creative thinking research meaning

Creative Thinking Definition

Creative thinking examples, why is creative thinking important, how to include creative thinking skills in a job application, how to build creativity, what is creative thinking definition and examples.

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Creative thinking is the ability to come up with unique, original solutions. Also known as creative problem-solving, creative thinking is a valuable and marketable soft skill in a wide variety of careers. Here’s what you need to know about creative thinking at work and how to use it to land a job. 

Creative thinking is all about developing innovative solutions to problems. Creative thinkers brainstorm not only a large number of ideas but also a variety and range of them. In the workplace, creative thinking is highly valuable because employers look to hire innovative employees who can help them solve the company’s problems.

So, what does creative thinking in the workplace look like? First, a creative person brainstorms their ideas, then they’ll experiment with them. They look at ideas from multiple perspectives and examine how their solutions fit into the scope of what they’re working on. Creative thinkers aren’t afraid to take risks and try new ideas. In fact, this ability to develop, test, and implement original solutions makes them a valuable asset to just about any workplace. 

Creative thinking in the workplace might look like:

• Holding an interactive brainstorm to gather initial thoughts on a project
• Evaluating a current process and offering suggestions on how to improve it
• Researching other ways to market a product and leading experiments on new marketing channels
• Developing an innovative way to reach out to prospective clients
• Identifying a unique opportunity to promote the company brand and developing a strategy to do so
• Discovering a new way to measure a product initiative’s success and using learnings to iterate on the next version

Finding patterns in a company’s revenue growth and using data trends to strategize a new sales plan  

Creative thinking includes the process of innovative problem-solving — from analyzing the facts to brainstorming to working with others. Creative thinking examples include analytical skills, innovation, and collaboration.

Analytical Skills

Analytical skills are problem-solving skills that help you sort through facts, data, and information to develop rational solutions. These skills aid you in the first part of the creative thinking process as you brainstorm and start to generate ideas. 

Analytical skills include:

• Data analysis
• Forecasting
• Interpreting
• Communication

Innovation is the ability to come up with something new; however, you don’t need to develop the first flying car to be an innovative thinker. “Something new” at work might mean a method you haven’t tried before or experimenting with an unfamiliar process. Innovators in the workplace aren’t afraid to step away from tradition and explore something original, even if it might fail. 

Innovation skills include:

• Risk-taking
• Brainstorming
• Critical thinking

Collaboration

Creative thinking doesn’t have to happen alone; you might have your most creative ideas when bouncing your work off others. Collaboration skills ensure you consider multiple perspectives and ways of thinking when you develop and refine ideas.

Collaboration skills include:

• Written and verbal communication
• Active listening
• Inclusivity

A soft skill like creative thinking will always be valuable to employers, whether you’re looking for a marketing job or trying to land a career in finance . Employers need employees who can develop and experiment with new ideas to help them solve complex problems. 

“Many employers seek candidates that are analytical and outside-the-box thinkers which are iterations of creative thinking skills,” says Alejandra Garcia, manager, alumni college and career success at Code2College and Forage content development partner. “Thus, creative thinking, creative problem solving, innovative thinking, and analytical skills are all valuable in the current workplace — these skills are especially important in our ever-changing workplaces with new emerging technologies.”

The data supports this idea, too. According to the World Economic Forum’s 2023 Future of Jobs report , creative thinking is the second most important skill for workers in 2023, preceded only by analytical skills. Other top skills include soft skills like resilience, flexibility and agility, motivation and self-awareness, and curiosity and lifelong learning .

“The ability to navigate new challenges quickly can benefit any workplace!” Laura Fontenot, resume writing expert, ACRW, and CPRW, says. “The current world of work is fast-paced, technically driven, and constantly changing. Being intuitive, creative, driven, and a problem solver are key.”

If creative thinking is one of the top soft skills employers look for, how do you show you have it in a job application? The key is to prove these skills through examples of how you’ve used them rather than just naming them.

On a Resume

While creative thinking is a skill employers might look for, you don’t necessarily need to write “creative thinking” on your resume to show you have this skill. Instead, it’s better to demonstrate how you’ve used creative thinking skills to drive results.

“Think of your best mental strengths,” says Fontenot. “Are you a great problem solver? Do you understand how to phrase things differently? Can you learn a new skill quickly? Those questions can help you find great words for the resume . Consider adding things like problem-solving, intuition, collaboration, fast learner, organized, or communication.”

Log in to view and download a customizable resume template with examples of how to include creative thinking skills:

On Your Professional Profiles

You can show these skills outside of your resume in creative ways — including on your LinkedIn profile and website (if you have one!).

“Early professionals can make creative thinking a part of their professional brand by explicitly adding creative thinking or creative problem solving to their list of skills on their resumes and LinkedIn profiles — this will help with ATS optimizations,” Garcia advises. 

Yet beyond just listing this skill, Garcia adds that you can provide real proof of your creativity online, too.

“Consider adding projects or an online portfolio website link to your resume and LinkedIn where you can showcase projects you’ve worked on that demonstrate their problem-solving skills.”

In the Interview

In the interview , make sure you can describe your workflow and process for these projects or any other situation when you’ve used creative thinking. Elaborate how you brainstormed ideas, what range of ideas you had, how you tested and experimented, and how you decided on a final solution. 

It’s best to use the STAR method to structure your answers. This will ensure you clearly explain the situation and the results you brought by using your creative thinking skills.

>>MORE: Prepare to speak about your soft skills by practicing answers to commonly asked behavioral interview questions .

1. Put Yourself in a Box

Creative thinking is about “thinking outside the box,” but putting limitations on your problem-solving can help you think more freely and innovatively. For example, if someone tells you to make dinner, you may struggle to come up with a meal you don’t always cook. Yet if they ask you to make a hot dinner with three specific ingredients and two spices, you’ll more likely come up with something original. 

Putting yourself inside a box can help expand your thinking, whether that’s by telling yourself you need to include three charts in your presentation or giving yourself a strict word count for an article.

2. Switch up Your Routine

Routine can be a great productivity booster, but it also can get in the way of your creativity. So, switch up your routine for one project, day, or even an hour. This can be something as small as where you’re physically sitting when you do your work or something as big as your process for approaching projects. Challenging yourself to do something different will help you find creative ways to adapt to your new environment.

3. Challenge What’s Currently Working

Think about how you might expand or improve upon a current process. What would you do if you had more resources, whether that’s time, money, or another expert? What would you do if you had fewer resources? If this project was taking place at a different time of year? If the target audience was different? Imagining these different potential scenarios will force you to problem-solve and adjust for various (very possible!) circumstances. 

4. Find Inspiration

Creative thinking doesn’t happen in a bubble. It’s vital to ask for others’ opinions and ideas. Creative thinkers consider multiple perspectives and are curious about how others think. Ask your colleague about their work processes, whether it’s how they research for a client deliverable or how they approach meeting an external buyer. 

5. Ask for Feedback

The best way to improve a skill is to get feedback from others on how you’re using it — and you don’t need to set up a formal feedback session to do so. Instead, ask questions when you’re working with others about your work. Keep these questions open-ended and lead with curiosity instead of looking for a specific answer. What did they think of how you led the brainstorm? What would they have done differently? What strikes them about the final product? Keep an open mind and remember not to take the feedback personally. It’s an opportunity to grow, and growing those skills might just help you land your next job!

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Creativity is the ability to produce or develop original work, theories, techniques, or thoughts. A creative individual typically displays originality, imagination, and expressiveness.

Creative thinking refers to the mental processes leading to a new invention or solution to a problem. Products of creative thinking include new machines, social ideas, scientific theories, artistic works, and more.

Adapted from the APA Dictionary of Psychology

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The Value of Creativity in Research

While most people associate creativity with the arts and sciences, creative approaches can lead to novel ways of advancing research. Learn about the importance of creativity in science and how you can be more creative in your research here.

Updated on June 9, 2022

Creativity has important value in both the arts and sciences. Creative approaches can lead to novel ways of thinking about problems and even advancements in research. Read on to learn more about the importance of creativity in science and how you can be more creative in your research.

What does it mean to be “creative”?

Creativity is defined as the tendency to generate or recognize ideas, alternatives or possibilities to solve problems, communicate, or entertain (4). Creativity is linked to fundamental thinking qualities, such as flexibility, tolerance of unpredictability, and enjoyment of new experiences (4). A creative person sees things in a novel way.

Creativity: art versus science

Creativity has always been considered important in the arts (2), but it is not a concept that immediately comes to mind when thinking about scientific research. In fact, many people don't think of science as a creative endeavor at all!

Science is typically thought of as an outcome-driven area, with the correct answer to a problem being the ultimate goal. Creativity is something reserved for the realm of art, right?

Actually, research involves discovering new things and attempting to solve problems that don't have solutions (1). The ability to solve problems in a novel way is inherent to research. So as you can see, creativity is an essential part of being a researcher!

How to be a more creative researcher

Don't let preconceived notions about the scientific process keep you from approaching your research from a creative perspective. A little creative thinking or trying a novel approach might be just what is needed to make a major advancement or to better enjoy your work as a researcher. Here are a few pointers if you want to be more creative in your research:

• Be open to new things : Creativity often develops from new knowledge and experiences.
• Take a break from the problem : Let your mind wander and relax to reset your perspective.
• Open your mind : Perceptions and presuppositions can limit the information you take in, so creativity thrives in an open mind.
• Rewrite the problem : Look at things from a different angle to spark creativity.
• Try something new : Try what others are not trying and look where others are not looking.
• Don't be afraid of getting it wrong : It's okay to get the answer wrong; remember that Edison made several thousand attempts before reaching success.

Fear of the creative approach

It is not uncommon for researchers in scientific fields to fear or even balk at the idea of “taking a creative approach.” Researchers use higher-order types of thinking, including analysis, synthesis, and abstraction (3).

While these important cognitive skills are key to approaching research problems, creative thinking can enable researchers to restructure and solve problems through insights, often from unexpected places (3).

In fact, creativity often shows up as an “aha” moment or after talking with knowledgeable people (3). Creativity can be informative of scientific progress and even a defining feature of scientific advancement (2).

But what if I get the wrong answer?

One factor that limits creativity is the fear of getting the wrong answer (1). Scientists often solve problems with a single focus. Thus, trying something new or being creative in some way may seem difficult (1).

In reality, getting things wrong is just as important as getting things right in science. According to a biography of Thomas Edison, who is considered to be one of the greatest inventors of all time, Edison attempted over 9,000 experiments when trying to devise a new type of storage battery before finding success (5).

After his associate, Walter S. Mallory, commented that it was a shame he'd worked so hard for no results, Edison reportedly replied, “Results? Why, man, I have gotten many results! I know several thousand things that will not work!” (5).

Finally, let our experts at AJE handle your editing, translation, formatting and other prepublishing needs so that you have more time to get those creative juices flowing in your research!

• (1) Van Aken, K. The critical role of creativity in research. MRS Bulletin 41:12, pp. 934-938. 2016. https://doi.org/10.1557/mrs.2016.280
• (2) Lehmann, J. and Gaskins, B. Learning scientific creativity from the arts. Palgrave Commun 5:96. 2019. https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-019-0308-8
• (3) DeHaan, R. L. Teaching creative science thinking. Science 334:6062, pp. 1499-1500. 2011. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1207918
• (4) Franken, R. E. Human Motivation, 3rd ed. Brooks/Cole Pub. Co. Pacific Grove, CA. 1994.
• (5) Dyer, F. and Martin, T.C. Edison: His Life and Inventions. Harper and Brothers, NY. 1910.

Eliza McKowan, MS

Academic Editor II

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The role of metacognitive components in creative thinking.

• 1 Center for Studies of Education and Psychology of Ethnic Minorities in Southwest China, Southwest University, Chongqing, China
• 2 Institute of Psychology, Zhejiang Normal University, Jinhua, China
• 3 Department of Psychology and Behavioral Sciences, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China

Metacognition refers to the knowledge and regulation of one’s own cognitive processes, which has been regarded as a critical component of creative thinking. However, the current literature on the association between metacognition and creative thinking remains controversial, and the underlying role of metacognition in the creative process appears to be insufficiently explored and explained. This review focuses on the roles of three aspects of metacognition (i.e., metacognitive knowledge, metacognitive experience, and metacognitive monitoring and control) in creative thinking and offers a primary summary of the neurocognitive mechanisms that support metacognition during creative thinking. Future research is needed to explore the interactive effects of the metacognitive components on creative thinking and to elucidate the function of metacognition during different stages of the creative process.

Introduction

Metacognition is viewed as the ability to think about one’s current cognitive processes ( Flavell, 1976 ). It is also called “cognition about cognition,” which plays a top-down regulation role in various cognitive processes, such as learning, memory, decision-making, and other high-level cognition ( Son and Metcalfe, 2000 ; Metcalfe, 2002 ; Ariel et al., 2009 ). Creativity, a unique ability of human beings, refers to generating original and useful ideas or developing novel solutions to problems under a given context ( Runco, 2010 ; Runco and Acar, 2012 ; Abraham, 2013 ). In the past decade, researchers have hypothesized that creative thinking may rely on metacognition components ( Davidson and Sternberg, 1998 ; Berkowitz and Ansari, 2008 ; Lizarraga and Baquedano, 2013 ; Erbas and Bas, 2015 ; Preiss et al., 2016 ). We believe that a relevant review and discussion of this topic can not only enrich the current theories of creative thinking but also provide a new direction for the cultivation of creativity.

Investigations of the processing mechanism that underlies creative thinking have typically considered metacognition as a single cognitive component, such as self-regulation during representational change and metacognitive self-monitoring or self-confidence when outputting the answer ( Hong et al., 2016 ; Rudolph et al., 2017 ). Although researchers in the creativity field have emphasized the special role of metacognition, to the best of our knowledge, very few theoretical or empirical studies have clarified how metacognition affects creative thinking. Early on, researchers emphasized creative thinking as a self-regulated metacognitive process ( Pesut, 1990 ). For example, some researchers have advanced the concept of “creative metacognition,” which is a combination of self-knowledge (e.g., knowing one’s own creative advantages and disadvantages in a certain field) and contextual knowledge (e.g., knowing when/where/how/why to be creative, Feldhusen and Goh, 1995 ; Davidson and Sternberg, 1998 ; Kaufman and Beghetto, 2013 ). In addition, a few empirical studies have examined the relationship between metacognition and creative thinking in terms of the following three aspects: (1) exploring the positive/negative correlation between metacognition and creative thinking via behavioral investigation ( Lizarraga and Baquedano, 2013 ; Erbas and Bas, 2015 ; Hong et al., 2016 ; Preiss et al., 2016 ); (2) understanding the function of brain regions activated in creative thinking from the metacognition perspective, for example, the anterior cingulate gyrus (ACC) and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC, Geake and Hansen, 2005 ; Berkowitz and Ansari, 2008 ; Kounios et al., 2008 ); and (3) enhancing individual creative thinking by metacognitive training ( Hargrove, 2013 ; Abdivarmazan et al., 2014 ; Hargrove and Nietfeld, 2015 ). Although theoretical and empirical studies have indicated that metacognition may be critically involved in creative thinking, the conclusion regarding whether metacognition has a positive or negative effect on creative thinking and how it engages in the creative process remains controversial. Therefore, this article systematically disentangles the roles of the three components of metacognition in creative thinking and discusses several central issues in the current literature to guide future research.

The Construct of Metacognition

In general, metacognition refers to individuals’ ability to have knowledge, awareness, and control of their cognitive activities ( Nelson, 1990 ). The concept of metacognition is regarded as being fuzzy with indistinct boundaries, as researchers have often classified it into the three interconnected components of metacognitive knowledge, metacognitive experience, and metacognitive monitoring and control ( Flavell, 1979 ). Specifically, metacognitive knowledge, which refers to the declarative knowledge of cognitive processes and products ( Dowson and Mcinerney, 2004 ; Efklides, 2011 ), has generally been divided into personal knowledge (e.g., hobbies, memory characteristics, ways of thinking, and ability limitations); task knowledge (e.g., task structures, task goals); and strategic knowledge (e.g., advantages or disadvantages and the applicability of each strategy). Metacognitive experience, the cognitive or emotional experience that accompanies cognitive activity, can occur in the early, middle, and late stages of cognitive activity ( Flavell, 1979 ). Metacognitive experience is not a cognitive operation itself but an individual’s subjective perception of the ease or difficulty of certain cognitive operations ( Rummer et al., 2016 ). In addition, metacognitive monitoring and control refers to an individual’s self-conscious supervision and regulation of the cognitive processes. Specifically, metacognitive monitoring includes individuals ability to plan, monitor, and evaluate their cognitive activities, followed by subsequent metacognitive control that allows individuals to regulate their cognitive processes, such as adjusting task goals, distributing study time, and selecting cognitive strategies ( Flavell, 1979 ).

The Construct of Creative Thinking

A standard definition of creativity has lacked consensus, as the construct of creativity is complex and different disciplines have distinct focuses. Early researchers were more likely to consider creativity as a personal trait, such as personality ( Guilford, 1950 ; Eysenck, 1993 ). With the development of experimental technology in the field of psychology, especially neuroimaging methods, a clear operational definition may benefit from investigations into the nature of creativity; thus, most researchers have viewed creativity as a problem-solving ability, namely, the ability to imagine novel or useful ideas or products in a given context ( Sternberg and Lubart, 1999 ; Runco, 2010 ). In addition, some comprehensive frameworks have attempted to describe a profile of creativity. Batey (2012) proposed an integrative perspective of the 4-P model of creativity by emphasizing the following four dominant factors of creativity: person—individual traits or characteristics; process—thought process involved in the creation of ideas; press—environmental influences; and product—output from creative activity. These four factors are highly interrelated, as a product is created by a series of cognitive processes that a person uses in a specific environment. Furthermore, it can be recognized that the lack of a consensual definition of creativity has led to a multitude of measurement approaches. A review of research methods in creativity studies (2003–2012) revealed that researchers have relied heavily on divergent thinking tests, problem-solving tasks or products to assess creativity ( Long, 2014 ).

Eysenck (1993) framed divergent-convergent interactions as important to conceptualizations of creativity. That is, creativity could be described as a constant oscillation between divergent and convergent thinking ( Finke et al., 1992 ; Bink and Marsh, 2000 ). Specifically, divergent thinking refers to the expansive generation of novel ideas for an open-ended problem, whereas convergent thinking emphasizes producing a single response from all possible answers to a given problem ( Guilford, 1967 ). The differences between these two types of creative thinking lead to distinct measurement approaches. Generally, divergent thinking can be assessed by a diverse set of tasks, such as the classic Alternative Uses Task (AUT, Guilford, 1967 ), Torrance Test of Creative Thinking ( Wallach and Torrance, 1968 ), and Multiple Choice Test ( Auzmendi et al., 1996 ). The degree of divergent thinking (i.e., scoring) mainly depends on the sum of fluency, flexibility, and originality of ideas. In contrast, convergent thinking is typically assessed by the Remote Associations Test (RAT, Mednick, 1962 ), insight problem-solving tasks ( Luo and Knoblich, 2007 ), and creative analogical reasoning ( Zhang et al., 2014 ). Although these two prominent measures do not guarantee actual creative thinking performance, compelling evidence well supports the construct validity of the two psychometric tasks for creative thinking.

The Intersection of Metacognition and Creative Thinking

Creative thinking can be regarded as a metacognitive process in which the combination of individual’s cognitive knowledge and action evaluation results in creation. Specifically, creative thinking involves a series of cognitive processes, such as the acquisition of knowledge and skills, the transformation of knowledge into new forms, and the verification of products from internal and external standards ( Amabile, 1983 ). It seems to be appropriate to involve metacognition in these stages due to its crucial role in high-level cognition. For example, for any creative action to be successful, relevant prior knowledge must be consciously selected, and a work plan must be implemented. Moreover, the strategies must be flexibly adjusted, and the originality and utility of products must be evaluated. In fact, all of these functions are metacognitive in nature, and their use would likely enhance creativity ( Armbruster, 1989 ). Accordingly, we systemically review the role of the three components of metacognition in creative thinking.

Metacognitive Knowledge and Creative Thinking

Metacognitive knowledge guides individuals to select, evaluate, and correct cognitive strategies, which are important for creative thinking. Empirically, several works have shown that individual’s metacognitive knowledge contributes to domain-specific creativity. For example, Lizarraga and Baquedano (2013) found a moderate correlation between metacognitive knowledge and visual-spatial creativity (e.g., drawing and titling four drawings from provided lines), and similar findings were reported on mathematic creativity ( Erbas and Bas, 2015 ). Fayenatawil et al. (2011) adopted a protocol analysis to examine both artists and non-artists during the creation of original drawings. The results revealed that artists who possess much more metacognitive knowledge of plans, goals, and descriptions performed better than non-artists in an artistic creation task. Additionally, Zeng et al. (2011) constructed a conceptual model of the IT creativity of studying and designing computer hardware or software and found that the metacognitive knowledge about explicit problem analysis, remote association, abstraction, and domain-specific knowledge played important roles in the analysis, ideation, evaluation, and implementation of IT creativity, respectively.

Several intervention studies have found that the training of metacognitive knowledge promotes creative problem solving. For instance, Abdivarmazan et al. (2014) used a pretest-posttest design to examine the effect of training metacognitive knowledge for problem solving. The subjects were divided into an experimental group and a control group. The experimental group received metacognitive strategy knowledge training a total of eight times (50 min each time), while the control group did not receive any intervention. The results showed that metacognitive knowledge training can significantly improve creative problem solving. This intervention effect is consistent with previous findings ( Hargrove, 2013 ).

Nevertheless, Preiss et al. (2016) found no correlation between individual metacognitive knowledge and creative thinking. In their study, the AUT and the compound word association task were used to measure creative thinking, and the self-reporting scale was used to evaluate individual declarative strategic knowledge about planning, monitoring, and regulating ( Dowson and Mcinerney, 2004 ). The results showed that metacognitive knowledge did not significantly predict the performance in either of the two creative thinking tasks after controlling for fluid intelligence and reading difficulties.

Not all empirical studies have found a positive correlation between metacognitive knowledge and creative thinking, and several limitations should be considered. First, an individual’s metacognition knowledge assessed through a self-report approach ( Antonietti et al., 2000 ; Hargrove and Nietfeld, 2015 ; Preiss et al., 2016 ) has been debated due to potential problems with its reliability and validity. Previous studies have suggested that unskilled individuals always exaggerate their self-assessment because they have poor analytical ability ( Kruger and Dunning, 1999 ) and are overly interested in motivations and intentions ( Kruger and Gilovich, 2004 ; Pronin, 2008 ). Similarly, Preiss et al. (2016) suggested that the self-report method may not accurately reflect metacognitive knowledge—especially the metacognitive strategic knowledge of planning, monitoring, and regulation—for individuals who have difficulty in recognizing their abilities. Second, there is a dissociation between self-report metacognitive knowledge and its application to specific tasks, and self-report metacognitive knowledge may not directly affect task performance ( Scherer and Tiemann, 2012 ; Hargrove and Nietfeld, 2015 ). Third, existing studies have mainly focused on the role of metacognitive strategic knowledge in creative thinking, whereas an examination of the other two variables (personal knowledge and task knowledge) is disregarded. For example, creative mindsets, a type of metacognitive knowledge that refers to individuals’ incremental or entity-mindset view of creativity (e.g., Creative mindsets, O’Connor et al., 2013 ), may influence their creative performance ( O’Connor et al., 2013 ; Karwowski, 2014 ). That is, individuals with different types of creativity mindsets have different cognitive processing characteristics, such as having different ways of learning, orienting toward a target, making strategic choices, and cognitive persistence ( Dweck and Leggett, 1988 ; De Dreu et al., 2008 ; Baas, 2010 ; Benedek et al., 2011 ; Roskes et al., 2012 ), which are regarded as critical aspects of creativity. It is inferred that creative mindsets may indirectly influence creativity through other cognitive variables. Therefore, more empirical studies are needed to uncover the mechanism of the different components of metacognitive knowledge in creative thinking.

Metacognitive Experience and Creative Thinking

Numerous empirical studies have confirmed that metacognitive experience can be indicated by the metacognitive cue of processing fluency ( Koriat et al., 2004 ; Oppenheimer, 2008 ; Alter and Oppenheimer, 2009b ; Jia et al., 2016 ). Processing fluency, the subjective feeling of the ease of information processing ( Koriat et al., 2004 ), influences a variety of cognitive tasks, such as factual preferences, aesthetic appreciation, brand assessment, and reading comprehension ( Alter and Oppenheimer, 2009a ; Miele and Molden, 2010 ). For the relationship between processing fluency and creative thinking, previous research has revealed that processing fluency affects a series of cognitive activities involved in creative thinking ( Gilhooly et al., 2007 ) such as goal setting ( Storbeck and Clore, 2007 ), work efforts ( Miele and Molden, 2010 ), strategy choice ( Lucas and Nordgren, 2015 ), and processing styles ( Alter et al., 2007 ).

Mehta et al. (2012) asked 95 participants to complete the AUT and RAT with different levels of background noise. Meanwhile, a 7-point scale that contained three questions was used to assess the subjective level of processing disfluency. The results showed that a moderate (vs. low) level of noise induced higher processing disfluency and consequently enhanced creative thinking performance. Alter and Oppenheimer (2009a) suggested that processing disfluency could induce individual’s higher construal thinking and less attention-focused, which were beneficial to creative thinking.

Moreover, processing fluency could also influence creative thinking by inducing different types of processing styles. Alter et al. (2007) argued that processing fluency can induce different degrees of intuition and analytical processing. That is, if information processing is perceived as easy and fluent, much more intuitive processing will be activated; conversely, if information processing is perceived as difficult and disfluent, a much greater analytical processing style will be activated ( Kuhl et al., 2014 ). Mehta et al. (2012) found that the disfluent processing experience allows individuals to use more analytical processing, which, in turn, promotes creative thinking performance as measured by both the AUT and RAT. In addition, neurophysiological evidence has revealed that processing disfluency induces the activation of the anterior cingulate cortex ( Boksman et al., 2005 ) and the prefrontal cortex (PFC), which allows people to think thoughtfully and use analytical processing to complete creative tasks ( Goel et al., 2000 ; Botvinick et al., 2001 ; Lieberman et al., 2002 ). Taken together, these results suggest that processing disfluency could promote creative thinking by activating a much higher level of analytical processing.

Nevertheless, the notion that overly analytical processing induced by processing disfluency impedes convergent thinking has been supported by some studies ( Friedman and Forster, 2005 ; Aiello et al., 2012 ). For example, in the study by Aiello et al. (2012) in which both bilingual and monolingual participants completed the RAT before or after an artificial grammar task with or without the “use your gut” instruction (just go with your “gut feeling” to make a decision), the results showed that the completion of an artificial grammar task with the “use your gut” instruction before enhanced the RAT performance, suggesting the beneficial role of a less analytic approach in the RAT performance. Similarly, another effective indicator of convergent thinking—insight problem solving, which involves an “aha!” experience that the solution could occur in a sudden and unpredictable manner with little or no conscious processing, has been confirmed to be inhibited much more by analytical processing ( Metcalfe and Wiebe, 1987 ; Qiu and Zhang, 2008 ).

Whether the metacognitive experience reflected by processing fluency promotes or inhibits creative thinking is controversial. There are several reasons for this controversy. First, different types of creative thinking, such as divergent and convergent thinking, may have different relationships with processing fluency. According to Benedek et al. (2011) , different types of creative thinking have significant differences in processing mechanisms. Specifically, divergent thinking tasks involve analytical processing ( Unsworth et al., 2011 ), whereas too much analytical processing may inhibit convergent thinking tasks as a requirement of a novel representation for problems and the search for remote connections to memory ( Metcalfe and Wiebe, 1987 ). Therefore, the differentiated roles of processing fluency in divergent and convergent thinking should be considered. Second, the problem of the classification and operation of the metacognitive experience may be partly responsible for the controversial results. Previous studies, however, have paid less attention to exploring this issue. To be more specific, processing fluency, an indicator of the metacognitive experience which has always been used in previous studies, could be divided into perceptual fluency, encoding fluency, and retrieval fluency, whereas these distinct types of processing fluency may have different effects on different types of creative thinking ( Koriat et al., 2004 ). For example, the AUT, which requires individuals to generate as many novel ideas as possible, was relied on the fast and effective strategic memory retrieval ability ( Forthmann et al., 2019 ). That is, the retrieval fluency could play a key role in the creative ideas production. Conversely, the RAT requires individuals to generate a target word from a set of cue words, which means that perceptual and encoding fluency may influence the results. Third, the indirect ways of manipulating processing fluency, such as pre-experiment tasks or noise activation, are greatly affected by additional factors beyond the experiment ( Mehta et al., 2012 ). Therefore, the direct ways of disrupting subjective feelings of fluency, such as font style manipulation ( Alter and Oppenheimer, 2009b ; Jia et al., 2016 ), semantic priming ( Winkielman and Cacioppo, 2001 ), and statement-background color contrast ( Hansen et al., 2008 ), should be investigated in future studies.

Metacognitive Monitoring and Control and Creative Thinking

It is worth mentioning that metacognition can be divided into the “knowledge of cognition” and the “regulation of cognition” by using a dichotomy ( Brown, 1978 ). The regulation of the cognition component includes individual’s planning, examining, monitoring, testing, and evaluating cognitive activities, which corresponds to “metacognitive monitoring and control.” Thus, we now comprehensively introduce the relationship between “metacognitive monitoring and control” and the “regulation of cognition” and creativity.

Sternberg (1985) argued that the process of creative thinking involved “self-monitoring” by monitoring other components through metacognition. Evidence from cognitive neuroscience studies reveals that the brain regions responsible for creative thinking overlap with the activated brain regions in metacognition monitoring and control, which mainly involve the dorsolateral prefrontal and ventrolateral prefrontal cortexes ( Carlsson et al., 2000 ; Zysset et al., 2001 ). Empirically, Zhang and Xiao (1996) asked participants to complete the Mutilated Chickboard problem, which requires people to change the representation from the space of all possible coverings to the “meta-level” space to find the correct problem representation. Their results showed that successful problem solvers were better at monitoring, transforming, and adjusting their search strategies according to changeable problem conditions, suggesting the positive effect of metacognitive monitoring and control on creative problem solving. Similarly, Xing and Chen (2009) further revealed that individuals with higher metacognitive monitoring and control abilities showed better performance at solving a Chinese logogriph task (i.e., a type of creative problem-solving task in which participants respond to puzzles) than individuals with a lower ability. The process monitoring theory proposed by Macgregor et al. (2001) explains that metacognitive monitoring and control ability can constantly monitor the gap between the existing state and the target state and then adjust cognitive strategies to access creative problem solving.

Moreover, intervention studies have shown that metacognitive skills training could promote creative thinking ( Atman et al., 2005 ). For example, Hargrove (2013) divided participants into an intervention group and a control group by counterbalancing their professional categories and genders. The participants in the intervention group received 1–2 semesters (17 h/semester) of metacognitive skills training to learn how to plan and implement thinking strategies, how to monitor and evaluate the quality of thinking, and how to amend incorrect thinking, whereas the participants in the control group received only professional courses every semester. The participants in the intervention group showed a significantly higher level of creative thinking as measured by the RAT and an art design task. A similar effect was also reported by Hargrove and Nietfeld (2015) .

Since Kaufman and Beghetto (2013) proposed the concept of creative metacognition, a growing number of studies have attempted to examine creative metacognitive monitoring accuracy, which can be assessed by comparing a general self-external assessment. Silvia et al. (2008) required participants to complete the AUT and then asked them and external raters to indicate the most creative responses from the reaction pool. The results showed that when the level of creative ability was higher, the participants more accurately monitored their responses. Beghetto et al. (2011) further examined this issue by asking primary school students to assess their creative ability in mathematics and science and observed that creative metacognitive monitoring accuracy (one type of metacognitive knowledge) can significantly explain the instructor’s assessment of creative ability. Priest (2006) and Kaufman et al. (2010) , however, did not find significant correlations between creative thinking and metacognitive monitoring and control in the art, writing, and musical fields.

The lack of a correlation between creative thinking and metacognitive monitoring and control can be found in other empirical studies. Metcalfe (1986) asked participants to make feeling-of-knowing judgments, an index of metacognitive monitoring ( Maclaverty and Hertzog, 2009 ), for creative problems and then give corresponding answers within 5 min. If the participants realized that the correct answer was closer, the value of the feeling-of-judgment would be higher. However, the results showed that the value of the feeling-of-judgment did not relate to the probability of producing the correct answer. Hong et al. (2016) asked participants to complete a divergent thinking task of creating a new cultural environment and to answer eight questions, such as “I always monitor my job completion process,” in order to measure their metacognitive plans and monitoring. The results showed that individuals’ metacognitive monitoring had no significant effect on their divergent thinking performance.

Overall, the conclusion that a positive correlation exists between metacognitive monitoring and control and creative thinking may not be as stable as we expected. In fact, metacognitive monitoring and control includes a set of subcomponents, such as goal setting, planning execution, strategy selection, and cognitive assessment ( Flavell, 1976 ). Many previous studies have either focused on either one or some subcomponents of metacognitive monitoring and control. For example, Hong et al. (2016) explored only the effects of planning and monitoring subcomponents on divergent thinking but summarized the results at the overall level. This method is likely to result in biased or conflicting evidence. In addition, according to Kelemen et al. (2000) , there are both “trait” and “situational” metacognitive monitoring and control, which have different concepts and measurements ( Veenman et al., 2004 ; Preiss et al., 2016 ). Hong et al. (2016) found that individuals’ situational metacognitive monitoring and control have no significant effect on creative thinking while controlling for the variable of an individual’s trait metacognitive monitoring and control. Therefore, their confusion in related studies could at least partly account for the inconsistency in the related results. Generally, all of the above problems should be considered to obtain a better understanding of the relationship between creative thinking and metacognitive monitoring and control.

Neurophysiological Evidence of Metacognition and Creative Thinking

The general framework of metacognition is characterized by the interplay of meta-level and object-level information ( Nelson, 1990 ). The object-level refers to one’s current cognitive processes (e.g., perception, attention, and decision making), which are monitored or controlled at the meta-level. Previous cognitive neuroscience evidence suggests that the PFC plays a central role in the processing of meta-level top-to-bottom adjustment of the object-level ( Fernandezduque et al., 2000 ). Specifically, the PFC regulates the posterior cortical circuit involvement in object-level processing through a filtering mechanism. In recent years, there has been increasing interest in identifying the regions in the PFC involved in metacognition, including the lateral prefrontal cortex (LPFC), medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC), and DLPFC. These brain regions are responsible for different functions in metacognition ( Christoff et al., 2003 ; Fleming et al., 2010 ; Fleming and Dolan, 2012 ). For example, a metacognitive assessment of cognitive tasks (e.g., working memory, episodic memory retrieval, and abstract thinking) induces greater activation of the lateral PFC ( Braver and Bongiolatti, 2002 ; Christoff et al., 2009 ), whereas metacognitive judgment generally activates the rostral medial prefrontal cortex (RMPFC, prospective judgment), the rostral lateral prefrontal cortex (RLPFC, retrospective judgment, Fleming and Dolan, 2012 ) and the DLPFC. An fMRI study found that the DLPFC and VLPFC were activated when tasks involved the metacognitive inhibition of sensory information, whereas the DMPFC and DLPFC were activated when tasks (e.g., the Stroop task) involved metacognitive control for concurrent conflicts ( Zysset et al., 2001 ).

Recently, some noninvasive brain stimulation and lesion studies have suggested that a disabled PFC can affect metacognitive monitoring in perceptual decision making ( Cul et al., 2009 ; Rounis et al., 2010 ; Ham et al., 2014 ). Despite this, the neural mechanism that underlies individual metacognition remains controversial. One core component of this controversy is whether functional segregation exists in the prefrontal system that is specific to metacognition. Qiu et al. (2017) used a novel decision-redecision paradigm, in which participants make an initial decision on perceptual and rule-based decision-making tasks (decision phase) followed by another decision on the same tasks (redecision phase), to examine the underlying neural substrates of metacognition on decision making. The results revealed that the dACC is responsible for decision uncertainty monitoring, while the FPC is responsible for the metacognitive control of decision adjustment, suggesting a disconnected role in the PFC and a distinct role in metacognition.

Interestingly, these studies of metacognition show brain recruitment (e.g., ACC, IFG, mPFC, and DLPFC) similar to that in creative thinking ( Dietrich and Kanso, 2010 ; Fink et al., 2012 ; Fox and Christoff, 2014 ). Specifically, the LPFC (including the IFG and DLPFC) is essential to various creativity ( Aziz-Zadeh et al., 2010 ). Similarly, the ACC, which plays a role in the solutions monitoring, was also confirmed to be activated during the creative process ( Geake and Hansen, 2005 ; Berkowitz and Ansari, 2008 ; Kounios et al., 2008 ). A study regarding musical improvisation found that pianists exhibited stronger activation in the ACC under conditions of rhythmic and melodic freedom, suggesting the positive effect of metacognition for monitoring the conflicts among different melodies or rhythms on the creative process ( Berkowitz and Ansari, 2008 ).

In addition, several fMRI studies have reported that metacognition is associated with the anterior insula, which is responsible for promoting the individual consciousness of emotional and physical states ( Craig, 2009 ), and for delivering this information to PFC areas ( Fleming and Dolan, 2012 ). For example, people who have had mindfulness training are more likely to perceive their thoughts, emotions, and physical state; in addition, they show stronger activation in the insula and the lateral prefrontal cortex ( McCaig et al., 2011 ). Similarly, the mPFC and the anterior insula can also be activated in the generation stage in multiple creative tasks ( Geake and Hansen, 2005 ; Howard-Jones et al., 2005 ; Limb and Braun, 2008 ). According to the two-stage theory of the creative process ( Ellamil et al., 2016 ), metacognition might play different roles in idea generation and idea evaluation. A low level of metacognitive control can make more diverse pieces of information appear to enter the mind to construct more novel ideas at the stage of idea generation, whereas at the stage of idea evaluation, the activation of the metacognitive system can contribute to evaluations of the novelty and utility of the spontaneous ideas generated during the previous stage. Based on this framework, the latter process may possibly be associated with cognitive activation and positive emotion, which further guides the ensuing idea generation. This neurophysiological evidence from the aforementioned studies reveals that the prefrontal regions related to metacognition are involved not only in monitoring but also in value evaluation and emotion in the creative process.

Concluding Remarks and Future Directions

The present study primarily focuses on the intersection between metacognition and creative thinking. Although increasing research points out that metacognition may play an important role in creative thinking, the empirical studies reviewed in the present study have not reached a consensus. Some obvious limitations remain. First, previous studies have mainly applied correlational approaches to investigate the intersection between metacognition and creative thinking and have neglected to reveal the cause-and-effect between the two constructs. Future research is particularly essential to explore the internal mechanism of metacognition that affects creative thinking. Second, the reliability and validity of metacognition measurements are controversial. Specifically, self-reporting is greatly influenced by subjective expectations, whereas a think-aloud protocol is time consuming, and discourse analysis is subject to the quality of the interpersonal interaction among groups ( Desoete, 2008 ). To avoid unexpected factors generated by these methods, objective measurement indexes such as prospective monitoring, retrospective monitoring, and the judgment of confidence ( Bjork et al., 2013 ) could be promising ways to assess metacognition. Third, the three components of metacognition are independent but closely interrelated ( Dowson and Mcinerney, 2004 ; Efklides, 2011 ). Previous research has always focused on metacognition as a whole or a single component, which has led to the lack of an interaction effect of the three metacognitive subcomponents on creativity. Fourth, the differentiated effects of metacognition on different types of creative thinking have not yet been described. Accordingly, we discuss two important directions in future research as follows.

Exploring the Role of Metacognition in the Creative Process

According to the aforementioned 4-P model of creativity ( Batey, 2012 ), it should be acknowledged that most of the previous studies have tended to explore the relationship between metacognition and creativity outcomes (e.g., responses in the AUT) but have neglected to discuss the role of metacognition during the dynamic creative process. The creative process, namely, the sequence of thoughts and actions that leads to novel, adaptive productions ( Lubart, 2001 ), has been identified as the combination of a series of cognitive processes. According to the classic four-stage model proposed by Guilford (1950) , the creative process can be divided into the following four stages: reparation—consciously define and establish the problem; incubation—no conscious mental work on the problem; illumination—the promising idea breaks through to conscious awareness; and verification—evaluate and refine ideas. Whether metacognition plays a different role in different stages of the creative process remains an open question. Armbruster (1989) suggested that the role of metacognition in incubation may be unconscious, whereas it is conscious in verification. Similarly, the geneplore model of the creative process (i.e., idea generation, namely, operating on unstructured, illogical thoughts to produce ideational materials, and idea evaluation, namely, controlling, evaluating, and selecting the best ideas) suggests that the idea generation stage requires no participation of metacognition to produce many more ideas, whereas the idea evaluation stage needs the participation of metacognition to assess the originality and usefulness of ideas ( Fox and Christoff, 2014 ). In addition, Shen et al. (2013) demonstrated that P2 in processing creative problems, as a stimulus-driven frontal metacognitive mechanism, reflects preconscious awareness of the mental impasse at a relatively early rather than the late stage of creative problem solving.

Nevertheless, in investigations of the current issue, regarding metacognition as a whole remains controversial due to its complex construct. Perhaps different components of metacognition have different effects on the creative process. In a recent study, for example, Jankowska et al. (2018) integrated the psychometric approach, eye-tracking methodology, and thinking-aloud protocols and found that the three categories of metacognition play different roles in the creative process. Specifically, one category of exploratory activities was demonstrated to be essential in the initial phase of the creative process, while another two categories, decision-making and control activities and affective-evaluation activities, were involved in the entire creative process. From this independent point of view, we propose that the effect of metacognitive monitoring can be separated from metacognitive control on the creative process. According to the monitoring-affect-control hypothesis ( Nelson and Leonesio, 1988 ), metacognitive control may be the result of prior metacognitive monitoring ( Metcalfe and Finn, 2008 ). For instance, individuals can adjust the strategy selection (an indicator of metacognitive control, Beaty and Silvia, 2012 ) during the generation of the next idea according to self-assessment of previous ideas originality (an indicator of metacognitive monitoring, Silvia et al., 2008 ). In this case, we believe that separating the two subcomponents leads to a better understanding of the dynamic monitoring-affect-control process in creative thinking.

Although the three key components of metacognition have been discussed separately, these components are not independent as an interactive system ( Efklides, 2011 ). That is, metacognitive monitoring and control could be activated by relying on metacognitive knowledge and the information provided by metacognitive experiences about the flow of cognitive processing. Accordingly, how these three factors interact in the process of creative thinking remains unclear. Here, we take a creative metacognitive monitoring accuracy, processing fluency (an index of metacognitive experience), and metacognitive monitoring accuracy as examples. Previous studies have demonstrated that individuals with different types of creative mindsets exhibited significant differences in their interpretation of the experience of process disfluency ( Miele et al., 2011 ) and in their level of metacognitive monitoring accuracy ( Blackwell et al., 2007 ). When completing a creative thinking task, individuals with an incremental creative mindset could interpret their processing disfluency as lacking in effort and would show much greater cognitive persistence, whereas individuals with an entity creative mindset could interpret it as an ability deficiency and would give up on further cognitive persistence. Meanwhile, individuals with an incremental creative mindset showed better performance in the metacognitive monitoring of the selecting and evaluating strategies than individuals with an entity creative mindset.

Under the framework of the dynamical creative process, the effect of metacognition components and their interaction on the creative process could be helpful for understanding the current work. Future research could examine the independence and interaction effect of the metacognitive components on the creative process using multiple methods.

Cultivating Creativity From the Perspective of Metacognition

The practical implication that should be considered is how to foster individual creative thinking from the perspective of metacognition. Apart from teaching individuals’ metacognitive skills ( Scott et al., 2004 ; Hargrove, 2013 ; Hargrove and Nietfeld, 2015 ), a new training perspective based on metacognition knowledge could prove to be a novel avenue for creativity cultivation in future studies. This promising example of a metacognition training is creative mindset intervention. A creative mindset, metacognitive knowledge that refers to individuals’ domain-specific implicit theories of creativity aforementioned, could have independent and interactive effects on creativity ( Blackwell et al., 2007 ; Miele et al., 2011 ). The main idea is that an incremental creative mindset (viewing creativity as malleable and changeable) is beneficial to creativity compared with an entity creative mindset (viewing creativity as stable and unchangeable). More importantly, similar to the idea that it is possible to successfully intervene in a general mindset ( Hong et al., 1999 ; Blackwell et al., 2007 ; Paunesku et al., 2015 ), it is possible to intervene in a creative mindset.

A general mindset intervention has been a popular topic in many disciplines such as learning, writing, anxiety, and musicality ( Donohoe et al., 2012 ; Müllensiefen et al., 2015 ; Paunesku et al., 2015 ; Schleider and Weisz, 2018 ), and improving creativity through creative mindset intervention shows promise. The general mindset intervention methods that aim to encourage an incremental mindset could be transferred to and borrowed by the creativity field. For example, Hong et al. (1999) asked students to read articles in popular magazines to emphasize the importance of environmental factors rather than genetic components to mindset development. Blackwell et al. (2007) succeeded in altering the mindsets of middle school students over the course of eight intensive sessions that focused on the study strategies of brain plasticity and ways that their mindset changes over time. Other researchers have also used a similar design in their intervention methods ( Aronson et al., 2002 ; Yeager et al., 2013 ). Bostwick (2015) summarized that the key commonalities of these intervention designs included three factors, namely, the “saying is believing aspect” (the article was read), “students formalized it in their own words” (the article was understood), and the “interventional time point of students’ most susceptible to the intervention.” Future research could attempt to create a series of standardized creative mindset interventions to contribute to creativity cultivation.

Author Contributions

All authors listed have made a substantial, direct and intellectual contribution to the work, and approved it for publication.

This work was supported by the Social Science Planning Project of Chongqing (2018BS93) and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (SWU1809709).

Conflict of Interest

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

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Keywords: creative thinking, metacognitive knowledge, metacognitive experience, metacognitive monitoring and control, creative process

Citation: Jia X, Li W and Cao L (2019) The Role of Metacognitive Components in Creative Thinking. Front. Psychol . 10:2404. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2019.02404

Received: 06 May 2019; Accepted: 08 October 2019; Published: 24 October 2019.

Reviewed by:

Copyright © 2019 Jia, Li and Cao. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY) . The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

*Correspondence: Xiaoyu Jia, [email protected]

Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.

19 Creative Thinking Skills (and How to Use Them!)

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In a fast-moving world, being able to find new perspectives and create innovation is an increasingly valuable skill . Creative thinkers are often at the forefront of driving change, solving problems, and developing new ideas. Not only that, but those who bring creative thinking to how they work are often happier, more productive, and resilient too!

So you might be asking yourself, how can I develop my creative thinking skills and think more creatively at work?  Whether you want to supercharge your interpersonal skills, advance your career or be happier and more satisfied in the work you do, it pays to learn to think more creatively.

For many people, creative thinking is the key that unlocks solutions, promotes diverse thinking, and leads to better relationships and job satisfaction. So how can you get started with creative thinking?  As passionate believers in the value of creative thinking, we’re here to help and truly think unleashing your creativity can be key to your personal development!

In this post we’ll define what creative thinking is, highlight the benefits, explore 19 key creative thinking skills and give you some examples of how to apply them in the workplace . Let’s dig in!

What is creative thinking?

Why is creative thinking important, what are the benefits of creative thinking.

• What are creative thinking skills?  
• Examples of creative thinking skills (and how to use them)
• How to use creative thinking skills at work?

How to improve your creative thinking skills? 

Creative thinking is the ability to approach a problem or challenge from a new perspective, alternative angle, or with an atypical mindset. This might mean thinking outside of the box, taking techniques from one discipline and applying them to another, or simply creating space for new ideas and alternative solutions to present themselves through dialogue, experimentation, or reflection.

Bear in mind that the number of different creative approaches is as vast as the number of creative thinkers – if an approach helps you see things differently and approaching a challenge creatively, follow that impulse.

While there are some proven methods and guidelines that can help you be a better creative thinker, remember that everyone can be creative and finding what works for you is what is important, not the terminology or specific framework.

One misapprehension about creative thinking is that you have to be skilled at more traditional creative skills like drawing or writing. This isn’t true. What’s important is that you are open to exploring alternative solutions while employing fresh techniques and creative approaches to what you’re working on. 

You don’t need to be a great artist or even work in a traditionally creative field – we believe everyone is capable of creative thinking and that it enriches your personal and professional lives when you learn to be more creative.

Another misconception about creative thinking is that it applies only to the ideation or technically creative parts of the process. All aspects of our lives and interactions with people and challenges can benefit from creative thinking – from the ability to see things differently.

At work, thinking creatively might mean finding better ways to communicate, improve your working practices, or developing and implementing fresh solutions too.

Creative thinking is important because it drives new ideas, encourages learning, and creates a safe space for experimentation and risk-taking.

As organizations and people grow, they often develop tried and tested ways of operating. While it’s important to have solid working practices and processes, unswerving dedication to the norm can lead to stagnation and a lack of innovation and growth. 

Creative thinking is important because it drives new ideas, encourages learning and creates a safe space for experimentation and risk-taking. Simply put, creativity and creative thinking are part of what helps businesses and individuals succeed and grow .

Whether your team or business thinks of itself as a creative one, you can’t afford to miss out on the benefits of creative thinking if you want to grow , deliver change, and help your team bring their best selves to work. 

Using creative thinking skills at work creates b enefits not only in the ways we solve problems but also in how we approach everything from communication to self-fulfillment, task management, and growth . Bringing a culture of creative thinking into a workshop or group is often the job of a talented facilitator but whatever your role, there are benefits to thinking more creatively. Let’s explore some of the benefits of thinking creatively at work and in your everyday life!

Build empathy

• Bust assumptions  
• Become a better problem solver  

Find ways to move quickly and effectively

• Increase happiness

Discover new talents and promote learning

• Boost resilience and deal with adversity

Boost your CV and employability 

Empathy and creative thinking go hand-in-hand. By practicing creative thinking skills and regularly looking for new ideas and points of view, you can actively become better at understanding your colleagues, customers, and even your family and friends. One of the major barriers to having productive and meaningful relationships is an unwillingness to see things from a perspective other than your own or failing to understand how another person is feeling. 

By developing this skill, you can engage more meaningfully and honestly with people, ideas, and perspectives in all aspects of life. What’s more, because of the benefits that creative thinking can bring, you’ll actively want to see things from new perspectives and be more empathic : something that’s fundamental to creating real change.

Bust assumptions 

Assumptions can be harmful in both our personal and professional lives. Whether it’s making assumptions about why someone is behaving the way they are in a workshop or what features will make your customers happiest, holding onto incorrect or inadequately formed assumptions can be problematic . It can create difficulty and tension in relationships and what’s more, it can lead to the development or introduction of solutions that are simply unfit for purpose.

Using creative thinking skills to challenge assumptions, build clarity, and see things from new perspectives can be transformative. If an assumption someone else makes feels incorrect, think about why and try to find out more. If someone challenges an assumption you hold, be open and listen.

Become a better problem solver

An example of not being a creative thinker is sticking to a tried and tested approach and sticking to the norm in every situation without considering whether trying something new might not lead to better results.

When looking to solve a problem or create innovative solutions, going outside of what you know and being open to new ideas is not only exciting, but it can create more impactful solutions too. You might even try using problem-solving techniques alongside some of the creative thinking skills below to find the absolute best solutions!

Some processes and working practices can be slow, especially in large organizations with many moving parts – but do they all have to be? Thinking creatively can help you find lean, actionable solutions that you can put into practice quickly and test ahead of bigger changes .

Experimentation and a willingness to take risks are vital to growth and change, and creative thinking helps create a climate conducive to finding and trying quick, effective solutions. 

Increase happiness and satisfaction

Finding fresh, appropriate solutions to problems can be incredibly satisfying and is a fast-track to finding happiness both in and out of work. Bringing your whole self to a situation and being enabled to think outside of the box is a great way to feel valued and engaged with what you are doing.

Feeling frustrated with how a situation or process at work is going? Try developing and employing your creative thinking skills alongside your colleagues to find a better, happier way to collaborate! Feel unfulfilled or that not all of your skills and interests are being utilized? Consider how you might creatively deploy the skills or talents that make you happy and scratch that itch.

As children, we are encouraged to see things differently and try new things as part of our learning and growing process. There’s no reason we shouldn’t do this as adults too! Trying new things and learning to think creatively can help you find new skills, talents, and things you didn’t even know you were good at.

Staying curious and following what interests you with an open mind is a prime example of what a small change in thinking can achieve. Remember that creative thinking is a gateway to learning and by actively developing your creative toolset, you can grow and discover more in all walks of life – a surefire path to personal development.

Get better at dealing with adversity

It’s easy to get frustrated when problems seem to come thick and fast and existing solutions or methods don’t work. Adversity is something all of us will face at some point in our personal and professional lives but there are ways you can become more able to handle problems when they arise .

A strong suite of creative thinking skills is an important aspect of how we can build resilience and be more flexible when adapting or creating change. By exploring alternative ways of thinking, you’ll be better prepared to face adversity more openly and find alternative ways to resolve challenges in whatever context they emerge.

Creative thinkers are valuable employees at organizations of any size. Whether it’s championing innovation, creating change in policy, or finding better ways to collaborate, people who can effectively solve problems and leverage their creative thinking skills are better positioned for success at work.

Consider how you might plug your skills gap and boost your CV by developing your creative skillset and you won’t just be more successful – you’ll be happier and more engaged at work too! 

Whatever your background or role, you are capable of thinking creatively and bringing creativity into your life.

What are creative thinking skills? 

Creative thinking skills are the methods or approaches you might use when trying to solve a problem differently and explore a fresh perspective. While some of these skills might come naturally to you, others might need a more considered, purposeful approach.

For example, you might be a natural visual thinker who is great at presenting and interpreting visual information but you might not be so good at freely experimenting or creating space for reflection. In this case, you might try some brainstorming exercises to loosen up your experimentation muscles or create scheduled time for reflection in your working routine.

While creative professions like artists, writers, or designers may see more obvious uses for creative thinking skills, all professions can benefit from developing and deploying creative thinking . If you find yourself having difficulty at work or in need of inspiration or motivation, finding space to build on your creative skillset is a way to not only move forward but have fun while doing so.

If you think you’re not creative or have no creative thinking skills, we’re here to tell you that whatever your background or role, you are capable of thinking creatively and bringing creativity into your life : you might just need a little push or to reframe how you think about creativity!

Save time planning your next creative workshop

Examples of creative thinking skills (and how to use them) 

Creative thinking skills come in all shapes and sizes, ranging from things like abstract thinking and storytelling to finding ways to radically plan projects or recognize organizational patterns .

In this section, we’ll explore each of the example creative skills below and talk about how you might use them in your personal and professional practice. We’ll also point out some things to watch out for where appropriate so you can make the most out of your new creative skills and avoid potential setbacks.

We’ll also include a method from the SessionLab library that will help you practice and explore each skill, whether alone or with others .

Feel free to read and explore the creative thinking skill which feels most interesting or applicable to you and come back and experiment with others in the future!  

Some example creative thinking skills include:

Experimentation

Open-mindedness, lateral thinking.

• Pattern recognition   

Deep and active listening

Challenging norms, lean organization, simplification, radical planning.

• Collaborative thinking

Data collection

• Interpretation and analysis

Interdisciplinary thinking

Frameworks and rulesets, micro and macro thinking, visual thinking, abstract thinking, storytelling.

Note that this list is not exhaustive, and there are many more ways of thinking creatively – try to see these creative skills as a jumping-off point for seeing things differently and exploring creative thinking at work . 

Let’s get started!

A core creative skill is the ability to experiment and try new things, whether that’s in your personal practice, in a closed environment, or even in the field. It can be easy to fall short of implementing new ideas or following through with creative projects because critical judgment or overthinking gets in the way . A good experimenter is a self-starter who makes informed decisions to kickstart projects and test hypotheses. 

Think of a painter who throws paint at a canvas and introduces new materials without overthinking or being self-critical. While not everything they try will be perfect, that’s the point – not every experiment needs to be successful in order to teach you something useful. By experimenting, you can try things that might prove useful or will lead you towards new solutions and better ideas. Remember that the act of experimentation is generative and often fun so be sure to give it a try!

One thing to watch out for is being sure to effectively capture the results of your experiments and to continue developing and iterating on the results. Experimentation is a great place to start, but remember that it is part of a larger process. Without effective documentation, you might not trace what delivered the best results and be unable to reproduce the outcomes. Experimentation is a great example of why creative freedom should be paired with a strong process in order to be at its best. 

Four-Step Sketch   #design sprint   #innovation   #idea generation   #remote-friendly   The four-step sketch is an exercise that helps people to create well-formed concepts through a structured process that includes: Review key information Start design work on paper,  Consider multiple variations , Create a detailed solution . This exercise is preceded by a set of other activities allowing the group to clarify the challenge they want to solve. See how the Four Step Sketch exercise fits into a Design Sprint

Four-Step Sketch is a great method for promoting experimentation. By following a process that enables quick brainstorming before development, you can help build an experimental mindset that also generates results.

Open-mindedness is a critical element of creativity and one of the best creative thinking skills you can try to build if you’re new to the practice. Being open-minded means being receptive to new ideas, different ways of thinking, and perspectives which are not your own. It means not closing down conversations or ideas prematurely and trying to actively explore what is presented to you.

Imagine that a colleague comes up with an idea that is so far out of the status quo it seems off-the-wall and bizarre. Being open-minded means actively engaging with what is presented and to refrain from forming judgments before first understanding where your colleague is coming from .

Your colleagues’ initial idea might not be perfect, but being open-minded and truly attempting to understand their perspective means you can create dialogue, foster creativity, and move forward as a team. 

Being open-minded doesn’t mean accepting every new idea and agreeing wholesale with every different opinion. While you should always try to be open and receptive to new ideas and other perspectives, you should also critically appraise and engage with them as part of a larger creative process. Don’t be so open-minded you have no strong opinions of your own!

Heard, Seen, Respected (HSR)   #issue analysis   #empathy   #communication   #liberating structures   #remote-friendly   You can foster the empathetic capacity of participants to “walk in the shoes” of others. Many situations do not have immediate answers or clear resolutions. Recognizing these situations and responding with empathy can improve the “cultural climate” and build trust among group members. HSR helps individuals learn to respond in ways that do not overpromise or overcontrol. It helps members of a group notice unwanted patterns and work together on shifting to more productive interactions. Participants experience the practice of more compassion and the benefits it engenders.

Open-mindedness is particularly useful when it comes to meaningfully communicating with others. Whether its developing the ability to walk in the shoes of someone else or building empathy and listening skills, Heard, Seen, Respected is a great method to try when learning to be more open-minded.

Lateral thinking is a prime example of how we can creatively solve real-world problems in a measurable and easy-to-understand manner. Deploying lateral thinking means using reasoning or non-traditional logic to find an indirect or out-of-the-box approach to solving a problem. 

A simple example might be a challenge like: we need to increase revenue. Traditional thinking might mean considering hiring new salespeople to try and get more direct sales. A lateral approach might mean engaging more with current customers to reduce churn, working with external partners to get new leads, working to get sponsorship, piloting an affiliate scheme or any number of new ways to solve the existing problem.

Broadly speaking, lateral thinking often means stepping back and considering solutions or approaches outside of the immediately obvious.

One potential danger with lateral thinking is spending time to create new solutions to problems that don’t need them. Not every problem needs to be solved laterally and the best solution might actually be the most straightforward. Be sure to tap into existing knowledge and appraise a problem before trying something radical to avoid wasted time or frustration!  

The Creativity Dice   #creativity   #problem solving   #thiagi   #issue analysis   Too much linear thinking is hazardous to creative problem solving. To be creative, you should approach the problem (or the opportunity) from different points of view. You should leave a thought hanging in mid-air and move to another. This skipping around prevents premature closure and lets your brain incubate one line of thought while you consciously pursue another.

Developing your lateral thinking skills comes more naturally to some than others. The Creativity Dice is a great method for getting out of linear thinking habits and moving into different ways of thinking.

Pattern recognition 

Pattern recognition is the ability to recognise existing or emerging patterns and make connections based on the patterns you have discerned . While pattern recognition goes back to our prehistoric roots, being able to spot patterns outside of the ordinary and consider what may not be immediately obvious is a vital creative thinking skill for today. 

Consider how meetings between some members of a team might often end in conflict. While it might first seem that these two people just can’t get along, it might actually be that certain emotional triggers are being tripped or the format of the conversation isn’t working. Looking beyond your initial impressions and from a new perspective might let you find a repeating pattern that isn’t immediately obvious.

When trying to spot patterns, try to be mindful of existing biases so you avoid bending what is happening to fit a pattern you might be expecting. Be sure to interpret all data fairly and honestly, even if you believe a pattern is already forming. 

Affinity Map   #idea generation   #gamestorming   Most of us are familiar with brainstorming—a method by which a group generates as many ideas around a topic as possible in a limited amount of time. Brainstorming works to get a high quantity of information on the table. But it begs the follow-up question of how to gather meaning from all the data. Using a simple Affinity Diagram technique can help us discover embedded patterns (and sometimes break old patterns) of thinking by sorting and clustering language-based information into relationships. It can also give us a sense of where most people’s thinking is focused

Pattern recognition is a skill that benefits from thoughtful practice. Try starting with a deliberate pattern-finding process like Affinity Map to build the ability to see patterns where they might not first be obvious.

While it might not seem like it at first, being a good listener is a creative thinking skill. It asks that a person not only try to understand what is being said but also to engage with the why and how of the conversation in order to reframe prior thinking and see things from a new perspective.

Deep listening or active listening is not only hearing the words that someone is saying but actively seeking to interpret their intent, understand their position, and create a positive space for further conversation. Not only does this create a deeper conversation for both parties, but this act of engagement and understanding leads to more creative and dynamic results too. 

Think of a workplace grievance that one person might have against another. Without actively listening and trying to understand the core issues from the perspective of everyone involved, you might not only fail to solve the issue but actually make staff feel less heard and valued too.

By employing this creative thinking skill in such a conversation you can see things more clearly and find a way to creatively satisfy the needs of everyone involved. 

Active Listening   #hyperisland   #skills   #active listening   #remote-friendly   This activity supports participants to reflect on a question and generate their own solutions using simple principles of active listening and peer coaching. It’s an excellent introduction to active listening but can also be used with groups that are already familiar with it. Participants work in groups of three and take turns being: “the subject”, the listener, and the observer.

Trying to be more present in conversations is a great place to begin building your deep listening and active listening skills . Want to supercharge the process as a group? Try a role-play activity like Active Listening to more thoughtfully see and reflect on how important this skill can be.

Not all established working practices are the best way of doing things. People who practice this creative thinking skill are likely to question the status quo in search of something new which can deliver meaningful change. While any challenge to the established order needs to be conducted respectfully and thoughtfully, thinking of how to go beyond the norm is how innovation occurs and where creative thinkers excel.

When trying to practice this skill, be prepared to question existing methods and frameworks and ask if there might be a better way outside of the limits of the current system. 

As with lateral thinking, it’s important to recognize that not everything is a problem that needs to be solved and so you may need to be selective in which norms should be challenged – otherwise, you may never make it out of the front door!

Additionally, challenging the established order often means questioning the work someone else has already done. While this is a necessary part of growth, it should always be done constructively and respectfully.  

W³ – What, So What, Now What?   #issue analysis   #innovation   #liberating structures   You can help groups reflect on a shared experience in a way that builds understanding and spurs coordinated action while avoiding unproductive conflict. It is possible for every voice to be heard while simultaneously sifting for insights and shaping new direction. Progressing in stages makes this practical—from collecting facts about What Happened to making sense of these facts with So What and finally to what actions logically follow with Now What . The shared progression eliminates most of the misunderstandings that otherwise fuel disagreements about what to do. Voila!

Challenging norms without a considered approach can be ineffective and potentially frustrating. Taking the time to build shared understanding and push in the same direction with What, So What, Now What? is a great way to explore how your existing process is or isn’t working and challenge norms productively.

Creative thinking doesn’t mean being disorganized or chaotic just because you have an abundance of ideas. In order to facilitate creative thinking, it’s important to stay organized and approach the process with the right framework, mindset, and space. As a creative thinking skill, lean organization means considering what you absolutely need to do in order to make things happen, versus what you don’t.

Think of how a large, multi-discipline team might go about organizing themselves for a big project. While it’s vital everyone is aligned and kept up to date, a traditional system of scheduled meetings might not be the most productive. Lean organization means considering the needs of the team, the project and thinking creatively about what you need to stay organized, and keeping unnecessary admin to a minimum.

Thinking creatively about organization is something all leaders should practice but any project can benefit from thinking through the process by which it will be accomplished. 

MoSCoW   #define intentions   #create   #design   #action   #remote-friendly   MoSCoW is a method that allows the team to prioritize the different features that they will work on. Features are then categorized into “Must have”, “Should have”, “Could have”, or “Would like but won‘t get”. To be used at the beginning of a timeslot (for example during Sprint planning) and when planning is needed.

Lean organization often means being honest and realistic about what is absolutely necessary versus nice to have. MoSCoW is an effective agile framework for planning work and also reframing your approach to organizing time, tasks and more!

Simplifying, presenting or decoding any information is a vital skill when working with others. In a creative thinking context, simplification is the act of seeing what is important about a task or piece of data and stripping away the extraneous parts to see things more clearly.

Some problems can feel unassailable because of their complexity or scale – simplification allows you to reconsider a problem in simple terms and reframe it in a way that means you can approach it productively. 

An example of using this creative thinking skill at work might be when presenting the results of a project to the rest of your organization. People working on other teams and in different disciplines could become disengaged if exposed to too many complex moving parts or it might simply be a waste of time to discuss every detail.

By simplifying a project into more succinct terms, you not only can help your group connect with the material swiftly but also boil a project down to its most important elements . This is a great way to creatively re-energize a project and identify where you can make an impact immediately. 

6 Words   #ufmcs   #red teaming   This tool is designed to help critical thinkers focus on a core idea by writing a short phrase summarizing their thoughts into a set number of words that are clear, concise, and accurate. This idea is based on a complete short story written by Ernest Hemingway: “For sale, baby shoes – never worn.” Six Words forces people to synthesize their ideas in a succinct and meaningful way, cutting away fluff and distilling the idea to its bare essence.

One way of practicing simplification is by summarising or condensing thoughts, ideas of stories into a more concise, compressed form . 6 Words is a method for cutting away extraneous material from ideas that engages creative thinking and reframing approachably – great for groups!

Any major project requires some measure of planning in order to succeed, especially when working with others. But are there times where overplanning or traditional working processes feel too slow or frustrating for the project at hand? This is where these creative thinking skills come in handy! Radical planning is a way of approaching project planning from an alternative angle in order to generate fast, effective results.  

When taking this planning approach, you will often shuffle the order of the normal planning process in order to create alternative outcomes and cut out elements you may not need. For example, with the backcasting workshop activity, the approach is to think of desired outcomes up to twenty years in the future and work backward to figure out how we can make small steps today.

You might also try planning with a mindset of what you and your team can each achieve immediately and in a more experimental fashion with an activity like 15% solutions . 

By approaching planning with a creative thinking mindset, you can surface ideas and plans which may not have come up with a more traditional planning process. Another great benefit is to question the normal manner in which your team or organisation approaches planning and can help your team find a method that works best for you!

Backcasting   #define intentions   #create   #design   #action   Backcasting is a method for planning the actions necessary to reach desired future goals. This method is often applied in a workshop format with stakeholders participating. To be used when a future goal (even if it is vague) has been identified.

Collaborative thinking 

Effective collaboration requires us to bring many different skills together, but consciously considering how to be a more effective collaborator is worth mentioning separately. When a creative thinker approaches collaboration, they will try to think of how to use alternative approaches to make the collaborative process more effective while also helping everyone on the team contribute and be heard.

An example is when it comes to getting work done in meetings – if the current process isn’t enabling everyone to collaborate effectively, you might employ creative thinking to try finding an alternative format, consider working asynchronously, or timeboxing parts of your agenda.

The best collaborators also find ways to champion the work of others and create a safe space for everyone to contribute – it might not be enough to assume collaboration will be accomplished when you get people in a room.

Employing this creative thinking skill can make all the difference when it comes to job satisfaction, interpersonal relationships and group outcomes too! Try approaching your collaborative projects more mindfully and see how it changes things for you!

Marshmallow challenge with debriefing   #teamwork   #team   #leadership   #collaboration   In eighteen minutes, teams must build the tallest free-standing structure out of 20 sticks of spaghetti, one yard of tape, one yard of string, and one marshmallow. The marshmallow needs to be on top. The Marshmallow Challenge was developed by Tom Wujec, who has done the activity with hundreds of groups around the world. Visit the Marshmallow Challenge website for more information. This version has an extra debriefing question added with sample questions focusing on roles within the team.

Working together on a task as a team is an effective way of kickstarting collaborative thinking, especially if you approach the task mindfully . The Marshamllow Challenge with debriefing is a proven method for engaging teamwork and by adding reflection time afterward, your group can share and build on what they learned.

Collecting data might seem like a solely analytical skill, but it is another area where creative thinking can lead to productive, unexpected and transformative results. Approaching the data collection process creatively might mean trying new techniques or sources, or simply reconsidering the how and why of your data collection processes.  

Imagine you are running a survey to measure customer happiness. You might try asking traditional survey questions, but find that your response rate is low and furthermore, your approach might be invasive and actively decrease happiness too!

If you were to approach this problem creatively, you might find that using a simplified form, asking for feedback at a different point in the customer journey, or utilizing an alternative measurement scheme delivers the data you are looking for. In many cases, thinking about the questions you are asking from a new point of view is what unlocks a better data collection process.

The key to this creative thinking skill is to try looking at the data collection process from a new, preferably customer-centric perspective while also considering why and how you are collecting data. You will likely find that by asking for input from your customers more creatively, you create space for more creative responses too!

3 Question Mingle   #hyperisland   #team   #get-to-know   An activity to support a group to get to know each other through a set of questions that they create themselves. The activity gets participants moving around and meeting each other one-on-one. It’s useful in the early stages of team development and/or for groups to reconnect with each other after a period of time apart.

3 Question Mingle is a get to know you activity that does double duty in demonstrating the power of approaching data collection creatively. By creating their own questions, a group can really think about what they want to know, how they ask questions, and how the results differ. Be sure to give it a try!

Interpretation and analysis

Interpretation skills can be varied though in a creative thinking context it means being able to successfully analyze an idea, solution, dataset, or conversation and draw effective conclusions. Great interpreters are people with a desire to listen, understand, and dig deeper in order to make their interpretation fully realised.

One of the ways creative thinking can improve interpretation is in helping us challenge assumptions or initial readings of data in order to consider other possible interpretations and perspectives.

Say your product is having a problem with losing lots of new customers shortly after signing up. You do a survey and people say that they leave because the product isn’t useful to them. Your initial interpretation of that data might be that you’re not the right fit for these customers or that the product needs new features.

If you were to apply creative thinking to the interpretation of this data, you might conduct further research and see that the product is fine, but people didn’t find the right features for them and that your onboarding process needs to be improved.

The key here is interpreting the data from various perspectives and then correlating that with other sources to form an accurate and representative interpretation, rather than going with your initial assumption . By following this process, you might also find that the way you are collecting data is flawed (perhaps not asking the right questions) or that more research and data collection is needed.

So long as you are sure to have data points and analysis to back up your findings, it pays to explore alternative interpretations so you can avoid bias and find the most accurate takeaways . 

Fishbone diagram   #frame insights   #create   #design   #issue analysis   Fishbone diagrams show the causes of a specific event.

Effective interpretation and analysis isn’t possible without a thorough exploration of the problem or topic at hand. Fishbone Diagram is a simple method for not only surfacing insights but framing them in a way that allows for proper and multi-perspective analysis.

Einstein is quoted as saying, “We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.” In this mold, sometimes the best ideas and solutions come from fields and disciplines outside of our own. By considering how someone with a different skillset to your own would solve a problem or deploy solutions, you can often find ideas and techniques you may never have considered. 

Consider being tasked with improving employee happiness. A social media manager with a background in illustration and events management would likely try a very different approach to a sales manager who is used to a culture of incentives and bonuses. If you were trying to develop a new product, think of how a developer would approach deciding on key features versus an academic or a customer success manager? 

The important thing here is to try and use the perspective, skill set , and approach of another field or discipline to first consider and then solve a problem more fully . Where possible, try and include people from other disciplines in the process and try to avoid making assumptions.

As with all creative thinking skills, being open-minded and sourcing the expertise and opinions of others where necessary is vital when creating true innovation.

Mash-Up Innovation   #hyperisland   #innovation   #idea generation   Mash-ups is a collaborative idea generation method in which participants come up with innovative concepts by combining different elements together. In a first step, participants brainstorm around different areas, such as technologies, human needs, and existing services. In a second step, they rapidly combine elements from those areas to create new, fun and innovative concepts. Mash-ups demonstrates how fast and easy it can be to come up with innovative ideas.

Interdisciplinary thinking isn’t just for radical academics. By combining ideas from disparate fields in a fast, fun manner, Mash-Up Innovation is great for building creative thinking skills and generating results in one fell swoop!

All creative thinking skills are about reframing things in a new way of finding alternative approaches. This can often mean abandoning an existing framework and thinking outside of the box. That said , another way of applying creative thinking is by bringing rulesets, constraints, or frameworks to your approach in order to trigger deeper creative work and tap into a problem-solving mindset . 

Consider a simple task like trying to generate more customers. With free reign, there are innumerable ways to accomplish this. But what happens if you create a rule like, we cannot spend any money, or, these must be driven by social media alone. In order to accomplish your goal under these conditions, you must think more creatively and deeply, deploying more concentrated problem-solving skills than if you could try any approach you wanted. 

Alternatively, you might approach a problem with a framework that forces you to think under specific circumstances or with a rigid set of steps. Six thinking hats is a great workshop activity that asks participants to frame and reframe a problem from six different angles. While it might first seem counterintuitive, the use of rules or frameworks can create fertile ground for creative thinking and lead to more realized solutions!

The Six Thinking Hats   #creative thinking   #meeting facilitation   #problem solving   #issue resolution   #idea generation   #conflict resolution   The Six Thinking Hats are used by individuals and groups to separate out conflicting styles of thinking. They enable and encourage a group of people to think constructively together in exploring and implementing change, rather than using argument to fight over who is right and who is wrong.

Not all problems are created equal. Depending on how much it directly affects you, you might see a given problem as being more or less important than your colleagues, leading to a different response and approach to solving the problem. This creative thinking skill is all about being able to switch between seeing the bigger picture while also considering how something might manifest on a smaller scale.

Think of how frustrating it can be when an executive team makes sweeping changes that affect frontline staff in a way they might not have anticipated. Micro and macro thinking means seeing both problems and potential solutions from multiple perspectives and adjusting accordingly. 

Another key aspect of applying this approach is knowing the limits of your own knowledge and involving stakeholders from all levels of an organization to inform your ideation and problem-solving process.

If you’ve never worked in support and don’t regularly talk to your support team, you might not understand how a change to helpdesk software could impact your team and your clients – remember that a big part of any change in perspective is doing the research and talking to who will be affected ! 

Stakeholder Round Robin Brainstorm   #idea generation   #brainstorming   #perspectives   #remote-friendly   #online   A divergent process to generate ideas and understanding from different perspectives.

Learning to practice micro and macro thinking often starts with first listening to and understanding the needs and perspectives of others . Especially those who have varied positions in relation to the problem, solutions, or organization you are working with. Stakeholder Round Robin Brainstorm is an effective method of surfacing insights and perspectives quickly and productively.

Of all the creative thinking skills on this list, visual thinking might be one you are most familiar with. Visual thinking is a method of processing, learning, and presenting information and concepts with visual assets such as images.

Visual thinking is often associated with creative thinking because of the consumption and creation of images at its heart. Don’t let this make you think you have to be able to draw in order to be a visual thinker.

Applying this creative thinking skill means being able to interpret visual information, present concepts in an often simple visual manner, and communicate in a way that is more universally understood.  Drawing stick people is actively encouraged!

Visual approaches to problem-solving can help foster shared understanding and help people be more succinct or creative in their ideas. Remember: if an idea is too complex to be put into pictures, perhaps it needs further refinement .

Imagie-ination   #idea generation   #gamestorming   Images have the ability to spark insights and to create new associations and possible connections. That is why pictures help generate new ideas, which is exactly the point of this exercise.

While you might be able to jump straight into direct applications of visual thinking, it can help to try an exercise where you and a group explore using images simply and engagingly. Imagie-ination helps unlock the power of visual thinking as a team while also helping generate ideas too!

Abstraction or abstract thinking is the art of taking things out of their normal context and presenting them in a radical new light . While most creative thinking skills utilise abstraction in some form, it’s worth noting that actively trying to take an idea from one context and place it in another is a creative approach all on its own.

Think of Pablo Picasso’s cubist portraits – by taking something as common as a human face and bringing abstraction to his process, he created something radically different and innovative. You can create a similar effect by recontextualizing ideas, concepts, and problems and by looking at them from different, perhaps even conflicting points of view.

Abstract thinking is often built on engaging with absurdities, paradoxes, and unexpected connections . As such, it can often be fun, wild and surprising, and is a great way to generate creative ideas even in those who might be resistant to other forms of creative thinking. Lean into the weird!

Forced Analogy   #divergent thinking   #zoom   #virtual   #remote-friendly   People compare something (e.g. themselves, their company, their team) to an object.  

Forced Analogy is a quick, fun activity you can use to promote abstract thinking. Comparing one thing to another seemingly unrelated thing asks for a creative approach to context and metaphor and can really unlock a groups divergent thinking process.

Telling stories or narrativizing a problem can help us not only see things differently but understand where we share common ground with others. Everybody tells stories – whether that’s explaining our employment history, telling colleagues about what happened at the weekend, or when creating user personas and journeys. 

Leverage this inclination to help people not only realize they are creative thinkers by nature but to help them share something of themselves too!

As a creative thinking skill, storytelling is about applying our natural proclivity for stories into new situations or thinking about how to reappraise or present material narratively . Think of the basic storytelling concept like the idea that all stories have a beginning, middle, and end – how might we bring this thinking to a tough challenge, a new product, or when solving a customer complaint?

You might even use storytelling tropes like the hero’s journey when exploring ideas or company conflicts. Whichever way you go, remember that stories are a universal element of culture and you have a rich lineage to dip into if you need a new perspective. 

Telling Our Stories   #hyperisland   #team   #teambuilding   To work effectively together team members need to build relations, show trust, and be open with each other. This method supports those things through a process of structured storytelling. Team members answer questions related to their childhood, young adulthood, and now; then weave them into a story to share with the rest of their team.

Telling Stories in a collaborative space is one of the best ways you can approach creative thinking through narrative . By doing this activity as a team, you can help a group see the benefit of applying storytelling approaches outside of more traditional forms.

How many times have you had a tough problem that you can’t seem to solve so you get frustrated and leave your desk. Then, when you’re on a walk, standing in the supermarket, or falling asleep, a solution seems to arrive out of thin air? Often, you’ll find that creating space to reflect on a problem is an effective way to find a way forward.

The trick with making reflective space work as a larger part of your working practice is knowing when to take time to reflect, building space into your regular schedule, and finding techniques that allow things to surface effectively.

This might mean going for a walk with the intention to be present in noticing the world around you and gaining insights that can help your situation. It might also mean remembering to take time to rest or simply read and give your brain something good to chew on.

I notice, I wonder   #design   #observation   #empathy   #issue analysis   Learn through careful observation. Observation and intuition are critical design tools. This exercise helps you leverage both. Find clues about the context you’re designing for that may be hidden in plain sight.

In a creative thinking context, reflection often means giving an idea time to unfurl and to resist the temptation to force it – by creating space to observe and reflect with I notice, I wonder you might see new ways of thinking emerge naturally.

How to use creative thinking skills at work? 

At SessionLab, we’ve found many of the above creative thinking skills helpful when finding better ways to collaborate , handle workplace challenges or generate new ideas . Here are just a few small examples of things we’ve done that have benefited from thinking creatively as a team.

Using creative thinking to facilitate a site redesign

Using creative thinking to improve team communication, using creative thinking to improve collaboration.

Remember that creative thinking needn’t be explosive or radical to be useful – a simple shift in mindset or perspective can be all you need to create meaningful and impactful change.

When we began working on a site-wide redesign, we had to deploy a large number of creative thinking skills to make the process smooth and effective.

When first determining how to approach the project and scope the work, we reviewed how we had worked together on large projects in the past. While we saw there was room to improve, finding the best way to proceed and make the changes we needed was no easy task.

Challenging the entire process from start to finish with a creative thinking mindset and trying to stay open to alternative methods where possible was what unlocked the process for us. By reconsidering how we were running meetings, sharing feedback, and collaborating, we were able to identify where we were going wrong and then try alternative approaches more freely.

When it came to implementing solutions, we were also sure to  stay open to experimentation while challenging our core assumptions of what would work and wouldn’t. This really helped us refine the working process and tailor it to our particular team and goals.

Another example came with finding a new approach when work stalled on a specific page. For our features page, we began by following the standard approach we had developed – writing the copy and structuring the page first before then following with illustrations and images.

In this case, our existing approach got us to an impasse : it felt difficult for our designer to be creative and find the best way to translate ideas into images if the copy had already been defined and the structure felt too rigid. What we decided to do was to reverse the workflow completely and allow the designer to create design elements before we wrote the copy and implemented too rigid a structure.  

Throughout the project, creative thinking allowed us to challenge whether the existing way we did something was the right one and gave us scope to experiment and be open when finding solutions. Not only did this help us solve the immediate problems as they arose but they helped us come up with a great new design too! 

Creative thinking can come in extremely handy when it comes to communicating. If one form of communication or working process isn’t working, approaching the discussion with a creative thinking mindset can help resolve the immediate issue and create lasting change in how we converse and work together too. 

Like many virtual teams, we faced the challenge of some meetings feeling unproductive . The issues ranged from overrunning, crosstalk, not everyone feeling heard or able to contribute, or getting lost in ancillary discussions that were not productive or necessary. In an online setting, it can be hard to keep everyone on track and for things to run smoothly without accidentally talking over one another or causing frustration. 

When it came to crosstalk, we wanted to avoid the frustration of interruption and disruption but also wanted to ensure people did not feel like they couldn’t contribute . Using the finger rules technique in a remote setting allowed people to easily show when they wanted to speak and what they wanted to discuss without disrupting the flow of the meeting.

We also found that the reason some daily meetings felt unproductive was because the meetings were for the purpose of daily updates and there didn’t always feel like there was a lot to say, thus leading to frustration or unproductive time being spent in these meetings.

In this example, we moved to a weekly format while also ensuring that we continue daily check-ins on Slack. This approach meant that we cut down on unnecessary meetings while still ensuring everyone’s needs were met .

This method is an example of creatively approaching a communication problem by thinking outside of the box and being prepared to challenge core assumptions . While we all wanted to stay informed, it really helped to reconsider the methods for staying informed and whether our current approach was the best way to achieve what we needed. It was also useful to reassess how we approached meeting agendas and goal-setting – follow the link for more on that if you’re having difficulty with unproductive meetings!

Remember that creative thinking needn’t be explosive or radical to be useful – a simple shift in mindset or perspective can be all you need to create meaningful and impactful change .

Remember that looking to others and being inspired by how they did things can be as transformative as trying to reinvent the wheel!

A final example is how we approached collaborating on creating the new design. While all projects at SessionLab feature collaboration between multiple parties, in this case we wanted to create space for everyone on the team to contribute.

We found that when trying to collectively brainstorm in a live, remote session, it became difficult for everyone to contribute and reflect on what was being shared by other members of the team effectively .

Some people had been able to prepare less than others, other people were less aware of all the circumstances of the project, or others were less able to switch gears during their working day. This led to some contributions being missed, a messier working process, and a feeling of being rushed – all of which lead to less effective outcomes than we might have hoped for.

In this case, we thought of how asynchronous work , reflection time, and some small process changes might help solve the problems we were running into. We wanted to be able to respond to what was being shared more effectively while also creating space for everyone to contribute in a way that was most productive for them.

Starting the brainstorming session in personal MURAL boards asynchronously and on our own time meant everyone was able to ideate at the time that was best for them and without any distractions . By then encouraging review and reflection on other people’s boards ahead of the main session, we were able to properly take in ideas and let them develop without feeling hurried.

This approach reduced the amount of time we actively spent working together in a meeting while improving the quality of the work . It helped people engage with the process, reduced potential frustration, and also meant we were more able to respond fully to the suggestions of others. This was a great example of how thinking creatively and learning from others can help create better outcomes and a more streamlined process. 

It’s also worth noting that reflecting on our conversation with Anja Svetina Nabergoj regarding asynchronous learning and finding inspiration there was part of what helped this process along. Remember that looking to others and being inspired by how they did things can be as transformative as trying to reinvent the wheel!

Creative workshops and meetings made easy

Whether you find that creative thinking doesn’t come naturally, if your skills need some attention, or even if you just want to try new ways of working, it can be difficult to know where to begin .

Thinking about the creative thinking skills above and considering which you might be missing or could benefit from purposeful attention is a great place to start, though there are also some concrete ways you can approach the process and improve your creative thinking abilities in a pinch. Let’s see how! 

Be present and aware of how you feel

Create space for new ideas, look to others for inspiration, throw yourself into new things, encourage creative thinking in others.

All skills get better with practice and creative thinking is no exception. Whether it’s active listening, experimentation or any other creative thinking style, it’s okay to not get it right the first time . The very act of being open to new approaches and perspectives is itself a way to improve your creative thinking skill set. However you try to implement creative thinking, know that exploration, iteration, and practice are fundamental parts of the process.

Try starting small and practice your creative thinking skills in your interpersonal relationships and collaborative projects. Take note of how it goes and try building up to larger and larger implementations of your creative thinking approaches. 

A key part of cultivating or improving any new skill is to be fully present and aware when utilizing that skill. Consider how a sculptor needs to be aware of their materials, how they handle the material and place them on the board in order to be truly successful. Being present in the moment is important for any collaborative process, but is an especially vital aspect of creative thinking.

If you find yourself frustrated, excited, engaged, or stuck, make a mental note of how you are feeling and consider how you might do things differently. Staying present and actively engaging with how a situation makes you feel before responding is one of the most effective ways of cultivating and improving your creative thinking – be sure to give it a go! 

As with many aspects of creativity, it’s not always effective to force it. Good ideas and finding new approaches can take time and an important part of the creative thinking process is creating space not only for reflection but to rest and allow things to surface. This might mean building more quiet, mindful time into your routine, reading and finding new inspiration, or simply learning to take a break. 

While this can be difficult to get into the habit of, it does get easier with time. Try blocking out reflective time in your calendar or letting others know that you are taking the time in order to make it stick and avoid interruptions. Reflective space is important and useful, and by treating it as such, you can help ensure it happens and doesn’t get discarded or forgotten about.

One of the biggest barriers to thinking creatively is simply not being open to what is in front of you. Whether it’s rushing to use an existing solution without investigating alternatives, failing to listen or be present when something new is being presented, or sticking with your existing assumptions, a failure to stay open and reserve judgment can kill creative thinking.

Try to stay open and apply creative thinking without pressure or being overly critical in order to improve those skills and let more creative approaches surface in the future. 

One of the best ways to find new perspectives and alternative ways of thinking is by looking to others. Whether it’s finding inspiration from other creative thinkers via conversation, reading and researching new sources, or simply listening and observing, looking outside of yourself is one of the most effective ways you can jolt your creative thinking. 

Try finding sources outside of your normal circles, whatever the medium. It can be very easy to get into creative bubbles that might unwittingly exclude new forms of thinking. By broadening your social, creative and critical circles , you can be exposed to all kinds of potentially inspiring or creatively engaging ways of thinking and doing.

It’s hard to create space and an opportunity for new ways of thinking if you stick to the same routines and activities. You’ll often find that trying new things and exposing yourself to new hobbies, skills and approaches can be massively engaging and exciting too.

An important aspect of creative thinking is applying the learnings from one discipline or approach to another. If a developer were to throw themselves into learning how to dance, they might learn something they can apply to their role as a developer.

An open and honest desire to explore new experiences in and outside of your working life is a vital ingredient in the creative thinking process. Try saying yes to doing new things wherever you can find them – being alive to possibility and engaging in the world is a great way of supercharging your creativity! 

Creativity is even better when shared. Whether it’s crowdsourcing new ideas, iterating together, or helping others build their creative thinking skills, sharing the experience is often a useful and generative process for all involved.

Try bringing a group together to explore thinking creatively together or run a workshop on developing creative thinking skills in the workplace. Not only will it help your participants with their own creative discovery, but it will also help you develop your own creative skills. 

Over to you

As facilitators and advocates of the power of workshops, we’re passionate about how creative thinking can improve many aspects of a group’s personal and working lives. At its heart, creative thinking is an empathic, generative act, and by bringing those concepts to the fore, we believe everyone can see better outcomes when solving problems, generating ideas or communicating with others. 

We hope we’ve given you some great examples of creative thinking at work and how you might discover and nurture your own creative thinking skills . That said, this list is by no means exhaustive and there are many more ways you might try thinking creatively. Think of this post as a jumping-off point for further exploration and creative development!

Do you have any concepts or approaches you’ve used to become a better creative thinker? Did you find any of the creative thinking methods above particularly helpful? We’d love to hear about your experience in the comments below!

James Smart is Head of Content at SessionLab. He’s also a creative facilitator who has run workshops and designed courses for establishments like the National Centre for Writing, UK. He especially enjoys working with young people and empowering others in their creative practice.

Very nice information. Thanks for posting such an informative blog. Creative thinking is an unconventional thinking that looks at an issue from different perspectives. Innovative thinking is a thinking that converts / commercializes a creative idea into practical application.

The Fosbury Flop is a very good example of a creative idea and trend when we apply “the learnings from one discipline or approach [Engineering] to another [High Jump].”

thanks alot…very informative and thoroug

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What is creative thinking and how can I improve?

Creative thinking refers to the ability to consider something in a new way, from a fresh perspective, or with novel ideas and solutions. It involves using one's imagination to generate original ideas, make new connections between seemingly unrelated concepts, and explore multiple possibilities.

Many people believe that creative thinking is something that strikes at random. In reality, there are many ways to use creative problem-solving every day, even if you don’t think you have innate creativity.

Building your creative skills is the key to innovation. But where do you start?

In this article, we’ll cover what creative thinking is, how it works, and how to strengthen your creative skills.

What is creative thinking?

At its core, creative thinking is intentionally gaining new insights and different ideas through existing information. Often, creative thought involves tapping into different styles of thinking and examining information from different viewpoints to see new patterns. Anyone can foster a creative mind with some practice!

Using a wide variety of brainstorming strategies can help you discover new solutions for issues in every area of your life, including at work.

In fact, 61% of employees say they’re expected to come up with creative ideas or new ways to do things at work. But, with only 30% of employees saying they’re given time to think or discuss new ideas daily, it’s becoming increasingly important to develop our creative thinking muscles.

Types of creative thinking

Fostering creative thinking starts with changing your perspective. Learning new and different styles of thinking can help give birth to powerful idea generation. 

Aesthetic, divergent , lateral, convergent, and inspirational thinking are five types of innovative thinking to get the ball rolling.

( Image source )

Divergent and convergent thinking are the most common ways to foster more creative thought. 

• Divergent thinking is like a traditional brainstorming session, where you come up with as many possible solutions as your imagination will allow. 
• Convergent thinking takes a more logical approach, encouraging you to gather facts and discover the most common solution to a problem. These strategies are frequently used together to conjure new creative solutions.
• Inspirational thinking focuses on imagining the best-case scenarios to find a new way to solve a problem.
• Lateral thinking involves letting ideas flow in a step-by-step format.
• Aesthetic thinking focuses on reframing the problem to see its inherent beauty and value, like looking at a painting.

Why is creative thinking important?

It’s easy to get stuck in the same thought patterns, especially at work. However, those thought patterns may be hampering your innovation and keeping you stuck in routines that don’t serve you. 

Creative thinking shows us that there are many solutions to any problem, and developing your creative thinking skills helps you recognize innovative solutions more quickly. 

Plus, creativity was the most sought-after soft skill in 2020 , so strengthening your creativity skills can set you apart at work, too.

Alongside critical thinking and focus , creative thinking is crucial to help recognize patterns that may not be obvious at first glance. Thinking creatively makes you a better problem-solver, which has far-reaching benefits in both your work and personal life.

Expressive, creative thinking helps us challenge our own assumptions, discover new things about ourselves and our perspective, stay mentally sharp, and even be more optimistic .

How creative thinking works

Many business leaders see creativity and innovation as something unpredictable, with 53% of businesses reporting that innovation occurs by chance . However, with the right tools, you can tap into creative thinking whenever you want.

There are many ways to get your creative juices flowing, and practicing creative thinking strategies can help you think outside the box more readily and more often: 

• A go-to example for creative thinking may be the advertising executive coming up with creative campaigns by brainstorming with divergent thinking. However, that’s far from the only way to use creative thinking. 
• In STEM industries like biomedicine, stimulating creativity by asking open-ended questions and creating fictional scenarios helps professionals find innovative solutions to health problems. These questions encourage medical professionals to experiment and discover new ways of solving a persistent problem. 

Creative thinking is valuable in many situations, not just in traditionally creative industries. Whether you’re solving a problem , organizing your calendar, or at an impasse with your team, creative thinking can come in handy.

Here are 5 examples of using creative thinking in and out of the workplace:

• Mind mapping for brainstorming : When tackling a new project, you create a mind map to explore various aspects and ideas. Start with the central concept in the middle of a page and branch out into subtopics, then further divide into smaller ideas. This visual representation helps you see connections and generate innovative solutions.
• Reverse thinking : Instead of thinking about how to solve a problem, consider how to cause it. For example, if you're trying to improve customer service , think about what actions would lead to poor customer service. Identifying these actions can help you understand what to avoid and inspire ideas for improvement.
• Combining unrelated concepts : Take two seemingly unrelated ideas and combine them to create something new. For instance, combining the concept of a café with a library led to the creation of a "book café," where people can read and enjoy coffee in a comfortable environment.
• Role-playing : Put yourself in someone else's shoes to gain a new perspective . For example, if you're developing a new product, imagine you're the end-user and think about their needs, desires, and pain points. This can help you design more user-friendly and innovative products.
• SCAMPER technique : Use the SCAMPER method to improve or innovate existing products or ideas. SCAMPER stands for Substitute, Combine, Adapt, Modify, Put to another use, Eliminate, and Reverse. By systematically applying these actions, you can generate new ideas and solutions. For instance, you might think about how to modify a traditional bicycle to create a more efficient electric bike.

The benefits of creative thinking

Creative thinking doesn’t just make you a better employee; it also makes you a better parent, student, and leader, too. By developing your creative thinking skills , the benefits of thinking creatively can show up throughout your daily life.

Here are a few major benefits of creative thinking.

Improved problem-solving capabilities

We don’t just solve problems at work, and we shouldn’t only use our creative thinking skills at work, either! Developing your creative thinking abilities can help you solve a wide variety of problems faster. 

As your mind becomes more accustomed to using different thought techniques, you’ll quickly recognize patterns that you might not have before.

Stronger interpersonal connections

Creative thinking can help you communicate your ideas more clearly , which leads to better conversations and relationships with your friends, family, and coworkers. 

Plus, many creative thinking methods work best when they’re done in a group. Developing new ideas together can strengthen bonds and help you combine ideas to create something truly innovative.

Heightened productivity

It may seem like creative thinking is a time-consuming distraction from your work, but that couldn’t be further from the truth. 

When we get stuck in thought patterns, it’s easy to get frustrated when something isn’t working correctly. That frustration can cause our productivity to plummet. 

Taking a moment and engaging in a creative thinking strategy can renew your motivation , reinvigorate your passion, and help you find new solutions when you’re stuck. 

Higher self-awareness

Creative thinking allows you to try on perspectives that you may not have considered before. 

As you’re exploring new perspectives, you may discover something about your own assumptions, viewpoints, or biases that you never noticed . 

Challenging your traditional way of thinking can offer higher self-awareness and build your emotional intelligence. With creative thinking, you strengthen your ability to reframe your perspective and harness a growth mindset.

Breaking away from your normal routine and trying something new is the key to fostering creative thinking in your daily life.

There are many ways to do this. While practicing different thinking strategies and brainstorming with your team at work help to develop these skills, they’re far from the only way to foster a more creative thought process. Here are 13 suggestions to inspire you:

1. Meet new people

One powerful way to get your creativity flowing is to meet new people , especially if they’re in the arts or in a different industry from you. Sharing your interests and listening to others can inspire you to view the world differently. 

2. Let yourself get bored

Practicing boredom can help you develop your creativity , too. Allowing yourself to become bored and seeing what pulls your interest can help you practice letting your curiosity lead the way. 

3. Embrace curiosity

Ask questions about everything that piques your interest, and come up with possible answers before you look up the actual answer. Challenging the status quo and seeking new information can develop a beginner mindset and lead to innovative ideas.

4. Seek out diverse experiences

Engage in different activities, travel, meet new people, and explore various cultures. Exposure to diverse experiences broadens your perspective.

5. Practice mindfulness and meditation

Regular mindfulness and meditation can help clear your mind, reduce stress, and improve your focus, creating a fertile ground for creativity.

6. Collaborate with others

Work with people from different backgrounds and fields. Collaborative efforts often lead to the cross-pollination of ideas and new perspectives.

7. Keep a journal

Maintain a journal to jot down thoughts, ideas, and observations. Writing regularly can help organize your thoughts and stimulate creativity.

8. Engage in brainstorming sessions

Set aside time for brainstorming . Allow free flow of ideas without judgment. Quantity can often lead to quality in creative thinking.

9. Change your environment

Alter your workspace or take breaks in different settings. A new environment can provide fresh stimuli and break routine thinking patterns.

10. Read widely

Read books , articles, and papers from various genres and fields. Reading widely exposes you to new ideas and ways of thinking.

11. Practice creative exercises

Engage in activities like drawing, writing, playing music, or solving puzzles. Creative exercises can enhance your problem-solving skills and imaginative thinking.

12. Take risks and embrace failure

Don’t be afraid to take risks and fail. Failure is a crucial part of the creative process , providing valuable lessons and insights for future endeavors.

13. Work with a coach

Coaching can also help you hone your creative thinking. In fact, 71% of employers see managerial coaching as helpful for creative development . When you’re feeling distracted or uninspired, coaching can refocus your attention and help you get curious about your experience.

Start fostering your creative thinking skills

Thinking more creatively can take effort, but a little practice can offer a ton of benefits. Honing your skills to recognize patterns and find solutions shifts your perspective and offers a new vantage point for you to explore. 

Not only can creative thinking improve your performance at work, but it can also improve every other area of your life too. 

Coaching is a powerful tool to help foster your creativity skills. Are you ready to become more innovative? 

Start working with a dedicated coach today to develop your own creative thinking skills.

Understand Yourself Better:

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Maggie Wooll, MBA

Maggie Wooll is a researcher, author, and speaker focused on the evolving future of work. Formerly the lead researcher at the Deloitte Center for the Edge, she holds a Bachelor of Science in Education from Princeton University and an MBA from the University of Virginia Darden School of Business. Maggie is passionate about creating better work and greater opportunities for all.

Why creativity isn't just for creatives and how to find it anywhere

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Health, Brain and Neuroscience

Mental, physical health and neuroscience, creative thinking: what is it and how to improve it.

Creative thinking is the ability to think in new and original ways. It means straying from traditional ideas and creating alternative solutions. Learn about the different scientific discoveries involving creative thinking and how we, as humans, are able to come up with new and original ideas.

A physics student was asked: “How could you use a Fortin barometer to measure the height of a building?”

The student answered: “Go to the roof of the building with a really long rope. Tie the barometer to one end and hang it off the side of the building. Make a mark in the rope when the barometer hits the ground, and then measure the distance. The height of the building will be the length of the rope from the barometer to the mark.”

The student’s answer wasn’t wrong, in fact, it could easily provide an accurate answer, and he was able to do it without using any physics at all. The teacher gave the student another chance to answer the question properly, using the formulas they had learned in class. A few minutes went by, and the student hadn’t written anything down. The professor later asked him if he didn’t know the answer, to which he replied, “I have a lot of answers, actually. I just don’t know which is the best”.

The student finally wrote an answer: “Climb to the top of the building and throw the barometer to the ground. Calculate the amount of time it takes for it to fall to the ground, and apply the distance and velocity formula. This will show you how tall the building is.”

The teacher asked what other answers the student had come up with. He said that he had a ton of other possible answers to the problem, none of which involved using the barometer for its traditional use. The professor asked the student if they knew how to use a barometer. He replied, “of course I do! But my teachers have taught me how to think out of the box”.

This is a great example of creative thinking . They say that this student was Niels Bohr, a Danish physicist who went on to with the Nobel Prize in Physics.

Table of Contents

What is creative thinking?

We all have the potential to be creative. You might think that being creative means doing creative things, but a creative thinker doesn’t always end up in creative roles. You could think of creative thinking as taking an alternative way to get to the same answer. Creative thinking implies the use of lateral or divergent thinking . In other words, ignoring preconceived, “normal” ideas, and thinking of original, alternative ideas.

Humans have convergent thinking and divergent thinking. Convergent thinking is used to bring together ideas. Divergent production abilities are those which are not guided by rules or conventions, but capable of generating new solutions to a problem. That is why divergent thinking is important for creative thinking.

Creative thinking is defined as personal, imaginative thinking which produces a new, novel and useful solution.

Creativity is the ability to make or do something new that is also useful or valued by others -Gardner

A consulting firm in the 70s-80s asked their clients to solve a 9-point puzzle. The goal was to connect all 9 dots using 4 lines, without lifting up the pencil, and without going over the same line twice. To successfully complete the task, you have to think outside the box!

We usually associate creativity to arts and leisure, but we use creative thinking in every task . You might not realize it, but using creative thinking in different situations can help you achieve better results in both mundane and important tasks. Lateral thinking can help you at work, but also comes into play when you’re at home or at the supermarket. You’ll see that improving your creative thinking will make it easier to write a report for your boss, cook a meal, and even help raise your children better.

4 stages of Creative Thinking

Creative thinking involves four stages:

1- Preparation

In this phase of creative thinking, the person has to formulate the problem and collect all the information needed to find new solutions. If after days, weeks or months of having done this and no solution is found, the person goes on to the next stage.

2- Incubation

During this stage of creative thinking, the person stops thinking about the problem directly and unconsciously the creative thinking process starts doing its job. Therefore, the contemplation about finding a solution to the problem is still going on while the thinker is busy doing other activities like reading, playing games, etc.

3- Illumination or Insight

Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines Insight as the power or act of seeing into a situation. In this stage of creative thinking, the creative ideas happen suddenly. It’s the light bulb illuminating or suddenly turning on like in cartoons. The obscure problem becomes clear and the solution is similar to “aha (eureka) experience”.

4- Verification

In the previous stage, we found the solution, however, this solution has to be verified to see if it adjusts to the formulated problem. Hence in this last stage evaluation of the solution is done. If the solution is not satisfactory the thinker will go back to creative process from the beginning. If it is satisfactory, the creative thinking process will be successful.

Neurophysiology and characteristics of Creative Thinking

Scientists John Kounios from Drexel University and Mark Beeman from Northwestern University have used fMRI machines to look into creative thinking.

• Brain activity linked to visual processing shuts off 300 milliseconds before creative thinking (this is like closing your eyes to suppress and block out stimuli). This shows that creative thinking requires introspection.
• Creative thinking is accompanied by a burst of activity in the right temporal lobe (right above the ear). The right temporal lobe is the area of the brain that is associated with distant space and time concepts. These links to past memories work with stimuli from the present, which favors new and original thinking.
• Alpha waves extend from the right hemisphere to gray matter, which helps create associations. We usually see alpha waves when we are relaxed or close our eyes. The appearance of these waves is an important part of creative thinking. According to Martinez Otero “The insights…are related to moments where there is a change in alpha activity and little concentration”.

Wandering minds favors creative thinking. The times when we are most creative are usually when we’re most relaxed or distracted . The brain is able to organize which tasks it deems to be most important or complex and allows us to do simpler tasks without using many mental resources. This is why it’s important to find the time to let your brain relax and give it the opportunity to let your creative thinking get to work .

Characteristics of Creative Thinkers

• Communicators : Having good communications skills is important since you need to express out of the box ideas. This requieres confidence and high self-esteem.
• Open-minded : Being creative means you might meet people with certain restraints, therefore you have to be openminded to new ideas and to accept rejection.
• Risk-takers : The same way you have to be open-minded, you have to take risks to prove your different creative ideas. These risks will allow you to reach intelligent and original solutions.
• Knowledgeable : You have to be able to understand and think about different situations and this requiers general knowledge in order to see the full picture when facing a problem.
• Flexiblility : The ability to adapt to new situations is basic when being creative. Having flexibility requires training your cognitive skills and brain training . CogniFit helps you train planning, inhibition and other abilities that can help you develop creative thinking.

10 exercises to Boost Creative Thinking

Everyone has the potential to be creative, but it seems that creativity usually sparks at an IQ of about 120. But don’t worry! Creative thinking can be trained and improved. Below you’ll see 10 ways to boost your creative thinking and create new and original ideas in no time.

1. Everything goes in creative thinking

People with developed creative thinking don’t believe in “bad ideas”. This ability to take any idea as a possible solution is called cognitive “dis-inhibition”. They don’t allow for internal judgment, and they let their creativity flow. Doing this means relaxing the filter that says “yes” or “no” to your ideas, like the study that Shelley Carson (Harvard) conducted.

Brainstorming allows us to propose ideas without judgment or fear of rejection- all ideas are good ideas, which allows us our ideas to flow freely. Researchers at the University of California saw that brainstorming allowed the participants to propose ideas that wouldn’t have been accepted in other settings, which shows that by creating an environment where creative thinking is encouraged, it is likely to thrive!

Creative thinking works better when you’re relaxed. The alpha waves that we mentioned before are present when we’re relaxed, and they’re the key to creative thinking. Allow yourself the time to relax and do some relaxing activities, like taking a nice bath or a long walk.

Psychologist Paulette Kouffman believes that water therapies, where you allow your body to float in a pool of Epson salt, increase creative thinking in university students. Also, monotonous tasks, like copying sentences, has also been shown to improve creative thinking, according to researchers at the University of Central Lancashire.

3. Distract yourself

Creative thinking works better when you’re not focusing all of your attention on one thing. Concentrating on a single task is helpful when you only have one task to work on, but ignoring other stimuli and not letting your brain “breathe” hurts the most creative part of the brain. Joseph Kasof, a psychologist at the University of California, Irvine, says that allowing some part of your mind to wander is linked to creative thinking.

While you may think of distractions as a bad thing, it can actually help you activate your creative thinking and make you more productive. For example, working in a noisy place might help creative thinking. A study at the University of British Columbia put this theory to the test by creating three different situations. The goal was to conduct a brainstorming session in different environments (quiet, normal, loud). The study shows that medium noise level, about 70 decibels, was most conducive to creativity. A loud environment will cause too much distraction, while a quiet place doesn’t allow the brain to distract itself enough. Try to work somewhere with moderate noise, like a cafe.

4. Be a kid again

Innovating is a must for creative thinking. As children, we never stop creating, imagining, and learning, but as we age, we lose this ability to favor rules and guidelines. When you’re stuck in a situation where you’re not sure what to do, ask yourself how a child might think about the situation. Experts Patrick Bateson and Paul Martin from the University of Cambridge say that the best way to think like a kid is to act like a kid. Bring the joy of playing back to playing.

There are many different ways for adults to “play”, and bringing games and activities into the office is a great start. Google is the gold standard for these types of business practices. The Google office has slides, Foosball, pools, and even indoor rock climbing to help its employees relax throughout the day.

5. Make a collage

Cut out pictures in magazines and put your ideas together to create something! Maybe make a plan before you start, so that once you’re “in the zone”, you can let your brain relax and let your hands work.

6. Socialize

Creative thinking requires that we use different perspectives to enrich our outlook on life. Surrounding yourself with people from different background and cultures help you expand your world outlook and help you create new ways of looking at the world.

Professor Epstein recommends not only making friends from different places, but visiting and getting to know places, things, foods, and traditions from cultures other than your own.

7. Don’t be afraid to fail

Creative thinking often started as a frustrated “there’s no way I can do this”, and ends in the “aha!” moment when you finally get the result you’re looking for. Don’t be afraid to look for answers in places you didn’t think you would find them, Creative thinking requires training, and if you’re just getting started, you need to be careful not to stress yourself out by looking for the perfect answer.

You might find that something that sounds like a great idea one night doesn’t seem so great in the morning. If this happens, don’t let it get you down. You’ll have to experiment until you get the answer.

8. Get some sleep

Don’t lose sleep over trying to find the right solution to a problem. Our brains need rest to work well, and creative thinking requires that our brains be working as well as possible. Ullrich Wagner from the University of Lübeck (Germany) suggests between 6 and 8 hours of sleep a night.

Harvard Medical School psychologist Diedre Barrett saw that students who were well-rested performed better while studying. She also saw that students who thought about the problem they wanted to solve before going to sleep had an easier time coming up with answers when they woke up.

9. Be happy

Being happy favors creating thinking more than sadness. People often think that artists are inspired or write about sad memories or melancholy events, but that’s not really true.

Psychologist Mihály Csíkszentmihályi from Claremont University discovered that happiness and creativity work together, and Karen Gasper from Penn State University has argued that when we’re happy, we’re more likely to associate words, diagnoses, or problem solve, while sadness has the opposite effect.

If you think about it, this makes a lot of sense if you think about someone suffering from depression. They are likely to have a short attention span, and have a hard time focusing on one problem or through. Happiness is key to creative thinking.

10. Walk to activate creative thinking

Exercise, in general, has been shown to improve creative thinking, but walking is the most conducive.

A study at Stanford University was set up to test how walking positively affected creative thinking. Four different conditions were created: walking on a treadmill, sitting and looking at a blank wall, walking outside, or sitting outside. Researchers then tested each subjects  lateral thinking , or the ability to create new and original ideas, and saw that those who were part of either “walking” group had higher creativity levels than those who were part of the “sitting” group.

Any questions? We’d be happy to answer. Leave me a comment below! 🙂

Cropley, A. (2006). In praise of convergent thinking. Creativity Research Journal, 18 (1), 291–404.

Gardner, H. (1993). Creative minds. New York: Basic Books.

Kaufman, J. & Baer, J. (2006). Creativity and reason in cognitive development. New York: Cambridge University Press.

Kim, K. (2006). Is creativity unidimensional or multidimensional? Analysis of Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking. Creativity Research Journal, 18 (1), 251–259.

Alejandra is a clinical and health psychologist. She is a child specialist with a diploma in evaluation and intervention in autism. She has worked in different schools with young children and private practice for over 6 years. She is interested in early childhood intervention, emotional intelligence, and attachment styles. As a brain and human behavior enthusiast, she is more than happy to answer your questions and share her experience.

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Creative Thinking: Definition and Structure

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Article contents

Creative thinking processes: managing innovative efforts.

• Michael D. Mumford , Michael D. Mumford The University of Oklahoma, Department of Psychology
• Robert Martin Robert Martin The University of Oklahoma, Department of Psychology
•  and  Samantha N. Elliott Samantha N. Elliott The University of Oklahoma, Department of Psychology
• https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780190224851.013.172
• Published online: 26 March 2019

Creative thinking is the basis for innovation in firms. And the need for strategy-relevant innovations has generated a new concern with how people go about solving the kinds of problems that call for creative thought. Although many variables influence people’s ability to provide creative problem solutions, it is assumed the ways in which people work with or process knowledge provides the basis for successful creative problem-solving efforts. Additionally, there has been evidence bearing on the processing activities that contribute to creative problem solving. It is noted that at least eight distinct processing activities are involved in most incidents of creative problem solving: (1) problem definition, (2) information gathering, (3) concept selection, (4) conceptual combination, (5) idea generation, (6) idea evaluation, (7) implementation planning, and (8) adaptive monitoring. There are strategies people employ in effective execution of each of these processes, along with contextual variables that contribute to, or inhibit, effective process execution. Subsequently, there are key variables that operate in the workplace that contribute to, or inhibit, effective execution of these processing operations. These observations, of course, lead to implications for management of innovative efforts in firms.

• creative processes
• problem solving

Few would dispute the impact of innovations in products and services on day-to-day life in our world. Many of us live on our cell phones, a technology based on innovations in solid-state circuitry (Gertner, 2013 ) and design (Isaacson, 2012 ). We travel in cars and on airplanes, both technologies arising from the development of internal combustion engines (Ganesan, 2012 ). Many of the products we use on a day-to-day basis arrive from factories located around the world—products that arrive in shipping containers, yet another innovation (Donovan & Bonney, 2006 ). Not only is our world shaped by such technical innovations, innovations in the way work is done from goal setting to standard operating procedures shape how firms seek to manage the production process (Kanigel, 2005 ).

Traditionally, innovation was not seen as a central goal of firms. Rather, innovations were viewed as something firms exploit (Mumford, Scott, Gaddis, & Strange, 2002 ). More recent work, however, indicates the long-term survival of firms, and their financial success ultimately depends on the firms’ capability for sustained innovation (Cefis & Marsili, 2005 ). At times, these innovations may call for the development and fielding of fundamentally new technologies or new services. At other times, however, chains of smaller innovations in firms, products, and services may prove to be the key to business success (Gordon, 2016 ).

Of course, many factors shape the development and success of attempts to develop and field viable new products and services—considerations that range from technological readiness (Wise, 1992 ) to the cost of the new product or service to customers (Rodgers & Adhikarya, 1979 ). However, ultimately a firm’s ability to develop and deploy viable new products and services depends on the ability of workers, all workers, to conceive of viable new products and services. The formulation of new products and services, however, is held to depend on peoples’ ability to think creatively. Put more specifically, innovation, the fielding of new products and services, is held to require that someone, an individual or a team, must be able to produce an original, high-quality, elegant solution (Besemer & O’Quin, 1998 ; Christiaans, 2002 ) to complex, novel, ill-defined, or poorly structured problems (Mumford & Gustafson, 2007 ). In this context, originality refers to the novelty, unexpectedness, and cleverness of a creative problem solution, whereas high quality is marked by complete, coherent, useful solutions. Elegance refers to the refinement and flow of the solution (Dailey & Mumford, 2006 ; Scott, Lonergan, & Mumford, 2005 ; Vessey, Barrett, & Mumford, 2011 ).

Of course, many variables influence the success of people’s creative problem-solving efforts. Creative problem solving requires a substantial investment of resources, and so, motivational variables such as need for cognition (Watts, Steele, & Song, 2017 ) and creative self-efficacy (Tierney & Farmer, 2002 ) have been found to contribute to creative problem solving. People’s willingness to engage in novel ill-defined tasks is also of some importance resulting in variables such as curiosity (Hardy, Ness, & Mecca, 2017 ) and openness (Furnham, 1999 ) influencing the success of people’s creative problem solving. People’s perception of their environment (climate perceptions) has been found to condition their willingness to undertake creative tasks (Hunter, Bedell, & Mumford, 2007 ). The availability of requisite resources (Howell & Boies, 2004 ) and induction of requisite structure (Marta, Leritz, & Mumford, 2005 ) also contributes to the success of peoples’ creative problem-solving efforts.

Although many variables contribute to the success of peoples’ creative problem-solving efforts, as is the case in any other form of problem solving, people must work with knowledge to produce a creative problem solution (Mumford, McIntosh, & Mulhearn, 2018 ). If, however, people could rely solely on extant knowledge to solve creative problems, they would not be dealing with a novel, ill-defined problem—remember that it is novel, complex, ill-defined problems that call for creative thought. As a result, the ways in which people work with knowledge (their processing activities) have long been considered critical to understanding creative problem solving (Finke, Ward, & Smith, 1992 ; Guilford, 1950 ; Wallas, 1926 ; Parnes & Noller, 1972 ). In the present effort, we will examine what we know about the key cognitive processes contributing to creative problem solving and the contextual variables that influence effective execution of these processes—including contextual variables operating in firms pursuing creative work to allow fielding of innovative and new products and services.

As noted above, creative thinking processes reflect mental operations for working with extant knowledge to provide high-quality, original, and elegant solutions to novel, complex, ill-defined problems. Accordingly, any discussion of creative thinking processes must begin with an examination of the role of knowledge in creative problem solving. Knowledge is commonly held to be reflected in people’s experience given the well-validated proposition that experts possess deeper, richer, better-organized knowledge structures (Ericsson, 2009 ).

In fact, Vincent, Decker, and Mumford ( 2002 ) have provided rather compelling evidence that knowledge and expertise contribute to people’s performance in creative problem solving. In this study, 1,818 army officers ranging in grade from second lieutenant to full colonel, were asked to solve a novel, complex, ill-defined military problem calling for creative thought using a modified think-aloud protocol where probe questions were presented to elicit certain creative problem-solving processes. Judges appraised the effectiveness of process execution. Expertise was assessed by presenting officers with a set of some 70 leadership tasks. They were asked to categorize these tasks, and their mapping onto a standard model of military leadership was used to appraise expertise. As might be expected, colonels (the more experienced officers) evidenced far higher scores on the measure of expertise than lieutenants. More centrally, expertise was found to be strongly and positively related (r = .51) to effective execution of those creative thinking processes. In fact, this measure of expertise produced stronger relationships with effective process execution than a measure of intelligence.

Apparently, the greater knowledge posed by experts contributes to the effective execution of creative thinking processes. Knowledge, however, comes in many forms—systematic or conceptual, case-based or experiential, associational, spatial, auditory, etc. In discussions of complex problem solving, however, the three key types of knowledges people are commonly held to employ are conceptual, case-based, and associational knowledge (Shondrick, Dinh, & Lord, 2010 ). Conceptual (or schematic) knowledge is based on concepts and principles pulled from past experience (Phye, 1990 ), where concepts are organized into categories that have exemplars based on certain features or principles (Estes & Ward, 2002 ). Conversely, case-based (or episodic) knowledge is a type of knowledge stemming from past experiences that a person draws upon in order to act appropriately in related situations. Lastly, associational knowledge refers to linkages between stimuli and response event nodes (Estes, 1991 ), where the activation of one event node activates other related nodes (Boucher & Dienes, 2003 ).

Hunter, Bedell-Avers, and Mumford ( 2007 ) asked 247 undergraduates to provide solutions to a creative problem requiring people to formulate a plan for leading a new, experimental, secondary school. Problem solutions were reliably appraised by judges for quality, originality, and elegance. Prior to preparing their problem solutions, an instructional intervention was used to prompt the use of conceptual, case-based, or associative knowledge (or all combinations thereof) in problem solving. It was found that priming the use of conceptual or case-based knowledge resulted in the production of the most creative problem solutions. Associational knowledge proved of value only when associations were accompanied by concepts or cases. Thus, execution of creative thinking processes apparently depends on having expertise—expertise providing people with key concepts relevant to the problem and actual hands-on experience working with other relevant problems.

It is commonly held that conceptual and case-based knowledge are organized through people’s construction of mental models—models that illustrate key cause/outcome linkages of use in solving a certain class or type of problem drawn from a given domain (Goldvarg & Johnson-Laird, 2001 ). Indeed, experts typically are found to possess stronger, more accurate, and more elaborate mental models for understanding problems arising in a given domain (Andersen, Barker, & Chen, 2006 ). Mumford et al. ( 2012 ) examined how the availability of high-quality mental models for organizing knowledge contributed to the success of people’s creative problem-solving efforts.

In the Mumford et al. ( 2012 ) study, participants, some 450 in all, were asked to formulate a marketing plan for a new type of athletic footwear for extreme sports, or formulate a plan for leading a new experimental secondary school. In both cases, the resulting plans were appraised by judges for quality, originality, and elegance. Prior to starting work on these creative problem-solving tasks, participants were provided with instruction on how to illustrate their mental models for understanding various problems using structural equations framework. Participants were asked to illustrate their mental models for understanding either marketing or educational problems before starting work on the problem presented. The resulting model illustrations were appraised for various objective features (e.g., number of cause/goal linkages, number of mediations) and subjective features (e.g., coherence, novelty). It was found that people possessing better organized mental models for understanding problems arising in either of these domains provided creative problem solutions of greater quality, originality, and elegance.

Not only does having stronger mental models for understanding problems arising in a domain contribute to people’s creative problem solving, but how people work with the knowledge appears crucial. In a series of separate, unique investigations, Barrett et al. ( 2013 ), Hester et al. ( 2012 ), Robledo et al. ( 2012 ), and Peterson et al. ( 2013 ) provided participants with instructions for applying different approaches for working with the knowledge embodied in mental models. For example, when working with causes, think about causes that have significant effects, or think about causes that have direct effects. Again, judges appraised the quality, originality, and elegance of people’s solutions to problems calling for creative thought. It was found the ways in which people worked with available knowledge influenced their ability to provide high-quality, original, and elegant solutions to problems calling for creative thought.

Creative Processes

Model of processes.

The importance of the ways people work with knowledge in creative problem solving points to the importance of peoples’ creative thinking processes. Recognition of this point has led many scholars to propose various models describing the key processes underlying incidents of creative thought (e.g., Dewey, 1910 ; Silverman, 1985 ; Sternberg, 1988 ; Wallas, 1926 ). Mumford et al. ( 1991 ) reviewed the available models of creative problem-solving processes to formulate a general model of the key creative thinking processes. This model was based on five key assumptions. First, creative problem solving, as noted above, depends on knowledge or expertise. Second, if only extant knowledge could be used to solve a problem, creative problem solving would not occur. Third, new knowledge arises from the combination and reorganization of extant knowledge. Fourth, successful combination and reorganization efforts give rise to new, emergent features, which provide a basis for generating original ideas. Fifth, progressive, proactive, evaluation and refinement of viable ideas will, in turn, give rise to creative problem solutions.

Figure 1. Process model.

Based on these propositions, Mumford et al. ( 1991 ) argued that eight core processes are involved in most creative problem-solving efforts. It is held that creative problem solving begins with the definition of the problem. Once a problem has been defined, people will gather information related to the problem. With information gathering, relevant concepts, or cases, can be retrieved from available mental models. The concepts/cases people select to work with are then combined and reorganized, which allows new concepts to emerge. These new concepts then provide a basis for idea generation. The generated ideas are then evaluated and refined. People then plan how to implement this idea. And, subsequently, plan implementation is adaptatively monitored to permit exploitation of opportunities and management of restrictions emerging during idea implementation. Figure 1 provides an illustration of this eight-process model.

Implicit in the model presented in Figure 1 is a number of key assumptions. First, each process serves as an input to the subsequent processing activities. Second, each process involves multiple discrete mental operations—both generative and evaluative mental operations. Third, if the products resulting from process execution are held to be inadequate, people will generally cycle back to the immediately preceding process. Fourth, as implied above, process execution is held to be a conscious activity. Fifth, all processes must be “successfully” executed to result in production of a creative problem solution. It should be noted these assumptions imply creative processing is a resource intensive effort where success is not insured due to the number of interdependent processes that must be executed successfully.

Process Evidence

Over the years, a sizeable body of research has been conducted that provides evidence for the relevance of each of these processes to creative problem solving. This section considers a few illustrative studies examining the impact of each of these processes on peoples’ performance in creative problem solving. It is of note, however, that virtually all of these processes have been investigated in multiple studies—studies employing different methods and different types of creative problem-solving tasks.

Reiter-Palmon, Mumford, O’Connor-Boes, and Runco ( 1997 ) asked participants to solve six complex, novel, ill-defined problems drawn from the leadership, social relations, and academic domains. Judges appraised the resulting problem solutions for quality and originality. Prior to starting work on these problems, participants were presented with a set of broad problem statements (e.g., there are mice in my basement). For each problem statement, they were asked to provide as many restatements or redefinitions of the problem they could think of. Judges rated problem restatements for quality and originality. It was found that those who could redefine problems with quality and originality produced creative problem solutions of higher quality and originality (r = .30). In a more recent study, Arreola and Reiter-Palmon ( 2016 ) assessed problem definition through restatements of problems in peoples’ own words. And, again, viable problem definitions were found to be positively related to the quality and originality of creative problem solutions, with problem definition accounting for creative performance above and beyond divergent thinking ability.

In a study of conceptual combination, Mumford, Baughman, Maher, Costanza, and Supinski ( 1997 ) asked participants to develop a marketing survey, a television advertisement, and a magazine advertisement for a new product—the 3D holographic television (Redmond, Mumford, & Teach, 1993 ). Written solutions to these three problems were appraised by judges for quality and originality. Prior to preparing these problem solutions, participants were presented with a set of conceptual combination problems drawn from Mobley, Doares, and Mumford ( 1992 ). These problems presented three categories, or concepts, as defined by four category exemplars (e.g., owls, ostriches, robins, sparrows). Participants were asked to combine these categories to create a new category. They were to label their new category, describe key features, emergent new features of this category, and provide exemplars of this new category. Judges appraised the quality and originality of the category label, features, and exemplars. The quality and originality of the advertising campaigns produced were found to be strongly positively related (r = .35) to the quality and originality of solutions to the advertising problems. Again, conceptual combination produced stronger relationships than a measure of divergent thinking.

Mumford et al. ( 1991 ) model of the creative thinking process holds that conceptual combination provides a basis for idea generation. Finke, Ward, and Smith ( 1992 ) made a similar argument. Mumford et al. ( 1998 ) asked 1,818 army officers, ranging in grade from second lieutenant to full colonel, to provide solutions to a novel, complex, ill-defined military problem-solving task. Prior to working on this task, however, they were also asked to complete the Guilford ( 1950 ) consequences measure in which they were to generate as many potential consequences of unlikely events (e.g., what would happen if gravity was cut in half?) as they could think of. The ideas generated were appraised by judges for attributes such as realism, time frame, and use of principles (e.g., concepts and concept features). It was found not only that these attributes of idea generation were positively related to the quality and originality of solutions to this military leadership problem (r = .45) but that use of principles in idea generation produced the strongest relationships with the quality and originality of solutions to military leadership problems.

Marcy and Mumford ( 2007 ) conducted a study examining the impact of concept selection in creative problem solving. In this study, it was assumed that creative problem solutions were most likely to emerge when people employed appropriate causal concepts for understanding the problem at hand. Accordingly, participants were asked to complete a set of self-paced instructional modules where they were provided with approaches for selecting the type of causal concepts that should be employed in creative problem solving (e.g., think about causes that have significant effects, think about causes that have direct effects, think about causes you can control). Participants were asked to solve six creative problems drawn from the business and educational domains where judges appraised problem solutions for quality, originality, and elegance. It was found that use of viable causes in concept selection resulted in production of creative problem solutions with greater quality, higher originality, and higher elegance.

In this model of creative processes, it is held that implementation planning is a key component of creative thought. Some support for this proposition has been provided by Marta, Leritz, and Mumford ( 2005 ). Teams were asked to work on a business “turn-around” task calling for creative thought. Written “turn-around” plans were appraised by judges for quality and originality. After working on this task, team members nominated their leader. Prior to starting work, all team members completed a measure of planning skills based on a series of business planning scenarios. It was found teams whose leaders evidenced strong planning skills produced “turn-around” plans of greater originality and better quality. Other work by Osburn and Mumford ( 2006 ), in a study of individual level creative problem solving, provides some support for this conclusion.

Of course, implementation planning depends on selecting an idea to be pursued. Gibson and Mumford ( 2013 ) examined how idea evaluation may contribute to creative problem solving. They asked undergraduates to formulate advertising campaigns for a new product. Judges appraised these advertising campaigns for quality, originality, and elegance. Prior to preparing these campaigns, however, participants were presented with a set of candidate ideas and asked to evaluate these ideas. Judges appraised these idea critiques with respect to number, depth, usefulness, range, complexity, isolation, risk sensitivity, operational relevance, and specificity. It was found that those who produced the most creative advertising campaigns were those who also produced a limited number of deep criticisms of potential ideas.

In yet another study of creative thinking processes, Mumford, Baughman, Supinski, and Maher ( 1996 ) examined the impact of information gathering on creative problem solving. In this study participants were asked to provide television advertisements, magazine advertisements, and a marketing survey for Redmond, Mumford, and Teach ( 1993 ) and its 3D holographic television task. These products of people’s creative-solving efforts were appraised by judges for quality and originality. Prior to starting work on this task, participants were asked to read through a set of “cards” bearing on the business management and the public policy problems. These “cards” presented different types of information—information bearing on key facts, anomalies, goals, restrictions, and diverse information. The time spent reading each card was recorded as a measure of the intensity of information gathering. And it was found the people producing the highest-quality and most original problem solutions spent more time encoding information bearing on key facts and anomalies (observations inconsistent with these facts). Apparently, information gathering not only contributes to creative problem solving, but the strategies employed in gathering information make a difference in process execution.

Processing Strategies

All these studies provide some evidence for the key processes included in Mumford et al. ( 1991 ) model of creative problem solving. Indeed, evidence was provided using different creative problem-solving tasks in diverse samples. The Mumford et al. ( 1996a ) study, however, points to another question bearing on this model. What strategies employed in process execution contribute to more effective process execution in incidents of creative problem solving?

A study by Mumford, Baughman, Threlfall, et al. ( 1996b ) examined the strategies contributing to performance in problem definition. Participants in this study were asked to work on the 3D television advertising task with solutions to these three problems both appraised by judges for quality and originality. Prior to starting work on this task, they were asked to work on a measure examining preferences for working with different types of material in problem definition. It was found that those people who produced highly original and high-quality problem solutions tended to define problems in terms of procedures and restrictions or constraints but not goals or information. Apparently, defining problems in terms of solution attributes inhibits creative thought.

Another series of studies by Barrett et al. ( 2013 ), Hester et al. ( 2012 ), Peterson et al. ( 2013 ), and Robledo et al. ( 2012 ) examined the kinds of concepts people may employ in creative problem solving. In all these studies participants were asked to solve either a marketing problem, a high-energy root beer campaign, or an educational problem calling for creative problem solving. And judges appraised the resulting problem solutions for quality, originality, and elegance. Prior to starting work on these problems, participants were instructed as to how to illustrate their mental models and provided with training in one of four approaches for concept selection: (1) causes (e.g., think about causes that operate synergistically), (2) constraints (e.g., think about resource constraints), (3) applications (e.g., how would your solution affect multiple key stakeholders), and (4) errors (e.g., think about whether potential errors are under your control). It was found that use of all four concept selection strategies contributed to creative problem solving, especially when people had stronger mental models for understanding the problem at hand. Although it is not clear if any one strategy was better than any other, it should be recognized that certain concept selection strategies such as error and applications strategies (i.e., strategies we often do not consider in discussions of creativity) did, in fact, contribute to creative problem solving.

A study of how people go about combining concepts has been conducted by Baughman and Mumford ( 1995 ). They asked participants to solve 12 category combination problems (e.g., owls, ostriches, robins, sparrows; ball, glove, net, racket) where judges rated the quality and originality of the exemplars provided to describe their new category. An instructional manipulation was used to encourage participants to (1) identify key features of each category, (2) map shared and non-shared features of the category, and (3) elaborate on emergent new features. It was found that feature mapping and elaboration contributed to production of more creative problem solutions. In follow-up studies, Mumford et al. ( 1997 ) found that metaphors and broader images may be employed to facilitate feature mapping, while Ward, Patterson, and Sifonis ( 2004 ) found that extensive elaboration on emergent features was critical to successful combination and reorganization efforts.

The ideas flowing from conceptual combination must be evaluated. Traditionally, idea evaluation has been viewed as solely an evaluative activity as opposed to an inherently generative activity. A study conducted by Lonergan, Scott, and Mumford ( 2004 ), however, indicates that use of generative, compensatory strategies is critical in creative problem solving. In this study, highly original or high-quality ideas for marketing the 3D holographic television were drawn from earlier work (Redmond et al., 1993 ). Participants were asked to assume the role of a manager evaluating these campaigns and were instructed to apply either operating efficiency or innovative standards in appraising ideas before preparing a final campaign, which would be appraised by judges for quality and originality. It was found the most creative campaigns were obtained when high-quality ideas were appraised with respect to innovation standards, and highly original ideas were appraised with respect to operating efficiency standards: presumably deep, focused appraisals (Gibson & Mumford, 2013 ). Thus, people employ a compensatory strategy in idea evaluation—a strategy accompanied by deep processing of key deficiencies.

Of course, idea evaluation also implies the need to forecast the implications of pursuing ideas. Similarly, Mumford, Shultz, and Van Doorn ( 2001 ) argued that forecasting is a key strategy underlying effective implementation planning. Byrne, Shipman, and Mumford ( 2010 ) and Shipman, Byrne, and Mumford ( 2010 ) examined the impact of forecasting on creative problem solving. In Byrne et al. ( 2010 ) participants were asked to formulate advertising campaigns for a new product, while in Shipman et al. ( 2010 ) they were asked to formulate plans for leading a new experimental secondary school. In both studies, written plans for addressing these problems were appraised by judges for quality, originality, and elegance. As participants worked on their plans, they received “e-mails” where they were asked to forecast the outcomes of their plans. The written answers to these e-mails were appraised for 29 forecasting attributes (e.g., number of positive outcomes forecast, number of obstacles forecast). A subsequent set of factorings yielded four dimensions—(1) forecasting extensiveness, (2) forecasting time frame, (3) forecasting resources, and (4) forecasting negative outcomes. Those who produced the most creative problem solutions forecasted more extensively and over a longer time frame—often spending more effort constructing back-up plans to cope with incidents of both failure and success (Giorgini & Mumford, 2013 ).

Model Evaluations

Apparently, Mumford et al. ( 1991 ) allowed us to draw some key conclusions about how creative people think—they define problems with respect to restrictions rather than goals, search for key facts and anomalies, employ flexible concept selection strategies, search for shared and non-shared elements of these concepts, elaborate on emergent new concepts, criticize and attempt to improve ideas based on their criticisms, and forecast extensively to arrive at actionable plans. Although these findings point to the value of this model, the structure of the model itself also points to more global structural propositions that may be tested.

For example, Mumford et al. ( 1997 ) examined the ability of these processes to predict creative performance. They asked participants to complete measures of four creative processes—problem definition, information gathering, concept selection, and conceptual combination. When appraisals of the quality and originality of creative problem solutions were regressed on these measures, it was found that each process made a unique contribution to predicting production of high-quality and original solutions. More centrally, the average multiple correlation obtained was .50—an especially impressive prediction when considering the reliability of the quality and originality appraisals registered in the mid-70s.

Another implication of this model is that the strategies employed during process execution will depend on the type of knowledge people are working with. Scott, Lonergan, and Mumford ( 2005 ) asked participants to formulate plans for leading a new experimental secondary school with these plans being appraised by judges for quality and originality. Prior to preparing these plans, however, they were presented with either concepts (e.g., team interaction) or multiple cases reflecting the same concepts. They found that the strategies employed in conceptual combination depended on the type of knowledge people were working with. Thus, if the concepts being worked with feature search and mapping, this contributed to the production of more creative problem solutions. However, if the cases being worked with include the analysis of case strengths and weakness, this contributed to production of more creative problem solutions.

Still another implication of this model is that errors made in execution of an earlier process (e.g., problem definition) will disrupt execution of later processing activities (e.g., information gathering). Friedrich and Mumford ( 2009 ) asked undergraduates to work on a marketing problem calling for creative thought where judges appraised marketing plans for quality, originality, and elegance. As participants worked through each process, new conflicting information was introduced to induce error in process execution. And the effectiveness of process execution was appraised both for the process where conflicting information was induced and subsequent processing activities where no conflicting information was induced. It was found not only that induction of conflicting information disrupted creative problem solving, a finding suggesting creative problem solving requires focused attention but that errors made in execution of earlier processes disrupted subsequent processing activities. Thus, the process flow through model holds—a point that also indicates creative processing is a risk-prone activity, due to the potential for error in executing any given process and may require multiple cycles of processing activity.

Although creative processing is difficult, the demands made by process execution may be offset by another phenomenon. Certain processes are particularly important to creative thought in certain domains—thus an error in a non-critical process may be of less concern. Mumford et al. ( 2010 ) asked doctoral students working in the biological, health, and social sciences to complete measures examining the effectiveness with which they executed each of these eight creative thinking processes: (1) problem definition, (2) information gathering, (3) concept selection, (4) conceptual combination, (5) idea generation, (6) idea evaluation, (7) implementation planning, and (8) adaptive monitoring. Biological scientists were especially skilled at information gathering and idea evaluation. Social scientists were especially skilled at conceptual combination and idea generation. Health scientists were especially skilled at problem definition and implementation planning. Not only do these findings suggest the processes generalize across domains of creative work (albeit with varying emphasis) but that the context in which creative work occurs may also be a noteworthy variable shaping effective executions of creative thinking processes.

Creative Thinking at Work

Earlier we noted that execution of creative thinking processes is based on knowledge. Knowledge, of course, depends in part on the availability of information bearing on the problem at hand. Accordingly, a variety of studies indicate that the intensity of scanning activities and information search is positively related to creativity and innovation (Anacona & Caldwell, 1992 ; Ford & Gioia, 2000 ; Koberg, Uhlenbruck, & Sarason, 1996 ; Souitaris, 2001 ). In this regard, however, it is important to ask what type of information should be sought in information gathering. Perhaps the most clear-cut conclusion here is that the information sought should be information relevant to the type of the creative problem at hand. Thus, scanning and information gathering is likely a tightly focused activity.

In this regard, however, the further point should be kept in mind. First, given the findings of Mumford et al. ( 1996a ), it seems reasonable to expect viable information gathering will focus on both key facts and anomalies with respect to these facts. Second, work contexts that encourage intense information search in professional contexts can be expected to encourage creative problem solving (Damanpour & Aravind, 2012 ). Third, because information often is obtained from social networks, one would expect creative people to establish and maintain a broader more diverse professional network with creative people evidencing loose network ties (Perry-Smith & Shalley, 2003 )—perhaps because loose ties provide access to anomalies.

Access to information, access that may be created by the person or a firm (e.g., conference attendance, software) is not itself of value. Information is of value only if it can be understood in context. In other words, use of information in creative problem solving will depend on expertise—a point noted in our discussion of the Vincent, Decker, and Mumford ( 2002 ) study. Expertise however, develops rather slowly (Ericsson & Charness, 1994 ) with expertise being acquired over longer time frames as the complexity of work increases. Thus, it is not surprising that creative achievements in the sciences typically occur in peoples’ mid-40s (Simonton, 2006 ).

The impact of experience on execution of creative thinking processes has been demonstrated in Mumford et al. ( 2000 ). They contrasted more senior (e.g., colonels) and more junior (e.g., lieutenants) officers with respect to effective execution of the creative thinking processes described earlier. It was found more senior officers executed all eight creative thinking processes more effectively than junior officers when working on military problems calling for creative thought. Perhaps more critically, certain work assignments were found to contribute to the growth of these processing capabilities. More specifically, a background data measure was used to assess assignment history. Assignments that involved exposure to novel problems, complex problems, discretionary decision making, strategic planning, and boundary spanning all contributed to acquisition of stronger creative processing capabilities. Of course, these findings also suggest that firms establishing career development systems that provide people with exposure to multiple challenging creative tasks are more likely to ensure effective execution of relevant creative thinking processes.

Expertise, of course, makes work easier—less demanding. Earlier, however, we noted that execution of the various creative thinking processes is a demanding and resource intensive activity. One implication of the resource demands made by creative processing is that undue time pressure cannot be placed on those asked to do creative work, and those doing creative work must be given some autonomy to manage the stress induced by a demanding resource intensive activity (Baer & Oldham, 2006 ).

Another implication of this observation, however, is that motivation will prove crucial to creative work. The task engagement induced by high motivational levels helps ensure people have the resources needed to invest in creative processing activities. Indeed, a variety of studies have indicated that multiple motivational mechanisms, in fact, contribute to creative performance including achievement motivation (Feist & Gorman, 1998 ), creative self-efficacy (Tierney & Farmer, 2002 ), and perceived task significance (Oldham & Cummings, 1996 ). In fact, work environments where people are presented with significant professionally meaningful tasks seem to engender both creative achievements and intense execution of relevant creative thinking processes (Gertner, 2013 ).

Of course, many variables influence human motivation in one way or another. With respect to creative processing, however, motivational variables that encourage investment of resources in process execution per se are likely to prove especially noteworthy. Recently, Watts, Steele, and Song ( 2017 ) conducted a quasi-meta-analytic study of the impact of need for cognition on creative problem solving. Need for cognition is likely a key motivational variable influencing creative processing by encouraging people to value and invest resources in cognitively demanding activities. Drawing data from prior studies, for example, Partlow, Medeiros, and Mumford ( 2015 ) found that the need for cognition was positively related to performance on various creative problem-solving tasks and, presumably, execution of the creative thinking processes underlying task performance such as implementation planning (Osburn & Mumford, 2006 ).

Trait need for cognition, however, also can be framed in terms of state needs. In fact, prior research indicates work context variables inducing state need for cognition contribute to creative problem-solving performance and effective execution of the processes underlying creative problem solving. One key variable in this regard is exposure to an intellectually stimulating work environment (Sosik, Kahai, & Avolio, 1998 )—intellectual stimulation that may arise from the task, exchange with colleagues, or workplace design. State need for cognition, however, may also be induced by curiosity with respect to certain features of the problem at hand. Thus, Hardy, Ness, and Mecca ( 2017 ) asked participants to solve a marketing problem calling for creative thought where judges appraised problem solutions for quality and originality. Participants’ curiosity and information-seeking behavior were assessed. Information seeking was, apparently, based in curiosity with information acquired, in turn, contributing to creative processing and creative problem solving. The impact of curiosity on creative processing, however, explains why interest and autonomy in choice of work assignments often characterizes creative workplaces (Mumford & Hunter, 2005 ).

Curiosity, of course, is positively related to two other variables that have consistently proven to be related to creative problem solving and creative processing—openness and extraversion—noting that here extraversion is defined with respect to the five-factor model (Gill & Hodgkinson, 2007 ). For example, Vessey et al. ( 2011 ) found that extraversion was positively related to performance, in solving a marketing problem calling for creative thought while Partlow, Mederios, and Mumford ( 2015 ) found that openness was positively related to performance in solving an educational problem calling for creative thought. Although openness and extraversion are commonly conceived as characteristics of the person, it should also be recognized that work environments can be structured to allow expression of traits such as openness and extraversion. For example, encouraging debate with respect to key issues may, if appropriately managed, encourage people toward openness. Similarly, challenging people to think about competitors’ accomplishments may lead to extraversion. In fact, work context manipulations of the sort described above may prove particularly beneficial because the people attracted to jobs calling for creative problem solving tend to be open and extraverted.

Earlier we noted that in executing creative thinking processes, failure can be expected. This assertation was based on the observation that eight processes are involved in incidents of creative problem solving with multiple operations being called for in executing each process. As a result, failure is likely. And to complicate matters further, creative processing activities are a conscious, voluntary set of processes requiring a substantial investment of effort. Thus, people doing creative work are presented with a quandary: Why choose to invest in an effort that may fail?

These observations point to why a critical aspect of the work environment appears crucial to creativity. More specifically, people must have feelings of psychological safety and believe that failure will be tolerated. In fact, a study of organizational climate perceptions by Amabile et al. ( 1996 ) indicated that perceptions of support for creative efforts and perceptions of the environment’s tolerance of failure contributed to creative problem solving and, presumably, peoples’ willingness to invest resources in execution of creative thinking processes. In keeping with this observation Hunter et al. ( 2007 ) found that perceived support along with intellectual stimulation were strongly ( d ≥ .80) to both innovative achievement and creative problem solving in the workplace.

The Hunter et al. ( 2007 ) study, however, points to another feature of the work context that appears critical to the application of creative thinking processes: mission clarity. Mission clarity refers to the perception that the work environment provides a non-ambiguous, specified, and structured understanding of the key objectives of the work and the nature of the problems to be addressed. And, Hunter et al. ( 2007 ) found mission clarity to be positively related to both innovative achievement and creative problem solving.

The impact of mission clarity on creative thinking may strike many as disconcerting given the old notion that creative people should be free to explore. Mission clarity, however, implies that exploration will be self-limited or externally imposed. When one recognizes that creative problems are novel, complex, and ill-defined, however, it becomes apparent that mission clarity and imposition of structure may, in fact, be necessary to direct exploration along productive avenues (Mumford, Bedell-Avers, & Hunter, 2008 ).

The need to structure creative work is nicely illustrated in Marta, Leritz, and Mumford ( 2005 ). In this study, 55 teams were asked to formulate turn-around plans for a failing automotive firm. Team plans were appraised by judges for quality and originality. Following plan preparation, participants nominated team leaders. Leader consideration and initiating structure was assessed, and it was found that leader structuring behavior contributed to the production of problem solutions of both higher quality and originality. Of course, the need for structure does not imply overly close supervision, which generally inhibits creative thought (Barnow, 1976 ). Rather, a clear understanding of task objectives and problems likely to be encountered in executing this task must be available for people to structure ill-defined problems and to execute requisite creative thinking process (Keller, 2006 ).

Creative Thinking in Social Contexts

All work occurs in a distinctly social context involving creative problem solving. Accordingly, one may expect that social forces would also influence peoples’ willingness to invest resources in execution of the creative thinking process and their success in executing these processes. For example, information flow and information access in firms may influence the success of people’s processing and ultimately the success of their creative problem-solving efforts (Amabile & Conti, 1997 ). The layout and design of work spaces will, of course, influence information flow as well as the nature of social exchange among people as they work on creative problems. Access to and support from other teams—access and support, in part, conditioned by organizational structures—may influence creative processing as well as the feasibility of formulating cross-functional teams (Souitaris, 2001 ).

Although these, and a number of other contextual variables may influence the effectiveness of peoples’ creative processing, one variable that appears of special importance is leadership (Mumford, Scott, Gaddis, & Strange, 2002 ). For example, Barnow ( 1976 ) has shown that key leadership skills such as expertise and task structure contribute to the success of creative teams. More recently, Robledo, Peterson, and Mumford ( 2012 ) presented a model describing the key features that must be executed by those asked to lead creative teams. This model holds that leaders of creative efforts must (1) lead the work, defining fundamentals and themes to be pursued, planning how the work will be done, and helping team members resolve crises (e.g., Hemlin & Olsson, 2011 ); (2) lead the firm, championing the project to senior management, establishing requisite contacts in the firm, and educating firm members with respect to the impact of creative efforts (e.g., Howell & Boies, 2004 ); and (3) lead the group, recruiting team members, establishing an appropriate set of team processes and promoting a creative climate (e.g., Amabile et al., 1996 ).

Vessey et al. ( 2014 ) provided compelling support for this model. They content analyzed academic biographies available for 93 prominent scientific leaders who led various creative teams. Then they appraised the number of creative products produced by these teams and the impact of these products on both the field and the firm. Vessey and colleagues found not only that the leader’s skill in executing those three key functions contributed to the success of creative teams but also that the leader’s skill in executing these three functions was positively related to objective indices (e.g., H index) of their creative achievement.

Of course, leaders’ actions shape many social contextual variables that influence people’s creative processing activities. Clearly, leaders may encourage participation by team members (Zhou, Hirst, & Shipton, 2012 )—participation that may encourage investment of resources in process execution. Similarly, leaders may provide team members with access to experts and technology needed for their work—access needed to provide information and encourage investment of resources in process execution. As important as these and other leader actions may be, a key function of leaders is providing team members with shared mental models.

The impact of shared mental models on team performance has been demonstrated in many studies (e.g., Day, Gronn, & Salas, 2004 ). And there is reason to expect that the availability of shared mental models influences creative process execution. The availability of shared mental models promotes effective communication in teams—communication that provides the exchange of expertise and knowledge needed for process execution. More centrally, Mumford, Feldman, Hein, and Nagao ( 2001 ) have shown that the availability of shared mental models also contributes to effective execution of creative problem-solving processes when people are working in team settings.

In this study, teams of three to five individuals were asked to solve either a cognitive problem (i.e., endowment allocation) or a social problem (i.e., a poorly performing team member). Prior to starting work on these problems, participants were as asked to watch a video intended to induce a shared mental model for understanding the problem at hand. Team members were asked to generate ideas for solving the problem (an idea generation task) and to select their best idea (an idea evaluation task). The number of ideas produced and the appraised creativity of ideas selected served as the outcomes of concern. It was found the number of ideas generated and the creativity of the ideas provided was higher when team members evidenced a shared mental model—regardless of whether the training video tape was, or was not, congruent with the problem presented. Thus, the availability of shared mental models does apparently influence process execution.

The availability of shared mental models, however, may influence process execution in another way. De Dreu ( 2006 ) and Gilson and Shalley ( 2004 ) indicated that feedback from other team members—critical feedback—is beneficial to creative problem solving if the feedback provided is task based, not personal, and not of excessive intensity. In fact, the availability of shared mental models helps ensure the feedback provided by other team members will be task focused and of requisite depth to encourage effective process execution.

Some support for this observation has been provided in Gibson and Mumford ( 2013 ). They asked participants to formulate solutions to a marketing problem calling for creative thought. Judges appraised solutions provided for originality, quality, and elegance. Prior to preparing their problem solutions, however, participants were presented with a set of candidate ideas where they were asked to provide a written critique of these ideas. Judges appraised these critiques with respect to the number, depth, usefulness, range, complexity, isolation, risk sensitivity, relevance, and specificity. It was found the most creative problem solutions were produced by people who produced a limited number of deep criticisms of potential ideas. What should be recognized here, however, is that those who provided others with key deep criticisms of ideas will typically be those who possess a similar shared mental model of the problem at hand. Thus, the availability of shared mental models may allow productive, task relevant conflict—conflict that presumably contributes to team members’ capacity to execute requisite creative thinking processes.

Earlier, we noted that execution of the creative thinking processes is a demanding, resource-intensive activity. Put somewhat differently, this observation implies investment of requisite resources in execution of creative thinking processes will be based on an appraisal of whether process execution is likely to prove at all possible. Indeed, economic studies indicate that in domains, for example electrical systems (Wise, 1992 ), innovation comes in waves as the conditions arise that permit creative thought and encourage adequate investment in creative-thinking processes. At a more “local” level, however, it seems plausible to argue people will invest scarce cognitive resources in process execution and creative problem solving only when they believe they have the resources needed to solve the problem at hand. Indeed, it appears that people in creative efforts appraise available work resources (e.g., time), available social resources (e.g., other team members’ expertise), and fiscal/physical resources (e.g., equipment availability) before deciding to invest requisite cognitive resources in execution of creative thinking processes.

Although we know relatively little about how people appraise the potential for viable creative processing, we do know three things about peoples’ willingness to invest resources in creative processing. First, adequate physical/financial resources, albeit not a surfeit of resources, should be available (Nohari & Gulati, 1996 ). Second, the problems presented should be relevant to their domain of professional expertise and advancement of their professional careers (Mumford & Hunter, 2005 ). Third, social context—for example leaders and peers—should explicitly call for creative thought (Runco, Illies, & Eisenman, 2005 ). Put differently, if we do not ask for creativity under conditions where creative processing is possible, we are unlikely to see people attempt to execute creative thinking processes and produce creative problem solutions.

Conclusions

Clearly, since the 1980s we have begun to develop a far better understanding of the key cognitive processes contributing to creative problem solving. Broadly speaking, the Mumford et al. ( 1991 ) model holds that creative problem solving requires that people be able to execute eight key processes: (1) problem definition, (2) information gathering, (3) concept selection, (4) conceptual combination, (5) idea generation, (6) idea evaluation, (7) implementation planning, and (8) adaptive monitoring. Thus, within this model, creativity is not simply a matter of idea generation. Far more goes into creative problem solving than simply generating lots of ideas.

Indeed, the evidence gathered since the 1980s indicates that this model is, in fact, plausible and likely the best available model of the processing activities required for creative problem solving. More specifically, the evidence reviewed in the present effort indicates: (1) effective execution of each process contributes to performance on a variety of creative problem-solving tasks, (2) effective execution of each process makes a unique contribution to production of creative problem-solving performance, (3) effective execution of all these processes is strongly related to the originality, quality, and elegance of people solutions to creative problems, (4) these processes are applied (albeit with different emphasis) across a variety of performance domains, and (5) errors flow through such that mistakes made in executing earlier processing operations (e.g., problem definition) result in poorer performance in executing subsequent processing activities (e.g., information gathering).

Not only has prior research provided strong support for this model of the creative thinking process, key variables shaping effective process execution have been identified. For example, we have shown that expertise and the specific type of knowledge, conceptual or case-based, people employ in problem solving influences the effectiveness of process execution. Moreover, in our prior research we have begun to isolate the specific strategies that contribute to effective execution of each of these processes. For example, creative people define problems based on procedures and restrictions not goals; they search for key facts and anomalies, employ a variety of concepts in working with these facts and anomalies, search for shared and non-shared features of these concepts, generate ideas pragmatically, work with ideas in an active fashion to compensate for deficiencies, forecast the implications of their ideas in planning, and they execute backup plans adaptively.

These findings are noteworthy partly because they point to specific educational and training interventions that could be used to improve creative thinking. In fact, Scott, Leritz, and Mumford ( 2004 ), in a meta-analytic study of the effectiveness of creativity training, found that the most effective interventions for improving peoples’ creative problem solving were those that explicitly focused on these processes and acquisition of more viable strategies for process execution. Along somewhat different lines, managers may be encouraged to appraise creative teams or creative work vis-à-vis the effectiveness with which these processes are executed (Licuanan, Dailey, & Mumford, 2007 ). Along somewhat different lines, managers or firms might explicitly seek to create an environment that encourages effective execution of each of these processes under conditions where creative problem solving is an integral aspect of performance.

These and a number of other potentially viable interventions point to the need for a new wave of research examining creative problem-solving processes that recognize there is far more to creative problem solving than simple idea generation. For example, one might ask how should expertise be balanced in teams? How important is it to define problems in teams of professional fundamentals? Under what conditions do team members compensate for a person’s deficiencies in executing a certain creative thinking process?

The present effort, however, and our understanding of creative thinking processes point to another noteworthy implication of work along these lines. In the present effort we have tied various aspects of work context and the social context to effective execution of these processes. For example, we have provided an explanation why motivation is so important for creative work—motivation encourages people to invest resources in process execution. We have provided an explanation for why shared mental models are important for creative work—they provide a basis for formulating deep criticisms. Although other examples of this sort may be cited, these examples serve to make a key point. As Mumford, Hunter, and Byrne ( 2009 ) have pointed out, creative thinking processes provide the fundamental foundation for understanding creative problem solving and creative performance. By developing theories based on this fundamental well-validated proposition we may begin to develop a stronger and more robust understanding of creative work in firms.

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank Tristan McIntosh, Roni Reiter-Palmon, Robert Sternberg, and Mark Runco for their contributions the present effort. Correspondence should be addressed to Dr. Michael D. Mumford, Department of Psychology, The University of Oklahoma 73019 or [email protected].

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Cultivating the Four Kinds of Creativity

• Gabriella Rosen Kellerman
• Martin E.P. Seligman

How people and organizations use them all to innovate

In the decades to come, creativity will be key to doing most jobs well. In this article the authors offer a new typology that breaks creative thinking into four types: integration, or showing that two things that appear different are the same; splitting, or seeing how things that look the same are more usefully divided into parts; figure-ground reversal, or realizing that what is crucial is not in the foreground but in the background; and distal thinking, which involves imagining things that are very different from the here and now. Most of us tend to think in just one of those four ways. But we can hone our ability to be creative in other dimensions. Managers need to understand both their own strengths and how to balance the types of thinking across their teams to successfully execute creative projects. And organizations can use this typology to optimize innovation across the workforce.

One island of stability in the sea of conversation about the future of work is the conviction that our jobs will become increasingly creative. The World Economic Forum, McKinsey, and nearly every major think tank seem aligned around this hypothesis, offering heaps of data to support it. The trend is not just about the delegation of rote tasks to automation; it’s also about the accelerating pace of change and the increasing complexity of business, which demand original responses to novel challenges far more frequently than ever before.

• GK Gabriella Rosen Kellerman is a physician, the chief product officer, and the chief innovation officer at BetterUp, a coaching platform in San Francisco.
• MS Martin E.P. Seligman is the Zellerbach Family Professor of Psychology and directs the Penn Positive Psychology Center.

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What Is Creative Thinking? Definition, Examples, and How to Showcase It During Your Job Search

Have you ever whipped up a delicious meal using random leftover ingredients? That silly example, friends, is creative thinking in action. In today's job market, where innovation is key, creative thinking is no longer just a bonus skill—it's a must-have.

But what exactly is the creative thinking definition? Why is creative thinking a good skill ? How can you showcase it to potential employers? We’ve got all the answers.

What is creative thinking?

Creative thinking is the ability to look at problems or situations from a fresh perspective. It involves thinking outside the box and coming up with unique, effective solutions. This skill is not limited to artistic fields but is essential in every profession, from business and science to technology and education. (Here are five ways to inject creativity into every single job —even ones that involve numbers.)

A creative thinker is someone who can adapt to changing circumstances and come up with original solutions. It's someone who’s curious, who asks questions and isn't afraid to try new things. They can see possibilities where others might see limitations, and they find joy in the process of exploration and discovery.

Apply your creative thinking skills to a job you love — check these amazing open jobs on The Muse and find the perfect fit for you »

Four different types of creative thinking

Creative thinking comes in various forms, each valuable in different contexts. Here are some key types of creative thinking:

1. Artistic creativity

This is likely the one that springs to mind first—it’s the ability to create something new and beautiful, whether it's a painting, a song, a book, or a well-designed website. Artistic creativity is crucial in fields like graphic design , advertising, and entertainment, where visual and auditory appeal play significant roles.

2. Analytical creativity

Analytical creativity is all about breaking down complex problems and finding innovative solutions through data, information, and logical thinking. It’s essential in fields like data science, engineering, and finance , where identifying patterns and making data-driven decisions can lead to significant advancements.

3. Lateral thinking

Lateral thinking involves looking at a problem from different angles and finding solutions that aren’t immediately obvious. This type of thinking is super important in roles that require problem-solving and innovation, such as product development, marketing, and management. It encourages thinking outside the box and finding creative ways to overcome challenges.

4. Divergent and convergent thinking

Divergent thinking is brainstorming a wide range of ideas, no matter how crazy and unusual they might seem at first. Convergent thinking, on the other hand, involves narrowing down these ideas to find the best possible solution. Both types are important in the creative process: divergent thinking sparks innovation, while convergent thinking refines and implements the ideas.

Examples of creative thinking

Now that we've explored the different types of creative thinking, let's see how these skills manifest:

Open-mindedness

This is the foundation of creative thinking. It's about being receptive to new ideas and new perspectives, even if they seem unconventional at first. For instance, in a team meeting, being open-minded might mean considering unconventional suggestions and exploring their potential before dismissing them.

Innovation and invention

Innovation involves creating new ideas, products, or methods, while invention is about bringing those ideas to life. Thinking creatively can be an asset in environments that encourage experimentation and risk-taking. An engineer who designs a groundbreaking app is a good example of this type of creative thinking.

Problem-solving

Problem-solving is a key aspect of creative thinking. It’s the ability to define a problem, create original solutions, and implement the best one. A project manager who overcomes a significant challenge by following a unique approach is showcasing creative problem-solving skills.

Collaborative thinking

Collaborative thinking involves working with others to generate and refine ideas. It requires communication, empathy, and the ability to build on others' input. For example, a creative thinker might lead a brainstorming session where team members feel encouraged to share their ideas, resulting in a collective, innovative solution.

Bonus tips to embrace your creative side

The more you learn, including outside your work environment, the more fodder you'll have for creative thinking. Take a look at these tips:

• Challenge yourself: Step outside your comfort zone! Try new hobbies , learn a new language, or a new instrument, or take a different route to work. Exposing yourself to new experiences sparks fresh ideas and helps you see the world from different perspectives.
• Embrace curiosity: Curiosity is the fuel that ignites creativity. Ask questions, explore different ideas, and be open to new information. Read books outside your usual genre, watch documentaries on unfamiliar topics, or start conversations with people from different backgrounds.
• Brainstorm like a boss: Sometimes the best ideas come from collaboration. Use brainstorming techniques like mind maps or group brainstorming sessions to generate a wide range of ideas. Don't be afraid to get a little silly—even weird ideas can spark something truly innovative.
• Turn obstacles into catalysts: Believe it or not, limitations can actually boost creativity . Think of a time you had to come up with a presentation using only 5 or 10 minutes. This challenge can force you to create unexpected solutions. So, the next time you face a constraint, see it as an opportunity to unleash your creative potential!

How to highlight your creative thinking during a job search

Employers look for creative thinkers because they can communicate ideas clearly and solve problems effectively. Now that you know the definition for creative thinking and its several types, it’s time to show you how to make this creative side stand out in your job search.

On your resume

When updating your resume , emphasize any creative projects or achievements. Detail the innovative solutions you've implemented and the impact they had. If you developed a new process that increased efficiency or created a marketing campaign that boosted engagement, these are perfect examples of creative thinking skills on a resume.

Using strong action verbs can make these contributions stand out. Try to use words like:

In your cover letter

Your cover letter is a great place to dive into specific examples of creative problem-solving. Describe situations where you faced a challenge and how a creative thought helped overcome them. If you found a unique way to market a product or solve a logistical issue, for example, these stories highlight your ability to think creatively.

It’s also important to personalize your cover letter to the job you're applying for by linking your creative thinking skills to the company's needs and goals. Explain how your ability to think creatively aligns with the job requirements and can help the company achieve its goals.

During interviews

In interviews , be ready to give concrete examples of your creative thinking in action. Discuss past experiences where your innovative ideas led to successful outcomes. Whether it was developing a new strategy, solving a complex problem, or improving a process, these examples will show your creative side.

Prepare to answer behavioral questions—those designed to evaluate how you handle some situations—with stories that highlight your creative problem-solving abilities. For example, if asked about a time you faced a significant challenge, describe how you used creativity and creative thinking to navigate the situation and achieve a positive result.

Put these tips into action! Read this to find your next career adventure: 16 High-Paying Jobs for Creative People in 2024

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What Is Creative Thinking?

Definition & Examples of Creative Thinking

How Creative Thinking Works

Types of creative thinking, benefits of creative thinking, how to showcase your creative thinking skills.

Melissa Ling / The Balance

Creative thinking is the ability to consider something in a new way. Employers in all industries want employees who can think creatively and bring new perspectives to the workplace.

Creative thinking might mean devising new ways to carry out tasks, solve problems, and meet challenges. It means bringing a fresh, and sometimes unorthodox, perspective to your work. This way of thinking can help departments and organizations be more productive.

Find out more about the various types of creative thinking, and why having this ability is very beneficial in the workplace. 

Creative thinking means thinking outside the box. Often, creativity involves lateral thinking, which is the ability to perceive patterns that are not obvious. A creative thinker will turn conventional thinking on its head—they'll zag where others zig.

Creative thinking can involve: 

• A new approach to a problem
• A resolution to a conflict between employees
• A new result from a data set
• A previously untried approach to earn revenue
• A new product—or product feature 

Creative thinking isn't limited to artistic types. Creative thinking is a skill that anyone can nurture and develop.

Opportunities for creative thought in the workplace vary from obvious artistic positions to highly technical ones. Generally, anything that involves an “aha” moment is considered creative. Here are some examples of how to display creative thinking in different jobs.

Artistic Creativity 

You don't have to be an artist for your work to have an artistic element. Perhaps you arrange retail displays for maximum impact or shape the path of an enticing hiking trail. Other artistically creative tasks might include designing logos, writing advertising copy, creating the packaging for a product, or drafting a phone script for a fundraising drive. 

Creative Problem-Solving 

Creative problem-solving stands out as innovative. A creative problem-solver will find new solutions rather than simply identifying and implementing the norm. You might brainstorm new solutions to reduce energy use, find new ways to cut costs during a budget crisis, or develop a unique litigation strategy to defend a client.

Creativity in STEM 

Some people think of science and engineering as the opposite of art and creativity. That's not true. The fields of science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) are highly creative. Designing a more efficient assembly line robot, writing an innovative new computer program, or developing a testable hypothesis are all highly creative acts.

The history of science and technology is filled with projects that didn't work, not because of errors in technique or methodology, but because people remained stuck in their assumptions and old habits. STEM fields need creativity to flourish and grow.

Creative thinking is expressed in several ways. Here are some types of creative thinking you might see in the workplace.

Before thinking creatively about something, you first have to be able to understand it. This requires the ability to examine things carefully to know what they mean. Whether you are looking at a text, a data set, a lesson plan, or an equation, you need to be able to analyze it first.

Open-Mindedness 

To think creatively, set aside any assumptions or biases you may have, and look at things in a completely new way. By coming to a problem with an open mind, you allow yourself the chance to think creatively.

Problem-Solving 

Employers want creative employees who will help them to solve work-related issues. When faced with a problem, consider ways you can solve it before asking for help. If you need the input of a manager, suggest solutions rather than just presenting problems.

Organization 

This might seem counterintuitive: Aren’t creative people known for being somewhat disorganized? Actually,  organization  is an essential part of creativity. While you might need to get a bit messy when trying out a new idea, you need to organize your ideas so others will understand and follow through with your vision.

Communication 

People will only appreciate your creative idea or solution if you  communicate  it effectively. You need to have strong written and oral communication skills.

Employers want creative thinkers because it benefits their bottom line. Companies that foster creativity may see more revenue growth. Positioning yourself as a creative thinker can make you a more appealing job candidate or leader within your current organization.

When you're applying for a job, think about how your creative nature has helped you in the past and how it might be an asset in the job you're seeking.

Here's how to showcase your creative thinking throughout the application process. 

• Add keywords. In your resume and cover letter, consider including keywords that demonstrate your creativity. For instance, you might try "problem-solving." 
• Give examples. In your cover letter, include one or two specific examples of times your creative thinking added value to your employer. Perhaps you came up with a creative way to save your department money, or maybe you developed a new filing system that increased efficiency. 
• Tell stories. Come to your interview prepared with examples of how you've demonstrated your creativity. This is especially important if the job description lists creativity or creative thinking as a requirement.

If you're looking for creative opportunities as a means of personal fulfillment, you can find satisfaction in surprising places. Any job that allows you to put your own spin on your work will end up being and feeling creative.

Key Takeaways

• Creative thinking is the ability to consider something in a new way.
• Creative thinking includes analysis, open-mindedness, problem-solving, organization, and communication. 
• Many employers value creative thinkers, so consider highlighting your creative thinking skills on your resume and in interviews. 

Northeastern University. " The Importance of Creativity in Business ."

Forbes. " The Most Valuable Skill In Difficult Times Is Lateral Thinking—Here’s How To Do It ."

Forrester. " The Creative Dividend ," Page 3.