The document explores the importance of creative confidence, outlining barriers to creativity, including emotional and cultural factors, and the impact of stress on creative performance. It discusses various methods and exercises to enhance creative thinking, such as the paperclip test and the Torrance test of creative thinking. Additionally, it emphasizes the need for a supportive creative climate in organizations and the significance of overcoming the fear of failure to unlock creative potential.

1. © Fieke Sluijs

2. Check in
When was the last time
you tried something
for the first time?

3. Today
Creative thinking is a wanted skill
Creativity Tests
Introduction to Creative Confidence
Share Fears & Fuck-ups
Make Creative Confidence Work-out Poster

4. Method

5. Mindset
DO YOU HAVE
THE MINDSET?
Vignoli, M., Dosi, C., & Balboni, B.
(2023). Design thinking mindset: scale
development and validation. Studies
in Higher Education, 48(6), 926-940.

6. Core skills 2023

7. Skills on the rise 2023

8. Reskilling Focus 2023 - 2027

9. Survey 2020

10. The Paperclip Test
How many uses can you think of for a paperclip?
Make a list
Share your list with your team
Guilford’s Alternative Uses Test
Measures divergent thinking abilities
2 min
Guilford, J. P., Christensen, P. R., Merrifield, P. R., & Wilson, R. C. (1960). Alternate Uses (ALTUS)

11. GPT
We assessed GPT-3's creativity on Guilford's Alternative
Uses Test and compared its performance to previously
collected human responses (…)
Our results show that -- on the whole -- humans
currently outperform GPT-3 when it comes to creative
output. But, we believe it is only a matter of time before
GPT-3 catches up on this particular task.
Stevenson, C., Smal, I., Baas, M., Grasman, R., & van der Maas, H. (2022). Putting GPT-3's Creativity to the (Alternative Uses) Test.

12. Torrance Test of Creative Thinking
Here you see a doodle.
Finish the drawing and give it a title.
Share your drawing with your team
2 min
Torrance, E. P. (1966). Torrance tests of creative thinking. Educational and Psychological Measurement.

13. Creative Confidence
David Kelley – Founder of IDEO
Anyone can approach the world like a
designer. Often all it takes to unlock
that potential as a dynamic problem
solver is creative confidence.

14. David Kelley – Founder IDEO

15. Why is creative confidence important?

16. What blocks you from being creative?
• Learning & habit (‘correct’ responses, routines)
• Rules & traditions (restrictive rules)
• Preceptual barriers (biases, mental models)
• Cultural barriers (social confirmation)
• Emotional barriers (anger, fear, anxiety, hate)
• Resource barriers (time, implementation restrictions)
Davis, G. A. (1999). Barriers to creativity and creative attitudes. Encyclopedia of creativity, 1, 165-174.

17. Emotional barriers
Neuroscience research has shown that
uncontrollable stress leads to worse
performance on creativity tasks
high social-evaluative threats decrease
creative performance
Vartanian, et al, The Creative Brain under Stress: Considerations for Performance in Extreme Envirinments (2020)

18. Stress & Creativity
What happens in our brain when
we are exposed to stressful events?
Amygdala Hijack
Severe stress triggers the brain
to completely focus on survival & safety,
leaving no room for creative thought
Field, J. The science behind creativity: What happens in the brain and why. openforideas.org (2016)

19. Creative climate in organizations
1. Challenge
2. Freedom
3. Idea support
4. Trust & openness
5. Dynamism/Liveliness
6. Playfulness/Humour
7. Debates
8. Conflicts
9. Risk taking
10.Idea time
Ekvall, G. (1996). Organizational climate for creativity and innovation. European journal of work and organizational psychology, 5(1), 105-123.

20. Polarities provide energy
Challenge
Dynamism
Idea support
Risk taking
Freedom
Trust & openness
Based on Ekvall. Liz Monroe-Cook, Polarity Thinking and Creative Problem Solving" in Polarity Practitioners. And: Making a difference by leveraging Polarity, Paradox or
Dilemma; Volume 2 Applications, Amherst: HRD Press, 2021.
Playfulness
Relaxation
Debate
Idea time
Guidance
Questioning

21. Project Aristotle at Google

22. Psychological safety is the key
Source: World Economic Forum: www.weforum.org/agenda/2016/04/team-psychological-danger-work-performance/

23. Psychological safety & fear of failure
Fear of failure is a huge obstacle for creativity
It manifests itself f.e. in:
• Fear of being judged
• Fear of rejection
• Fear of getting started
• Fear of the unknown
Kelley, Tom and David Kelley; Creative Confidence: Unleasing the creative potential within us all. William Collins, 2014

24. Do you recognize this?
Think of a situation in the past month
in which you wanted to be creative but
didn’t because you felt some kind of
fear of failure: embaressment, fear of
being judged, etc.

25. How to overcome you fear?
So, if we know fear of failure
is a huge obstacle for creativity,
then, how can we overcome this fear?

26. Guided mastery

27. Failure is the only option!
A person who never
made a mistake never
tried anything new.

28. Failure & Learning
The real measure
of succes is the number of
experiments that can be
crowded into 24 hours.
Thomas Edison

29. How many prototypes did James Dyson create
before going to market?
5127
Source: https://www.sprout.nl/artikel/zo-werd-dyson-groot

30. How many ‘failed prototypes’ did Henry Ford create
before his famous T-Model?
19
(A-Model, B-model, C-Model…)

31. Failure is getting recognition

36. My failures

37. Own your failures
To learn from failure
you need to own your failures.
Make a list of your fuck-ups.
What did you learn for them? (2 min)
Share fuck-ups & learnings, in pairs (2 min)
Share in groups of 4, (4 min)

38. Creative Confidence Exercise
Write down a list you can do to
improve your creative confidence
Silent solo
Share in pairs, expand your list (3 x)
Pair up with other couple
Make a Creative Confidence Workout Poster
2 min
10 min

39. David Kelley – TED Talk

40. Creative Confidence Book

41. IDEO U Creative Confidence Podcasts

42. Check out
What is the first thing you
are going to do to build
more creative confidence?