Boosting Creativity

Course Description
● A basic course in human creative cognition

○ This course is aimed at anyone who wants to understand what we actually know
(as opposed to perceiving we know) about human creativity, and how to use this
knowledge to think differently and productively about business challenges.
Because it is about creativity as a cognitive function, it does not matter what your
background is, what industry you come from / want to go to.

○ As a result of this course, past students have reported having a set of strategies
allowing them to tackle business problems with a fresh perspective.

● A content relevant for entrepreneurship

○ Considerable research shows the importance of understanding creativity for

entrepreneurship. Successful contemporary business rests upon business
people’s ability to identify problems (a.k.a., opportunities) clearly, get unique
insights on the market and develop solutions unseen and unimagined by
competitors. Current research in experimental psychology suggests that creativity
can be developed and refined, albeit with effort and practice. A goal of this course
is to provide a variety of experiences and activities with the specific focus of
fostering each student’s own creative abilities.

○ A second goal of this course is to understand the importance of creativity from a

consumer perspective. Considerable research demonstrates that consumers are
both increasingly offered the opportunity to customize their products and services,
and increasingly seeking to express their creativity through consumption. As
entrepreneurs, we have the ability to shape the consumption environment in ways
that help consumers enhance their own creative abilities, and develop a unique
relationship with consumers as a result
Course Goals and Objectives

At the end of the course, you should have become more conscious of the ways of
thinking that you typically use, and have observed how other ways of thinking can make
you more productive.

For this reason, engagement in all of the creativity exercises is critical to benefit from
the course. Students who took this course recommend to follow the videos in a quiet
environment — this is not a commuter course! This is a course, the success of which
relies upon and requires your full participation. You are expected to engage fully in the
activities and exercises, in addition to completing all assigned readings, assignments,
and exercises. The more you engage, the more you will get out of it for the long-run.

When you successfully completed this course, you should be able to:

1. Actively use a number of techniques to take fresh perspectives on problems you are
trying to solve.

2. Come up with impactful marketing plans more flexibly.

3. Manage yourself, your management team, and your customers more effectively.

Note that a key aspect of this course involves having you work on creative ideas. To
assess creativity, we cannot simply rely on your own assessment of it, or on a single
instructor’s assessment. Therefore, to simulate a proxy for a market response to your
idea, your creative performance on the course exercises will be assessed using peer
evaluations. This means that other students taking the class will assess your creative
work throughout the course; and you will assess theirs. It is important to take those two
roles — the creator’s and the market’s — to fully appreciate what creative experience
is about, since, as business leaders, you won’t be creating value in a vacuum, but for
others.

Textbook and Readings

There is no required textbook for this course. Listed below are some suggested free online
textbooks that provide additional material on the topics of this course.

Specific readings for each module from these texts are listed with direct links on the Readings
page for each module.
Course Outline

The course consists of four modules that focus on key areas of creative thinking.

What is creativity? If it is a notion increasingly invoked in the media, its

Module 1: definition remains elusive, and its reach often misunderstood. This module
Introduction and aims at clearly identifying what we refer to when we talk about creativity,
anatomy of
as well as the issues raised by a number of misconceptions of the topic.
creativity

Learning outcomes: you will know what is precisely known about

creativity, and what remains unknown. As a result, you will be able to more
critically process the flurry of literature and press on a topic that is recurrent
in business discussions.

A critical antecedent of creativity is the enjoyment of the creative

Module 2: process. This module will dive into the active monitoring of emotions
The importance during the creative process, as it is often the best predictor of the quality of
of feeling right
one’s creative output.
for thinking
creatively
Learning outcomes: learn to pay more attention to your feelings rather
than simply thoughts during the creative process, and use techniques
aimed at boosting the emotional experience that best works for you.

In this module, we will do exercises and learn techniques to get a sense of

Module 3: what environmental aspects one can actively shape to get to their optimal
Fostering creative experience. It varies from one individual to the next, and this
creativity using module takes you on a journey helping you to figure out how your most
our creative self gets more easily accessed.
surroundings:
Shaping your Learning Outcomes: you should better understand the key variables that
environment push you away from how you think by default when you approach
problems, to adopt more productive approaches.

In this module, we will cover in more detail one environmental variable that
Module 4: has been shown to dramatically and beneficially alter your creative
Introducing you processing: step-by-step instructions harnessing your creative experience.
 to step-by-step The module covers and has you directly use two such creativity
instructions techniques.

Learning Outcomes: realize that different step-by-step instructions

present the benefit to break the typically fixed way in which you consider
multi-solution, complex creative problems. Consider creative concepts as
more flexible targets than they are considered by default. And come up
with more novel and useful ones.

Learning Activities of This Course

The course is comprised of the following elements:

● Lecture videos. In each module, the concepts you need to know will be presented
through a collection of short video lectures. You may stream these videos for playback
within the browser by clicking on their titles or download the videos. You may also
download the slides that go along with the videos.
● Graded Quizzes. Each module will include 1 graded quiz, for which you have one
attempt.
● Peer Reviewed Assignments. Each module may include one or more peer reviewed
assignment(s). You will read a short prompt, then answer several questions about the
information provided. You will then be required to review your peers' submissions. At the
same time, other students taking the course will evaluate your creative work. It is
important for you to seriously do this part of the course, as the peer evaluations will be
part of the final grade of the students you are grading, and it is important practice as
evaluating other people’s creative ideas will most likely be part of your career.

Note that for peer review assessments, you will be asked to grade students’ creativity using scales
ranging from 50% (not at all creative) to 100% (extremely creative). This means that all students
by definition pass peer-review assessments. What will be informative is where you fall in the 50-
100% range with your creative work. Therefore, please rate the creativity of your peers as
sincerely as you can, using this 50%-100% axis.

● Discussion Prompts. Each module may include one discussion prompt. You will see
the discussion prompt alongside other items in the lesson. Each prompt provides a space
for you to respond. After responding, you can see and comment on your peers'
responses. All prompts and responses are also accessible from the general discussion
forum and the module discussion forum.
 ● Readings. Each module may include several suggested readings. They are good
supplementary materials for you to further understand the course topics.

Getting and Giving Help

● Use the Learner Help Center to find information regarding specific technical problems.
For example, technical problems would include error messages, difficulty submitting
assignments, or problems with video playback. If you cannot find an answer in the
documentation, you can also report your problem to the Coursera staff by clicking on the
Contact Us! link available on each topic's page within the Learner Help Center.
● Use the Content Issues forum to report errors in lecture video content, assignment
questions and answers, assignment grading, text and links on course pages, or the
content of other course materials. HEC Paris’s staff and Community Mentors will monitor
this forum and respond to issues.