CREATE-ET

"Every child is an artist. The problem is staying an artist when you grow up."

– Pablo Picasso

The term „creativity“ comes from the Latin term  „creare“. This means to create, to generate, or to produce. Creativity is often associated with art. It is understood that architects, painters, singers, actors and directors are creative. However, the fact that daily tasks of politicians, teachers and employees in companies demand a high degree of creativity is often neglected.

But what does creativity actually mean?

There is no universal definition of creativity. Creativity in the workplace is generally characterized as the human ability to generate ideas that result in the creation of something new and useful (Amabile et al., 1996; Oldham & Cummings, 1996; Shalley, Zhou, & Oldham, 2004; cf. Runco & Jaeger, 2012). Guilford (1950) defines divergent thinking as a core element of creativity, driven by cognitive processes such as flexibility, fluidity, originality and elaboration. Creativity can be considered in terms of the product, the process and the person becoming creative. Whether, and if so, to what extent creativity is a domain-specific ability remains  largely unclear.

In a digitized working world, creativity is likely to become a central and and promising resource of human labor even more than before. The ability to be creative is increasingly becoming a key competence for individuals as well as for teams. As a preliminary stage of innovation, creativity is the prerequisite for innovative capacity for organizations as well as society as a whole.