September 22, 2025
Rethinking Creativity: Lessons in Problem Solving, Leadership, and Everyday Innovation
September 22, 2025
Rethinking Creativity: Lessons in Problem Solving, Leadership, and Everyday Innovation
Dr. Teresa Lawrence challenges the myth that creativity belongs only to a select few, reframing it instead as a skill anyone can learn and apply. Through insights from global thought leaders, it explores how creativity functions as a practical tool for problem solving, leadership, and everyday innovation. In a world that demands constant adaptation there's a business case for creative process at work.
Rethinking Creativity: Lessons in Problem Solving, Leadership, and Everyday Innovation
Reflections on a conversation with Dr. Teresa Lawrence by Dr. Tanya Knudsen.
Why do 'creatives' get all the credit for being creative? It’s so misunderstood that artists, musicians, or the so-called “geniuses” are the creatives in the world. Creativity is not a rare spark, but a reliable process, one we all have access to and can intentionally develop. For real.
Across disciplines, from academia to entrepreneurship, psychology to performance, there’s a growing recognition that creativity is a through-line. Not an add-on or luxury, but a mindset, a method, and a muscle. In a series of insightful conversations with creative leaders around the world, some common threads emerge about what creativity really is, how we can practice it, and why it matters more than ever in today's world of rapid change.
Creativity is a Learnable Skill
In an interview with Dr. Teresa Lawrence, Program Director of the Creative Leadership and Innovation for Change (CLIC) PhD program at the University of the Virgin Islands, we're urged to rethink creativity as the ability to generate options and possibilities. “Creativity,” she notes, “leans into decision-making and implementation.” It’s not just about having ideas. It’s about evaluating and acting on them.
Dr. Lawrence champions Creative Problem Solving (CPS), a process-based model grounded in the balance between divergent thinking (generating ideas) and convergent thinking (evaluating and refining them). Like any discipline, creative problem solving can be studied and improved.
Dr. Lawrence’s Top Tips:
Learn the tools of CPS – especially the balance between idea generation and evaluation.
Work with a buddy – Collaboration expands perspective.
Practice makes permanent – Like feng shui, even small intentional steps matter.
__
This blog is inspired by conversations with creativity scholars and practitioners on the Global Creativity’s Everyday Creativity Podcast, the listening, learning, sharing world wide creativity hub hosted by Dr Tanya Knudsen.
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Dr. Teresa Lawrence challenges the myth that creativity belongs only to a select few, reframing it instead as a skill anyone can learn and apply. Through insights from global thought leaders, it explores how creativity functions as a practical tool for problem solving, leadership, and everyday innovation. In a world that demands constant adaptation there's a business case for creative process at work.
Rethinking Creativity: Lessons in Problem Solving, Leadership, and Everyday Innovation
Reflections on a conversation with Dr. Teresa Lawrence by Dr. Tanya Knudsen.
Why do 'creatives' get all the credit for being creative? It’s so misunderstood that artists, musicians, or the so-called “geniuses” are the creatives in the world. Creativity is not a rare spark, but a reliable process, one we all have access to and can intentionally develop. For real.
Across disciplines, from academia to entrepreneurship, psychology to performance, there’s a growing recognition that creativity is a through-line. Not an add-on or luxury, but a mindset, a method, and a muscle. In a series of insightful conversations with creative leaders around the world, some common threads emerge about what creativity really is, how we can practice it, and why it matters more than ever in today's world of rapid change.
Creativity is a Learnable Skill
In an interview with Dr. Teresa Lawrence, Program Director of the Creative Leadership and Innovation for Change (CLIC) PhD program at the University of the Virgin Islands, we're urged to rethink creativity as the ability to generate options and possibilities. “Creativity,” she notes, “leans into decision-making and implementation.” It’s not just about having ideas. It’s about evaluating and acting on them.
Dr. Lawrence champions Creative Problem Solving (CPS), a process-based model grounded in the balance between divergent thinking (generating ideas) and convergent thinking (evaluating and refining them). Like any discipline, creative problem solving can be studied and improved.
Dr. Lawrence’s Top Tips:
Learn the tools of CPS – especially the balance between idea generation and evaluation.
Work with a buddy – Collaboration expands perspective.
Practice makes permanent – Like feng shui, even small intentional steps matter.
__
This blog is inspired by conversations with creativity scholars and practitioners on the Global Creativity’s Everyday Creativity Podcast, the listening, learning, sharing world wide creativity hub hosted by Dr Tanya Knudsen.
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Sign up to get the most recent blog articles in your email every week.
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