Adaptors and Innovators

At a recent conference, two different creative styles were vividly demonstrated. After taking the KAI assessment, people were divided into groups according to their individual ratings. They were classified as:

• Adaptors: who think 'better' like Edison
• Innovators: who think 'different' like DaVinci

They were given blank sheets of paper and a competitive challenge to 'prepare to fly as many planes as possible' across a line drawn on the floor. The result was striking.

Those assessed as more 'adaptive' - with a more structured, 'within paradigm', thinking bias - laboriously collaborated to create as many paper planes as possible within the allocated time. They even tested their paper planes for their flying ability, before the competitive test.

Those assessed as more 'innovative' - with more of an unstructured, 'beyond paradigm', thinking bias - individually created huge numbers of flying paper balls or paper 'things' to throw across the line during the final test.

So quantitatively, the 'innovators' won the challenge by the sheer number of paper balls they were able to produce. But qualitatively, the adaptors won since they made the largest number of things closest to 'flying planes'.

Many other tests exist to evaluate individual style. Though not strictly about creativity, the MBTI (Myers Briggs Type Indicator) tells you about your individual leadership (and thus facilitation) style - see http://www.myersbriggs.org for more details and testing.
 

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