It is arguably true that everyone has the ability to think irrespective of how he or she is likely to think. The bottom line remains that everybody is not only capable of thinking but also able to think creatively. However, Constance and Staley (2011, p. 122) posit that most people are oblivious of their abilities to think creatively. This implies that they have some intelligence abilities within themselves that they have not discovered.Therefore, creative thinking is characterized by the ability of a person to think intelligently and come up with several answers or solutions to some problems. In organizations, creative thinking influences decision making in different ways, and hence, should be utilized carefully. In this regard, there are four styles of creative intelligence, which make people utilize their thinking abilities differently. This paper seeks to compare and contrast these styles and their effect on decision making in organizations.
The four styles of creative thinking are intuitive, innovative, imaginative, and inspirational. Intuitive or resourceful, as the second term infers, is a style of creative thinking that utilizes certain resources that are mainly described as life experiences. If one is intuitive, it means that he or she relies on experiences to focus on the targeted results. This is to mean that intuitive people focus on results more than what has happened in the past (Constance & Staley, 2011). Therefore, intuitive thinking helps an organization to make wise decisions whet it come to setting goals basing on what can be predicted using experience. This type of creative thinking employs common sense to arrive at solutions to a problem. On the other hand, innovative thinking does not rely on common sense, but on actual or existing data to create solutions. Innovative thinking is utilized under the guise of curiosity whereby individuals are usually concerned to know what exists behind a certain phenomenon. Therefore, they find and record data on which they base their inferences on depending on what they seek to solve. Scientists are a superb example of people who use innovative style of creative thinking. This style of creative thinking may limit decision making in the sense that it is difficult to make decisions when venturing into a new field where no data is available.
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Contrary to both intuitive and innovative thinkers who rely of observable information to think and create solutions, imaginative thinkers rely on mind insights. This approach utilizes individual imagination abilities to come up with better ways of thinking and solving a problem or coming up with new ideas (Constance & Staley, 2011). This means that these thinkers do not rely on any experiences or factual data to derive their ways of thinking. These thinkers are truly instrumental when it comes to strategizing to solve new problems that had never been experienced. However, this style may encourage inappropriate thinking in cases where data or the use of experience to focus on goals is required. Imagination is lauded for coming up with new and unique outcomes within an organization since it involves considering things that are out of the box in terms of mindsets. This style of thinking is associated with artists who are known to come up with new ideas.
Creative thinking can also be an inspiration style. According to Constance & Staley (2011, p. 123), this style of relative thinking involves focusing on social issues or issues that affect people at the society level and hence offer problems to any problems. This style is unique from the other three since it incorporates all the three to the form of solutions. In order to solve any social problem, one will be required to imagine and think about the problem (imaginative). In addition, one will also be required to reflect on what has happened in the past in order to set goals and focus on them (intuitive). Similarly, one has to be innovative and use available information to solve social problems. Therefore, inspirational thinkers can also be said to be visionary thinkers who use an all-inclusive mental model. In places of work, this helps in strategizing on how to give back to the society.
From an individual’s perspective, the innovative and intuitive styles are the most observable compared the other two. This approach is usually insisted on because goal setting is usually based on what the organization has achieved in the past. Since goals are set based on a trajectory, it means that any decision has to be made based on what has already been achieved in the organization. Otherwise, imaginations are not utilized much because they may set unrealistic goals. Secondly, intuitive style is also considered critical. It is assumed that for any goal to be achieved, employees must have the desire to achieve it for the benefit of themselves and the organization. Therefore, common sense is highly regarded when making decisions. For instance, common sense dictates that targets have to be higher than previous achievements. Therefore, this informs working conditions by discouraging over restrictive laws as individuals are expected to behave in a way reflecting their determination to achieving the set targets.
In conclusion, the four types of creative thinking can be said to be closely related. An organization needs to use all of them in different instances to create solutions and hence solve different problems. Some appear superior to others and seem to offer better alternatives to decision making, but it is critical to note that they are invaluable and are critical for decision making.