Reflection Report: Creativity and Innovation for Business Course

This report is a reflective analysis of a student's experience in a Creativity and Innovation for Business course. The student begins by outlining their initial expectations, which primarily revolved around product design, and contrasts them with the actual course content, which emphasized organizati...Read More

CREATIVITY AND INNOVATION FOR BUSINESS
Student’s Name
Course Name
Professor’s Name
University Name
City, State
Date

CREATIVITY AND INNOVATION FOR BUSINESS
Initial expectations and changes in expectations
The commencement of learning in any course is usually marked with various
expectations. For some, a new course is an opportunity to reinforce the knowledge that they
already have. For others comes with an expectation to acquire new knowledge. Before taking this
course, I largely thought that it would dwell on ways in which businesses design new products.
However, I later realized that the particular focus of the course. Away from my expectations
about the course the course largely focused on strategies used by organizations, the factors that
affect the ability of individuals to be innovative and creative, the integration of ethics in creative
and innovative processes, and the various ways of incorporating ideas into innovation, design
and creativity processes.
Lessons learnt from the course and how I will use them
By taking this unit I have learnt multiple aspects required to succeed in the corporate
world. Most importantly, I have learnt that creativity and innovations are major determinants of
organizational success. Additionally, I have also learnt that creativity is required in several
aspects of an organization such as corporate social responsibility, satisfaction of employees, the
introduction of new products and services as well as in the rollout of new technology. In the
wake of several ethical issues that contemporary businesses have to deal with on daily basis,
creativity has become an in important aspect of their resolution (Mumford et al., 2010).
The course has also taught me about the need to capacitate the innovative and creative
abilities in employees. In addition, I have also learnt about the various strategies that can be used
to enhance the innovative and creative abilities of employees at the workplace (Kesting and
Ulhøi, 2010) In other words through some of its modules, the course has equipped with the

necessary knowledge needed to succeed in my future roles in the business world and taught me
on the ways in which employee’s creativity and innovation can be ignited and managed. In
addition, I also learnt some of the factors that can drive or hinder innovation. Some of these
factors included management practices, the availability of resources and organization’s
orientation towards innovation and creativity. This aligns with the provisions of the diffusion
theory of innovation which asserts that the distribution of an innovation is affected by aspects
such as social systems, communication and time (Le Masson, Hatchuel & Weil, 2017).
Application in My future Job
Besides, the lessons learnt in this unit practical and theoretical activities which enabled
me to gain deeper understanding of the course content. In assignment one for example I learnt
the fact that design thinking, creativity and innovation are dependent on individual employees
leaving organizations with little impact on the strengthening of the processes. In assignment two
which was a group project we were required to brainstorm and give a solution to a current
organization problem.
Other practical activities included taking part in a mind mapping exercise generally
meant to improve our ability to think creatively. Taking part in the creation of a video
assignment, brainstorming activities and group discussions has really helped me to be creative. I
have used this knowledge to explore my abilities within the classroom and outside in a bold
manner. I also believe that the undertaking of assessments with specific deadlines will help me to
effectively manage time and meet job related deadlines. Significantly also. The ability to
function in groups is one of the main requirements for success at the workplace (Glassman, and
Opengart, 2016). This means that undertaking of group processes has successfully equipped me

with the formulation of group strategies, incorporation of creativity in groups and the completion
of tasks within deadlines.
One of the plans that I have after completing school is to become a CEO of my personal
business or seek employment in one of the leading brands in the country. The lessons learnt in
this course will be highly important in either of these positions. For example I am to make use of
brainstorming techniques to improve decision making in my organization. In addition, I also
hope use of the strategies learnt in this unit to ignite creativity and innovation among my
employees. In this regard, whenever the organization will be faced by an issue, I will lead my
team through a brainstorming activity whereby all proposals for resolving the problem will be
suggested and the best ideas selected to address the issue.
In order to be successful, these brainstorming activities should be guided by a few
guidelines. To start with a definition of the key problem question being sought is a major
requirement before the commencement of a brainstorming exercise. This should be set forth with
clarity to prompt members to think of potential solutions. This should then be followed by
boundaries for potential solutions whose duration might depend on the solution being sought.
Secondly, it is important to lay out the context of the issue at hand to ensure that everyone is on
the same page with the rest. Thirdly, the role of a facilitator needs to be prioritized (Stroebe,
Nijstad and Rietzschel, 2010). This means that an appropriate facilitator for the brainstorming
session needs to be picked to moderate the session. This ought to be a unbiased person with prior
experience with brainstorming. This should then be followed by the invitation of the right people
usually the affected person’s experts of the issue being discussed and sometimes employees and
non-employees from other areas. The session should however not eight people exceed. Next the
agenda for the problem question should be set including context and boundaries. The final step

involves holding the session. In this step the facilitator may request each of the members to write
down their idea and hand it over to him or her. He or she should then read them one by one to
members who then identify the best ideas among those proposed (Stroebe, Nijstad and
Rietzschel, 2010)
Example of real life use during the semester
Brainstorming is one of the important skill acquired in this course. I applied it earlier in
the semester while trying to one of my friends whose name I will conceal for privacy reasons.
The friend who is an orphan has been struggling with raising of school fees since the passing on
of his parents about a year ago leaving him with a car and their only house .After realizing him
down i took him to a restaurant near the school where we sat for a few hours deliberating on how
the solution could be saved .We proposed all the ideas that came to minds, looked for the
demerits and merits of each of them and finally settled on the best idea.

References
Glassman, A.M. and Opengart, R., 2016. Teaching innovation and creativity: Turning theory into
practice. Journal of International Business Education, 11, p.113.
Kesting, P. and Ulhøi, J.P., 2010. Employee‐driven innovation: extending the license to foster
innovation. Management decision.
Le Masson, P., Hatchuel, A. and Weil, B., 2017. Design theories, creativity and innovation.
In The Elgar Companion to Innovation and Knowledge Creation. Edward Elgar Publishing.
Mumford, M.D., Waples, E.P., Antes, A.L., Brown, R.P., Connelly, S., Murphy, S.T. and
Devenport, L.D., 2010. Creativity and ethics: The relationship of creative and ethical problem-
solving. Creativity Research Journal, 22(1), pp.74-89.
Stroebe, W., Nijstad, B.A. and Rietzschel, E.F., 2010. Beyond productivity loss in brainstorming
groups: The evolution of a question. In Advances in experimental social psychology (Vol. 43, pp.
157-203). Academic Press.