Creative Style – What Is It? Sandy Cormack interzon@comcast.net

Background Early research in the 60s focused on ‘management initiative’ – how ideas are developed and adopted in organizations Research focused on how eight large British corporations introduced new products, procedures, processes, etc. into their organizations Analyzed what went right, what went wrong, and why

Creative Style Defined Creative Style = Thinking Style Theory explores the way people solve problems All people need to manage change successfully All people solve problems and are creative, but not in the same manner

Style vs Level Creative style is different from, and unrelated to, creative level Level Style Two ‘extremes’ of creative style – ADAPTIVE and INNOVATIVE ADAPTIVE INNOVATIVE High Low LEVEL more associated with intellect, talent, skill

Adaptors and Innovators Characteristics of the INNOVATIVE creative style: Need for less structure Solves problems by breaking, modifying, eliminating, replacing the current paradigms Prefer radical, transformational change ‘Do Things Differently’ Characteristics of the ADAPTIVE creative style: Need for more structure Solves problems by refining, extending, improving the current accepted paradigm Prefer incremental, predictable change ‘Do Things Better’

Descriptive Summary

The KAI KAI developed in the mid-80s after 20 years of creative style research Inventory of 33 questions Yields a score between 32 and 160 (general population range is 45-145) Places individuals on a continuum from ‘Highly Adaptive’ to ‘Highly Innovative’

National KAI Distribution Mean = 95, Standard Deviation ~ 20

Creative Style is NEVER a Pejorative All people problem-solve and are creative Adaptors and innovators can be equally good or bad at problem solving – they just do so differently It takes a wide range of styles to solve all problems Do not tolerate creative style differences – welcome them ME YOU