Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Introduction:
Today, newer technology platforms and business models are created faster than testing
by practitioners. Organizations running on fossilized ideas either die out or are gobbled up,
unless the environment is overly protective of them for strategic, jingoistic or ulterior
considerations.
Quest for competitive advantage is essential for long-term survival of any business
organization. As every organization is in continuous pursuit of creating or acquiring
competitive advantage, many of specialties once considered competitive advantage have –
with time – turned into entry barriers today for companies trying to compete globally. One
familiar example is the ISO 9000 Quality Management System Certification.
Because each firm is unique as regards the possession and use of resources and
capabilities; it is the heterogeneity of resources that can contribute to competitive advantage.
In today’s business scenario tectonic shifts are taking place at lightning speed. The
benchmarks of performance excellence are continually shifting and the competition is getting
fiercer. Competitors mirror rival activities very quickly. Existing economic conditions and
fierce competition prevalent presently are forcing organizations to seek new ways to reduce
costs and to enhance profitability. If a firm expects to survive and grow, it constantly needs
creativity to differentiate, add value and create competitive advantage.
Therefore, to thrive and excel, business organizations need continued innovation,
expeditious response, excellence and creative human talent. Employees need to do things
differently through the robust process of innovation and change. Creativity breeds new ideas
and Innovation brings those new ideas to life. As said Tom Hopkins, “The profit of great
ideas comes when you turn them into reality.”
Creativity and Innovation unveiled:
There are many myths about creativity. There is the belief that creativity is a
mysterious talent that some people have and others can only envy. But, in reality, anyone can
learn and practice the thinking skill of creativity. Some people might be better than others, as
is the case with any skill – such as driving, cooking, tennis or soccer. Creativity consists of
coming up with many ideas, not just that one great idea. An essential aspect of creativity is
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not being afraid to fail and to have the courage for generating new ideas. The stone-age didn’t
end because they ran out of stones. It can be argued that creative idea generation, rather than
necessity, is the mother of invention.
Innovation is the introduction of something new for an organization. You might do this
by copying someone else, by systematic logical design or through direct and deliberate
creativity. However, there must be a readiness to explore and implement new ideas. So
'innovation' is often used as a term to mean progression and adapting to changed conditions.
Unfortunately, this is often not the case with many organizations.
Innovation is novelty. The newness can be in the idea, its implementation, adaptation or
refinement. Creativity may lie in seeing or creating an opportunity where others can’t.
Creativity in business can be described as problem solving. By inducing the creative
state, the individual and group creative capacity is optimized in order to solve business issues.
This involves more than brainstorming, which in many organizations simply involves setting
up a flipchart, herding staff into a room and calling it a brainstorming session.
Creative people are intrinsically motivated. This means that they see inherent value in
what they are doing – as opposed to extrinsic motivation, which causes them to engage in an
activity to fulfill ulterior goals. Some extrinsic motivation is useful but there is a significant
positive correlation between creativity and intrinsic motivation and by managing creativity, it
is possible also to enhance motivation.
Creativity and Innovation – Importance:
The highly competitive nature of today’s business needs creative and innovative ideas
for dominant success. Although good service is the essence of a successful business, novel
ideas are jumping advancements; thus, a company has no chance to win this competitive
game in the absence of creativity and innovation.
Scientific analysis and mathematical skills alone cannot endeavor to define problems or
seek alternative solutions. Or, in the business world, cost-benefit analysis and spreadsheet
skills alone cannot endeavor to define problems or seek alternative solutions. They are merely
tools for understanding what a problem looks and feels like. Only creative and imaginative
thought, when applied with personal knowledge of a problem, can produce solution
alternatives, what-if scenarios and the exploration of additional problem causes.
Creativity and Innovation Challenges:
From idea to reality is an important metamorphosis. In a subtle transition, the innovator
becomes a manager. The challenge shrinks from making the idea work to completing
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assignments. Adventure makes way for task monitoring and the organization becomes an
unevolving, risk-averse entity. Bureaucracy is a good example of dysfunctional fixation on
procedures and precedents. Ironically, the compulsions of survival fuel both innovation and
conservatism.
Fear of failure also plays a part. Something new that does not work is seen as a failure
or an error. Language does not have a word that means a “fully justified venture which, for
reasons beyond one’s control, did not work”. So something that does not work is simply
labeled a failure. It makes sense for executives to avoid “failures”.
Creativity and Innovation – Sources and Enablers:
A variety of theorists attempted to better understand the sources of creativity and
innovation in individuals. Still there is disagreement between theorists. Broad, complex and
multi-faceted, creativity can take many forms and can be found within a variety of contexts.
It is embodied by individuals with a broad range of personal characteristics and backgrounds.
As per the framework provided by Teresa Amabile of the Harvard Business School,
creativity arises through the confluence of Knowledge, Creative Thinking and Motivation.
Environment and individual’s personal decision also play their role.
Knowledge
It consists of all the relevant information that an individual brings to bear on a problem.
There are two types of knowledge that may be required for creativity. People build the
technical expertise and in-depth experience through long-term focus in one specific area. This
expertise serves as a foundation for creativity within a domain. At the same time, creativity
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rests on the ability to combine previously disparate elements in new ways, which implies a
need for a broader focus and varied interests.
Thus, the best profile for creativity is T-shaped, with a breadth of understanding across
multiple disciplines and one or two areas of in-depth expertise. Frans Johansson explains that
“we must strike a balance between depth and breadth of knowledge in order to maximize our
creative potential”. He suggests that one way to improve breadth is to team up with people
with different knowledge bases. The implications of this recommendation are in the realm of
greater focus on interdisciplinary study and having cross-functional group projects with team
members from varied functional areas.
Studies by Simonton support the idea that individuals must develop in-depth domain
expertise to be creative. He explains that creative output is linked to the amount of time a
person is actively engaged in a creative domain. The relationship tends to be a curvilinear,
inverted backwards J function of career age. Creativity production increases with years in the
field until reaching a maximum at which point it begins to taper off. Howard Gardner’s
research into the sources of creativity supports this idea and further extends it to a “10-year
rule” – ten years is the approximate time required to build the domain knowledge and
expertise needed to spur creative successes. The implications of this recommendation are in
the realm of greater focus on planned job rotations at intervals sufficient for development of
domain knowledge and not earlier or too late.
Creative Thinking
Thinking is a key aspect of the creative process. Creative Thinking relates to how
people approach problems and depends on personality and thinking/working style. Important
determinants of creative thinking are:
• Comfort in disagreeing with others and trying solutions that depart from status quo.
• Combining knowledge from previously disparate fields.
• Ability to persevere through difficult problems and dry spells.
• Ability to step away from an effort and return later with a fresh perspective. (Incubation).
Sternberg’s triarchic theory asserts that the three main aspects of intelligence essential
for creativity are – synthetic, analytical and practical:
• Synthetic: It is the ability to generate novel and task appropriate high quality ideas. One
aspect of this is the ability to redefine problems effectively and to think insightfully.
Insightful thinking involves knowledge acquisition in three forms – Selective encoding
i.e. distinguishing relevant from irrelevant information; Selective combination i.e.
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combining bits of relevant information in novel ways; and Selective comparison i.e.
relating new and old information in novel ways.
• Analytical: It is involved in creativity as the ability to objectively judge the value of one’s
own ideas, to evaluate their strengths and weaknesses and identify ways to improve them.
• Practical: It is the ability to apply intellectual skills in routine contexts and to “sell”
creative ideas.
The cognitive processes suggested within Sternberg’s synthetic thinking category
appear repeatedly in literature. It is clear that the central component of creative thinking is the
ability to combine existing elements of knowledge or understanding in new ways. Simonton’s
research on Creative Darwinism asserts that creativity is a stochastic combinatorial process
under which multiple ideational variations emerge in an individual’s mind, and then a subset
of them are selected for preservation and execution.
As per this concept, creativity requires the capacity to generate blind variations in the
same sense that genes generate random mutations which is not linked to the probability of
success of any given variation. The implication is that, creative performance may be
increased by any technique that might break the stranglehold of conventional expectations
and simply increase the number of randomly generated variations.
This supports the idea that “if the variation process is truly blind, then good and bad
ideas should appear more or less randomly across careers, just as happens for genetic
mutations and recombinations.
Thus it implies that the creative mind can be enhanced by environments or efforts that
encourage the individual to generate new variations and combinations of ideas.
Quality of creative output is closely connected to sheer quantity. The more an
individual produces, the more likely (s)he is to stumble upon success. Also, the best creative
product tends to appear at the point in a creator’s career when (s)he is most prolific. Thus, to
encourage creativity, risk tolerance at organizational level is a must.
Motivation
Motivation is generally accepted as key to creative production, and the most important
motivators are intrinsic passion and interest in the work itself. Even more than particular
cognitive abilities, a set of motivational attributes – childlike curiosity, intrinsic interest,
obsessive perseverance – differentiate change introducers from others. Many theorists see
motivation as the most important component of creativity.
Amabile’s Intrinsic Motivation Principle of Creativity asserts that people are most
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creative when they feel motivated primarily by the interest, satisfaction, and challenge of the
work itself – and not by external pressures [i.e., extrinsic motivation].
Numerous studies document how intrinsic motivation enhances creativity and extrinsic
rewards hamper it due to the negative feelings resulting from external control. The principle
is best illustrated by Amabile’s maze analogy. The extrinsically motivated person will take
the shortest, most obvious path to get to the reward at the finish line. The intrinsically
motivated person will explore various pathways and alternatives, taking time and enjoying
the process along the way. The exploration will lead to novel, alternative solutions, some of
which may turn out as more appropriate and successful than the original, obvious path.
Environment
However, there are probably two types of extrinsic motivation: synergistic
(informational or enabling motivations) and non-synergistic (controlling motivations).
Synergistic extrinsic motivators support and enhance intrinsic motivation. Non-synergistic
ones hinder it. Nonetheless, the types of extrinsic motivations most likely found in the
workplace are non-synergistic and are not easily avoided.
Different types of motivation play a role in different parts of the creative process.
Intrinsic motivation is particularly important when the emphasis is on novelty. If greater
emphasis is on persistence, synergistic extrinsic motivators may play a role. Additional roles
for extrinsic motivators are that they can help an individual sustain energy through the
difficult times necessary to gain domain skills. Extrinsic motivators may also serve to bring
people in contact with a topic to engage their intrinsic interest.
The implication of this is that business must review the reward mechanism and the
output monitoring systems in light of the impact of promotions, raises or praises as reward for
routine fulfilments on creativity. If assessment is used as a tool for improvement, rather than
as a judgment; it may reduce the feeling of external control.
Personal Decision
On one hand, a creative effort can be viewed as a defense against personal inadequacy
and feelings that the self is flawed and destined to failure. On the other hand, a meaningful
purpose can also serve as a motivation for creativity. For some persons, the exercise of some
skills can be a source of joy.
Thus creativity is the outcome of the interaction between the innovating individual, that
individual’s domain of knowledge and the social field that judges the individual’s
contribution to the domain. Lack of affirmation of work from the social field might
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discourage persistence. The innovator may use the social field as a source of information
about work, but also give equal or greater weight to signs of progress and success in the
activity itself.
Potential implications of this viewpoint are that the system should provide greater focus
on helping employees identify areas of interest and passion – areas where they can achieve
the state of flow which leads to growth of skill and confidence.
HRD interventions should attempt to enhance creativity, but should also help
employees identify the field of creativity itself so they gain an explicit awareness of their own
creative potential, as well as and understanding of methods of enhancement. With this
knowledge, they can make an informed decision to pursue creative activities and at the same
time, can control and direct the development of their abilities.
There is considerable evidence to support the belief that most people have potential
they never realize and that persistent effort to develop that potential is likely to be successful.
Many businesses work on the basis of osmosis. If a new idea has been around for a long
time and has been taken up by other businesses, then it becomes natural and low risk
proposition to adopt that innovation. Hence, employees need to be sensitive to what is
happening elsewhere in the same field and to what is happening in the world around. Such
opportunity scan helps in obtaining management support for innovative ideas.
It is important to incorporate innovation and creativity into the core values of the
organization, have a Knowledge Management system, let people try their ideas for
improvement, and keep the structure flat. Cross-functional teams must be encouraged and
members should be rotated intermittently. It is equally important to have ambiguity-tolerance,
train people to unlearn and to expose them to realities beyond the organizational boundaries.
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Such culture can be created through dynamic, proactive style where CEO is a change agent,
with the highest possible mandate.
In the former case, innovation management must conduct the flow of innovative ideas
such as new discoveries, into the organization for subsequent uses. In other words, it should
collect relevant external innovations to serve the internal innovative system.
This creative group is divided in two groups namely initiators and problem solvers. The
initiators are creative people who have that additional mental ability that enables them to
recognize previously unrealized problems and to evaluate their importance. It is one thing to
have an idea about specific problem; it is quite another to have an idea about what it is that is
worth having an idea about.
The initiators are also divided to two groups viz. discoverers and inventors. Although
these two groups are usually considered identical, they are significantly different. Discoverers
work on a higher creative position of the organization by dealing with the question “why?”
for analyzing a phenomenon or a problem; but inventors serve the routine performance of the
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organization by struggling with the question “how things work and can be made to work
better”.
However, the technique is often implemented incorrectly. Studies show that due to
evaluation apprehension and blocking, fewer ideas are generated in brainstorming groups
than would be generated if participants thought alone and wrote ideas down. Brainstorming
sessions should first involve 15-20 minutes for people to think individually and write their
ideas on an anonymous piece of paper which is then handed over to the facilitator. All ideas
are then discussed openly with a view to first considering how each one could be feasible
rather than the more common approach of criticizing to find why it wouldn’t work.
Idea Production training is the most common and traditional method. However, in
terms of effectiveness, it is less effective than cognitive training like Creative Process
Training, Conceptual Combination Training and Critical/Creative Thinking Training.
Conceptual emphasizes conceptual combination, convergent thinking and techniques to
stimulate new combinations such as analogies and metaphors. Creative Process Training
develops creative thinking through convergent and divergent thinking. It’s typically lengthy
and involves practice on realistic exercises accompanied by lecture and discussion.
Critical/Creative Thinking stresses problem finding, idea evaluation, idea generation,
brainstorming and meta-cognition.
Nonetheless, tests have been designed to measure creative potential and creative
thinking processes. Many of these aim to measure convergent and divergent thinking. They
consist of open-ended questions to measure the fluency, originality, flexibility, elaboration or
effectiveness. Some tests assess cognitive functions as well as personality traits and
motivation associated with creativity.
Researchers suggest that Torrence tests of creative thinking are the best known and
most widely used tests. The test-retest reliabilities and the predictive validity of these tests
vary, but a many studies seem to indicate that the scores on this test do differentiate between
those who attain creative success and those who do not.
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Organizational support: Intrinsic motivation increases when people are aware that
those around them are excited and where there is information sharing and collaboration. Bad
politics is to be avoided.
Many managers equate creative ability with position within the organization – assuming
that only the higher ups have the best ideas and decision making abilities. To install systemic
creativity, leaders must engage the other employees and lead as a guide rather than manage
with command and control.
Leonard and Straus explain that the successful manager figures out how to get different
ideas and approaches to collide in a productive process called “creative abrasion”. By
deliberately creating diverse organizations and explicitly helping team members appreciate
thinking-styles different than their own, creative abrasion can result in successful innovation.
Managers can actively manage the process of bringing various cognitive preferences together
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Echoing the importance of information flow and flexible interaction among diverse
employees, Johansson explains that creative successes best occur at what he terms “The
Intersection” – a place where wildly different ideas bump into each other and build upon each
other.
companies to consider. The authors explain that the strategic logic of value innovators differs
from conventional logic along five dimensions, as outlined on next page:
Through the process of value innovation, companies create new solutions that bring
unprecedented value to the mass of customers by giving them more of what they want and less
of what they can live without. Under the value innovation approach, companies review
customer value and ask themselves four main questions:
1) Which of the factors that our industry takes for granted should be eliminated?
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4) Which factors should be created that the industry has never offered?
These questions should be applied to the platforms on which innovation can take place:
product, service and delivery. While many companies focus on only the product dimension,
successful companies address all three.
Similar to value innovation concept, Drucker explains that “most innovations, however,
especially the successful ones, result from a conscious, purposeful search for innovation
opportunities. In other words, management’s purposeful search for new sources of value
innovation is fundamental to success. Drucker argues that management must purposefully
analyze all these sources of new opportunities. In this sense, the practice and discipline of
innovation can be somewhat systematic, guided by diligence, persistence and purposeful,
focused exploration.
Concluding Remarks
Business growth can be sustained through continuous creativity and innovation as part
of culture. Employees are fountainheads of capabilities of any business. Businesses must
employ creative people and create proper environment so as to stimulate creativity and
innovation within their functions.
Creative people enjoy what they are doing; they tend to describe themselves as
passionate. As a result they tend to behave more positively towards their colleagues,
customers, and people they come into contact with. Thus a business reaps benefits in
organizational culture and customer service. Business relationships and the network in
general are strengthened. Links are created in the value chain, staff turnover decreases and
consistency and sustainability – both requirements for success – increase. Businesses have to
note that the philosophy is not about seeing people as a fixed cost, but of harnessing and
maximizing human creative potential to add value and create new revenue streams.
And employees have to keep in mind that their creativity and innovation in their roles is
important for their business. As Ray Bradbury said “Life is trying things to see if they work.”
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