Better Manager 7th prelims:Better Manager 7th edition

(Ron) #1

How to be creative


Walter Bagehot wrote: ‘It is often said that men are ruled by their
imagination; but it would be truer to say that they are governed
by the weakness of their imagination.’
Unimaginative management is a sure way to failure. Creative
thinking that leads to innovation aims to overcome the danger of
being governed by this weakness.


CREATIVITY


Creative and logical thinking


Creative thinking is imaginative thinking. It produces new ideas,
new ways of looking at things. It relates things or ideas which
were previously unrelated. It is discontinuous and divergent.
Edward de Bono (1971) invented the phrase ‘lateral thinking’ for
it and this term has stuck; it implies sideways leaps in the imagi-
nation rather than a continuous progression down a logical chain
of reasoning.
Logical or analytical thinking is a step-by-step process. It is
continuous, one step leading to the next until, ideally, you


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