We are increasingly faced with situations in everyday life where routines are no longer sufficient and we need solutions. People who claim that they cannot be creative react with the following behavior:
- You think hard and can’t come up with a solution.
- They think the problem cannot be solved and turn their attention to other things.
- They delegate the problem to colleagues and shirk their responsibility to find a solution themselves.
- The problem burdens them and they become ill.
In all these cases, however, they would come up with creative solutions that make work easier and provide new ways of thinking. But what characterizes creative people?
What do creative personalities look like?
There are many scientific studies on the characteristics of creative people and their personalities. One of the best-known experts is the psychology professor Mihály Csíkszentmihályi, who became famous above all for his discovery of the “flow experience” – which describes the state of happiness experienced through complete immersion and maximum concentration in an activity. From the scientific results, the following characteristics can essentially be summarized, which stand for creative thinking:
Problem awareness: The ability to question routine processes and recognize problems (including future ones)
Creative people regularly question their work processes and activities (e.g: What other route could I take to work? What improvements would this bring?) They look to the future (what will we do when there is no longer any demand for our most important product?)
Self-motivation: Enjoying work and solving problems
Unexpected problems often lead creative people to take concrete action. They do not feel frustrated when problems arise. The thought of an exciting solution motivates them to invest energy in the work.
Flexible thinking: the ability to use different ways of thinking and combine ideas as required
Problems differ – and so do solutions. While some problems can only be solved with radical lateral thinking, other situations require a structured analytical approach. Successful creative personalities recognize when they need to think differently and which techniques are appropriate at that moment.
Persistence: High energy to solve even complex problems and not to be satisfied with quick solutions.
Complex problems cannot be solved in a short time; the solution requires a lot of perseverance and energy. An engineer who worked for a large German mechanical engineering company was finally able to complete a component that he had been working on for over 8 years.
Specialist knowledge: Sufficient know-how to penetrate the problem in great detail
You don’t have to be an expert to come up with creative ideas. Specialists are often too deeply caught up in their task and therefore have difficulty thinking outside the box. However, a basic knowledge of the product, industry-specific experience and relevant know-how should be available, especially for complex problems.
Judgment: The ability to recognize good solutions and use positive approaches for further development
At some point, the decision for or against the implementation of an idea has to be made. Even if it is difficult, other good ideas have to make way for better ones. Perhaps only part of the idea will be implemented in order to develop a new solution.
Take a look at the characteristics and think about which of them apply to you and which skills are particularly important to you. Tip: Ask a friend to give you an assessment.
Train creativity
You can see from the characteristics described that creativity in a professional context has little to do with the ability to achieve artistic excellence. Rather, it is about solving concrete everyday problems – and this ability can be trained. There are plenty of exercises for various creativity techniques. We present some of them in our Innovation Wiki. Have a browse!
