By Valerie Kramis, coach of Tahona Society Collective Spirit
Design Thinking process: How to Build your Creativity Muscle
What is your Creativity Type?
By Valerie Kramis * IG @vkramis
*Design Strategy Specialist with experience in marketing, social innovation, and social entrepreneurship. She is the co-founder of Agenda28, and main coach of Tahona Society Collective Spirit.
For this issue of the Tahona Society, we decided to unveil creativity! Are you ready to discover basic habits and tendencies of how you think, how you act and how you see the world?
Creativity is the ability to transcend traditional ways of thinking or acting, and to develop new and original ideas, methods, or objects. (Morr, 2019).
When you’re being creative, you can see the hidden patterns, make connections between things that aren’t normally related, and come up with new ideas (Lobell, 2018).
Not surprisingly, creativity is proven to be a crucial factor for success in the hospitality industry, but also, according to research studies, a source of happiness and meaningfulness for our lives
(Csikszentmihalyi, 2004)
So, given the importance of this ability, I wonder, is every person truly creative by nature?
Measurig you Creativity: Did you Know?
- Fascinated by how brains and creativity work, I decided to research the best tests measuring creativity.
- The original creativity tests developed in the 1960s are tests of divergent thinking inspired in the work of psychologist J.P. Guilford.
- Some years later, psychologist E. Paul Torrance built on Guilford’s research, developing the Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking, which many call the “gold standard.”
- However, these tests weren’t designed to be the final word on creativity or as a static measure of an individual’s ability and in consequence have faced a lot of criticism.
- So, after different attempts of trying to measure what probably shouldn’t be measured, I came with the conclusion that:
Creativity is inherit to the human nature, however, the way our education, jobs and society are configured tend to make people less creative as they age.
Therefore, more than exhibiting black-and-white labels, I believe we need to discover what drives us so we can better understand how we can dust off the creative genius that lives in each one of us.
The Creative Types Test
With this new insight in mind, I found an interesting and very creatively designed test by Adobe Create Magazine.
The Creative Types test is an exploration of the many faces of the creative personality.
Based in psychology research, the test assesses your basic habits and tendencies—how you think, how you act, how you see the world—to help you better understand who you are as a creative.
The results will tell you your creative type, what kind of type you work best with, and how to maximize your natural gifts. Are you ready to take the test?
