Charge; author ofStrategies for Taking Charge, Visionary Leadership, andLeaders Who Make a Difference

"This book is an extraordinary effort that will challenge people to become'all that they can be.' Most people can make significant contributionsif they recognize their potential. Our society is changing rapidlyand creative approaches to education are needed to maintain our competitiveposition in the world."

–Dr. Robert R. Dockson, Former CEO and Chairman, CalFed, Inc.

"After a very successful career in industry and education, Alan Rowehas provided us with a roadmap to understanding creativity. His examplesclearly show how we can enhance our lives and make the world abetter place in which to live. He has produced an important work that ishighly readable and extremely useful. He demonstrates how we can alllearn how to use our creative ability to assure human progress. This is abook that I would recommend to business executives, educators, organizationleaders and anyone interested in enhancing their own lives."

–Stephen BollenbachCEO, Hilton Corporation

From the Publisher