The Role of Creative Thinking Skills in Professional Development

This essay discusses the significance of creative thinking skills in professional development for managers, highlighting its role in fostering innovation, problem-solving, and adaptability in a rapidly changing business environment. It emphasizes that creative thinking enables managers to connect experiences, synthesize new ideas, and implement them effectively within their organizations. The analysis contrasts traditional problem-solving methods with modern creative approaches, underscoring the advantages of creativity in overcoming obstacles, promoting growth, and fostering a positive workplace mentality. Furthermore, the essay includes a critical analysis of how creative thinking extends beyond artistic domains to become a vital business tool for identifying opportunities, solving problems, and improving overall organizational productivity. The conclusion reinforces the importance of creative thinking for managers in handling disputes, initiating change, and developing the full potential of their organizations.

Running head: PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT AND ETHICS
PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT AND ETHICS
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author note

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Introduction
Creative thinking is the ability to look into something in a new and broader way. It can be
also said as thinking something out of the box. Creative thinking is the sense, which involves
what is called lateral thinking or the ability in perceiving the patterns, which are not obvious
(Paul 2018). Creative people have the ability to carry out tasks, solve the existing problems, and
bring fresh ideas in a new way. The basic difference between skills and competencies is that
skills define specific learned activities and they range in a broader term of complexity (Van
Merriënboer and Kirschner 2017). However, skills does not provide the answers related with a
“how” that is how does a person perform the job successfully.
The aim of the paper is understand the importance of creative thinking skills in a manager. It will
also discuss the traditional as well as the modern methods of creative thinking skills of a manger
in a business organization.
Importance of Creative thinking
Creative thinking is one of the most important skills that is required by the managers
running business today. Creative thinking enables the managers to run the business with
innovation and thereby ensuring success. The manager of the organization must have the
potential to undertake the risk of implementing new ideas and innovation n the organization.
Creative thinking is highly important as it helps to eliminate the occurring problems in the
organization. As the world’s changes, there is advancement in the technologies and new business
practices implemented in the organization in order to cope up with the changing environment.
Therefore, creative thinking should be highly focused on a developing the creative thinking skills

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which is important to adapt with the ever changing environment (Rawlinson 2017). Creative
thinking in the organization helps to explore and discover various connections, meets the new
occurring challenges and problems and helps to seek innovative, original and different solutions.
All the managers from the world famous organizations today are known for their creativity.
Process of creative thinking
Creative thinking involves connecting various experiences and synthesizing new things
and implementing them in the functions and activities of the organization. Therefore, we can say
that creative thinking is an important skill that is required to develop every day by the mangers.
The managers of the organization is required to break the usual patterns of running the business
or the organization and eliminate the traditional way of thinking or traditional approach towards
the business activities and implement creative thinking to enable new ideas and innovation in the
organization (Kasim and Wahyuni, 2018). The managers can connect various experiences to
meet the current challenges and problems with the help of creative solutions. The managers of
the organization are required to collaborate different ideas and thoughts and utilize the good
communication skills, which is essential for the smooth performance of the organization.
Creative thinking managers are usually open-minded. They appreciate criticisms, and enable new
creative solutions and ideas. It is an important requirement in the organization that the managers
explore new ideas and strategies though creative thinking to undertake various risks involved in
the organization. Creative thinking is important in the organization as it generates innovative and
original problem solving solutions. As the world is advancing at a remarkable pace, therefore
creative thinking is very crucial for any organization, as it enables the organization to adapt to
the changing situations. Creating thinking generates the ability to apply innovative thinking in a
digitalized environment. Creative thinking is a characteristic of a successful manager. Be the

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managers of different fields, creative thinking skills are required to develop and enhance the
potential of the managers. By implementing creative thinking skills, the managers are able to
overcome the obstacles and problems of the business. In order words, it helps to deals with the
problems of business. Creative thinking skills allow the managers of the organization to apple
creative process in the functioning of the organization. Creative thinking skills enable the
manager’s o look at the activities of the business from different perspective and generate
solutions, which are unique and differentiated from its competitors (Kovalenko and Serikova,
2018).
Methods of creative thinking
Utilizing the traditional methods of problem solving in the rapidly changing environment
can lead to failure of the business and may not be beneficial for the business in the long run.
Therefore, to cope up with the rapidly changing environment creative thinking is an important
dimension to the managerial activity (Vogel 2018). The need to overcome the obstacles of the
business and smoothly encountering them through creative and innovating thinking is of
paramount importance in the business organization.
Advantage of using creative thinking in organization
Creativity in the organization helps to overcome the rigid structures of the organization. It
is considered as most desirable characteristics of the manager or the leader of an organization.
The characteristics of creative thinking are important for initiating innovation, enhancing the
vision, progressiveness, originality and resourcefulness of the organization. For the survival of
any organization in the changing scenario and cultural climate, the role of creativity in the
manager or the leadership is crucial for any organization. There are many advantages for having
a creative manager or creativity in the organization. It helps in problem solving and overcoming

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the obstacles of the business in an innovative manner, it helps to attain growth and achieve
expansion in the organization (Marcketti and Karpova 2015). It helps to mentor the teams in the
workplace and influence their performance and activities in the organization.
Benefits of creative thinking
Further, it helps to find solutions in unique perspectives within the activities of the
business. Approaching towards goals from a creative point of view by the managers helps to gain
the ability to attain them effectively and efficiently. A manager with creativity skills initiates
unique and different ways to attain the goals of the organization. Moreover, creative thinking
skills enable to foster a positive mentality in the workplace. Creativity in the organization creates
many opportunity for the manager of the organization as well as the employees (Holford 2017).
Therefore, it can be said that creativity is an important aspect in every field apart from managers
only.
Critical Analysis
When creative thinking is mentioned to people they mostly think about arts and designs.
But to me creative thinking is not limited to the artistic culture, but being a manager creative
thinking is something which is very vital to run a successful business. Being a manager creative
thinking is a very powerful business tool which should never be overlooked. A manager with the
help of creative thinking identifies and exploits new opportunities in a business and assists
people and team s in solving various kinds of problematic situations. This in overall improves the
productivity of the organization and helps it run successfully in a longer run. Once a business get
established it focuses on the existing products, services it provides as well as the methodologies
which would make a very small improvement (Wokke, Ridderinkhof, and Padding, 2018).

5PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT AND ETHICS
Implementing the creative thinking a manager should develop fresh ideas so as to improve the
business strategies. Only those who think outside the box are rewarded as because they find
some new perspectives as well as remove the limits of thinking. Critical thinking is one of the
most important for the managers as it helps to analyze the situation and help in the decision
making process. This is one of the major factor that will be incorporating the activities that will
be beneficial for a manager to resolve the critical issues (Seele 2018). Critical thinking also helps
the managers in determining the activities that will be liable for the development of a plan that
helps in dealing with the complex situations. Current organizational environment is dynamic and
critical thinking can help the manager to analyze the challenges and evaluate them to overcome
those challenges.
Changing the way of thinking in a business is very vital for the growth as well as
bringing success to the company. Without it a manager will always run in a risk and would not
look into a bigger picture which will as a result which will lead the manager to overlook into the
important factors which could hinder the success of the organization. One way by which a
business manager can rephrase a very common problem, which is occurring in the organization,
is given with an example. Example: a business owner might one day say that that the
organization is not able to cover the business cost in the present year, which will lead a cost
cutting exercise for the company (Alqda and Salem 2016). But there can also be another solution
tpo it by just simply rephrasing it by saying that ‘the company is generating enough sales in the
present year, so it will be helpful for the organization if the sales could be increased. Therefore
as a manager, it is very important to visualize a business opportunity by not only managing it and
directing it in a proper manner but also by creatively thinking about the market demands and
analyzing the competitors (Beaty et al 2016). The process of ideating, generating creative

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ideologies as well as evaluate ideas for the manufacturing of the new products and services is
known as creative thinking.
Conclusion
From the above analysis, it can be concluded, that creative thinking skill is one of the
most important skill required by a manager. It is quite evident that as a manager has be creative
to manage a team. With the help of creative thinking, a manager can easily handle disputes and
solve it as soon as possible. Creative thinking obviously helps in managerial aspiration as
because if a manager wants to change something from the present situation into a preferable one,
creative thinking helps to achieve that. It helps in reducing the risk by engaging with the internal
and external people, it seeks out for new solutions, which will be able to solve needs, problems
and challenges. Creative thinking skills help to initiate new ideas in the organization. Further, it
is the ability to consider ad implement something new in the organization. These skills are
essential to develop the real potential of the business organization and overcome all the obstacles
and difficulties in the organization. This generates positive influence in the organizational skill.

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