Introduction
Creative thinking is the ability to look into something in a new and broader way. It can be also said as thinking something out of the box. Creative thinking is the sense, which involves what is called lateral thinking or the ability in perceiving the patterns, which are not obvious (Paul 2018). Creative people have the ability to carry out tasks, solve the existing problems, and bring fresh ideas in a new way. The basic difference between skills and competencies is that skills define specific learned activities and they range in a broader term of complexity (Van Merriënboer and Kirschner 2017). However, skills does not provide the answers related with a “how” that is how does a person perform the job successfully.
The aim of the paper is understand the importance of creative thinking skills in a manager. It will also discuss the traditional as well as the modern methods of creative thinking skills of a manger in a business organization (H Awang 2008).
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Importance of Creative thinking
Creative thinking is one of the most important skills that is required by the managers running business today. Creative thinking enables the managers to run the business with innovation and thereby ensuring success. Creative thinking is highly important as it helps to eliminate the occurring problems in the organization. As the world’s changes, there is advancement in the technologies and new business practices implemented in the organization in order to cope up with the changing environment. Therefore, creative thinking should be highly focused on a developing the creative thinking skills which is important to adapt with the ever changing environment (Rawlinson 2017). All the managers from the world famous organizations today are known for their creativity.
Process of creative thinking
Creative thinking involves connecting various experiences and synthesizing new things and implementing them in the functions and activities of the organization. Therefore, we can say that creative thinking is an important skill that is required to develop every day by the managers. The managers of the organization is required to break the usual patterns of running the business or the organization and eliminate the traditional way of thinking or traditional approach towards the business activities and implement creative thinking to enable new ideas and innovation in the organization (Kasim and Wahyuni, 2018). The managers can connect various experiences to meet the current challenges and problems with the help of creative solutions. The managers of the organization are required to collaborate different ideas and thoughts and utilize the good communication skills, which is essential for the smooth performance of the organization. Creative thinking managers are usually open-minded. They appreciate criticisms, and enable new creative solutions and ideas. Creating thinking generates the ability to apply innovative thinking in a digitalized environment. Creative thinking is a characteristic of a successful manager. Be the managers of different fields, creative thinking skills are required to develop and enhance the potential of the managers. By implementing creative thinking skills, the managers are able to overcome the obstacles and problems of the business. In order words, it helps to deals with the problems of business. Creative thinking skills enable the manager’s o look at the activities of the business from different perspective and generate solutions, which are unique and differentiated from its competitors (Kovalenko and Serikova, 2018).
Methods of creative thinking
Utilizing the traditional methods of problem solving in the rapidly changing environment can lead to failure of the business and may not be beneficial for the business in the long run. Therefore, to cope up with the rapidly changing environment creative thinking is an important dimension to the managerial activity (Vogel 2018). The need to overcome the obstacles of the business and smoothly encountering them through creative and innovating thinking is of paramount importance in the business organization.
Advantage of using creative thinking in organization
Creativity in the organization helps to overcome the rigid structures of the organization. It is considered as most desirable characteristics of the manager or the leader of an organization. The characteristics of creative thinking are important for initiating innovation, enhancing the vision, progressiveness, originality and resourcefulness of the organization. For the survival of any organization in the changing scenario and cultural climate, the role of creativity in the manager or the leadership is crucial for any organization. It helps in problem solving and overcoming the obstacles of the business in an innovative manner, it helps to attain growth and achieve expansion in the organization (Marcketti and Karpova 2015). It helps to mentor the teams in the workplace and influence their performance and activities in the organization.
Benefits of creative thinking
Further, it helps to find solutions in unique perspectives within the activities of the business. Approaching towards goals from a creative point of view by the managers helps to gain the ability to attain them effectively and efficiently. A manager with creativity skills initiates unique and different ways to attain the goals of the organization. Moreover, creative thinking skills enable to foster a positive mentality in the workplace. Creativity in the organization creates many opportunity for the manager of the organization as well as the employees (Holford 2017). Therefore, it can be said that creativity is an important aspect in every field apart from managers only.
Critical Analysis
When creative thinking is mentioned to people they mostly think about arts and designs. But for me creative thinking is not limited to the artistic culture, but being a manager creative thinking is something which is very vital to run a successful business. Being a manager creative thinking is a very powerful business tool which should never be overlooked. A manager with the help of creative thinking identifies and exploits new opportunities in a business and assists people and teams in solving various kinds of problematic situations. This in overall improves the productivity of the organization and helps it run successfully in a longer run. Once businesses get established it focuses on the existing products, services it provides as well as the methodologies which would make a very small improvement (Wokke, Ridderinkhof, and Padding, 2018). Implementing the creative thinking a manager should develop fresh ideas so as to improve the business strategies. Critical thinking is one of the most important for the managers as it helps to analyze the situation and help in the decision making process. This is one of the major factors that will be incorporating the activities that will be beneficial for a manager to resolve the critical issues (Seele 2018). Critical thinking also helps the managers in determining the activities that will be liable for the development of a plan that helps in dealing with the complex situations. Current organizational environment is dynamic and critical thinking can help the manager to analyze the challenges and evaluate them to overcome those challenges.
Changing the way of thinking in a business is very vital for the growth as well as bringing success to the company. Without it a manager will always run in a risk and would not look into a bigger picture which will as a result which will lead the manager to overlook into the important factors which could hinder the success of the organization. One way by which a business manager can rephrase a very common problem, which is occurring in the organization, is given with an example. Example: a business owner might one day say that that the organization is not able to cover the business cost in the present year, which will lead a cost cutting exercise for the company (Alqda and Salem 2016). But there can also be another solution tpo it by just simply rephrasing it by saying that ‘the company is generating enough sales in the present year, so it will be helpful for the organization if the sales could be increased. Therefore as a manager, it is very important to visualize a business opportunity by not only managing it and directing it in a proper manner but also by creatively thinking about the market demands and analyzing the competitors (Beaty et al 2016). The process of ideating, generating creative ideologies as well as evaluate ideas for the manufacturing of the new products and services is known as creative thinking.
Conclusion
From the above analysis, it can be concluded, that creative thinking skill is one of the most important skill required by a manager. It is quite evident that as a manager has been creative to manage a team. With the help of creative thinking, a manager can easily handle disputes and solve it as soon as possible. It helps in reducing the risk by engaging with the internal and external people, it seeks out for new solutions, which will be able to solve needs, problems and challenges. Creative thinking skills help to initiate new ideas in the organization. Further, it is the ability to consider and implement something new in the organization. These skills are essential to develop the real potential of the business organization and overcome all the obstacles and difficulties in the organization. This generates positive influence in the organizational skill.
References
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