Questions for Active Reading

Questions For Active Reading Page 108

1. 6 Myths of Creativity?

 1.  Creativity Comes from Creative Types

   Do not restrict creativity from any area of your work. Let creativity flow and

   develop on its own.

 2.  Money is a Creativity Motivator

   Money does not always motivate creativity. The majority of people who are

   creative do not think about how much they are making or are motivated by money.

   Those who do think about money are not so creative. What seems to motivate

   people is if they are paired up with a project that they take an interest to and

   if their skills meet the creativity that is needed for the project. However

   their skills cannot be less than the creativity need because then they would

   become frustrated and if their skills are beyond what is needed then they would

   get bored and creativity will become dry.

 3.  Time Pressure Fuels Creativity

   For some people having a deadline increases their creativity but for most people

   that is not the case. People usually become distracted because they have to come

   up with something creative by a certain time. They then begin to focus on how

   much time they have left instead of their creativity.

 4.  Fear Forces Breakthroughs

   In a study with artists and writers it was found that the more depressed the

   person the greater their creativity level. However in the study with people in

   other job positions people who were happy the day before experienced greater

   creativity the day after.

  5.  Competition Beats Collaboration

   Some people may believe that competing develops more creativity than

   collaborating. However this is not the case creative ideas flourish when people

   collaborate. Because no one person knows everything and when people combine

   ideas it turns out to be an even better idea.

  6.  A Streamlined Organization Is a Creative Organization

    When downsizing a business it prohibits creativity because people once again

   begin to focus on who is going to be cut out and not concentrate on how they can

   be creative. It was found that even after the downsize has been made five months

   later there is still a lack in creativity.



2.  Amabile designed her research by working with a team of PhD graduate students

and managers from different companies. She collected 12,000 journal entries from

about 238 people who were working on creative projects who were not informed

that she was looking closely at creativity. She asked then about their work,

their environment, and inquired about how they felt on that day.  The thing that

was interesting about her work is that she found out things that people would

not necessarily think is the norm.   Such as people who are happier are the ones

who seem to produce more creativity in the work field however those who do

creative work such as artists are more depressed when they produce creative

works.


3.  The audience for Breen is people20who are more likely to be CEOs in a company

which is trying to develop their employees creativity. His audience can also be

people who are trying to enhance their creative ability at their workplace.