INNOVATION AND CREATIVITY

• A teacher finds a new way to convey the idea of photosynthesis to the students.

• An industrialist finds a simpler way of packaging a product which reduces the bulk by 40% yet continues to protect the product.

• A manager on the fourteenth floor of an office building uses stair climbing as her physical fitness routine and meets two objectives at the same time.

• A lack of creative capacity can seriously undermine managerial effectiveness, therefore here we examine :

• The psychological barriers to creativity.

• How you can systematically apply creative methods to solving problems.

• Some ideas on applying creative thinking to work teams and organizations.

• Consider how creativity can be woven into organizational innovation.

CREATIVITY IS EXPRESSED BY PEOPLE IN ALL WALKS OF LIFE:

BARRIERS TO PERSONAL CREATIVITY

• Lack of perseverance : creativity demands endurance, time, patience and effort. Giving up prematurely does not promote or complete the creative process.

• Traditional habits: all people develop routines of movement work expression, and thinking. Habits can be enemies of creativity.

• Excessive tension: being creative often involves feelings of uncertainty and confusion. You do not know the answer before you begin , and this lack of a secure foundation can provoke excessive tension.

• Muted drive: no significant development occurs without a need for change being felt, which is the fuel of creative endeavor . The need to innovate can be from within or without.

• Insufficient opportunity: some of the most sufficient innovation in history were conceived by individuals prevented from conducting their lives normally through illness , imprisonment or even temporary disgrace.

• Over-seriousness: creative expression often requires a willingness to play with or be open to ideas ; sometimes solutions lie in bizarre and extraordinary suggestions. This playful receptivity or openness is not compatible with excessive seriousness and an obsession with rationality.

• Poor methodology ; the lack of appropriate and effective methods of problem solving and decision-making inhibits creative effort . Although, creative work involves novel thinking , it is possible to find ways of structuring such work to increase the probability of success.

ASSESSING YOUR BARRIERS

• Creative problem-solving: the tech. for Creative problem-solving require special skills and the process involves 5 stages:

• STAGE ONE-exploring the problem: problems have to be explored in depth to provide a basis of generating solutions. A superficial understanding of them is not enough. All the dimensions must be understood. One should avoid trying to find an answer before the question has been fully understood. There are three additional benefits to exploring a problem in depth :

• a scale of the assignment can be estimated realistically.

• the task objectives and criteria of success can be identified .

• an appropriate human organization and work method can be planned.

• form a group.

• issue each person with paper for noting.

• designate a topic.

• ask each person to brainstorm silently and write each idea on a separate sheet of paper.

• insist that each note is completed.

• gather the ideas into groups.

• evaluate the ideas for utility and innovation.

• choose a topic or problem.

• write down the topic, preferably on a blank flip chart.

• establish a definite for stopping the session.

• during the brainstorming period write down all ideas, no matter how outlandish or weird or apparently irrelevant they may seem, but do not evaluate them.

• after the session, list the ideas in a logical order, explore and evaluate them.

• STAGE TWO - Generating ideas: the techniques for generating ideas is known as brainstorming. The procedure for brainstorming is as follows.

• STAGE THREE: screening ideas for application. Each idea should be reviewed against the following five criteria:

• -will it add value to customers (internal or external).

• - is it likely to be effective?

• - can it be made to work?

• - is it the best choice among the available options ?

• - do we want to make this idea work?

• STAGE FOUR : planning innovation

• An idea is the embryo of innovation and, if the promise is to be fulfilled, the idea must be applied and tested.

• Implementation has to be planned, or you could risk failure.

• For innovation to be successful one needs to clarify objectives regularly and reflect on what is happening. This places a special demand on the manager/person responsible. Many problems are bound to arise, each requiring a solution before the project can proceed. However, if the manager becomes over concerned with detail, he/she loses a broad perspective on the overall process.

• Clear, direct communication is needed if the innovation process is to unfold systematically.

• Individuals must develop a concept or role within the overall scheme and understand how their work relates to that of their colleagues. Here, individual initiative is valuable, bout for it to be useful, it must be coordinated within a framework and with the team in mind.

• SATGE FIVE : Feedback and Review

• The process of innovation is rarely neat and tidy.

• New factors constantly appear and each new piece of information can influence the development of the process.

• For this reason, a means of frequently reviewing progress and realigning objectives and plans is needed.

• Sloppy personal organization and muddled priorities can inhibit creativity.

• Because the nature of creativity increases uncertainty, ways must be found to periodically review and collect feedback. This reduces the risk of energy being expended in irrelevant or confused activities and ensures that focus is maintained. Maintaining a methodical approach collecting feedback on tasks, performance and accomplishment, reviewing procedures, and adjusting plans and objectives is a managerial responsibility, and it is severely put to the test when innovation is required.

• Creative Groups and Organizations

• A deeper examination of progress in innovation shows that much has been achieved by teams, organizations, or communities. Creative accomplishments have often been a consequence of the pooled talent of many people.

• A team or organization that has nourished the creative output, giving individuals the resources and back up they needed were successful. The space programmers are excellent examples of organizational innovation brought about by teams.

• A creative team requires a balance of skills . For example, a finance team will need people to translate estimated future plans into financial strategies, to maintain the capital structure so as to balance between risk of insolvency and higher returns.

• Leadership is crucial to the groups success because the manager will want to build a resourceful and balanced team containing a broad mixture of talents.

MAIN PROBLEMS CONFRONTING CREATIVE TEAMS

• Emerging objective: creative groups may lack clear objectives ; objectives may change as new ideas emerge; tasks may be imprecise and the utility of their output may only be evaluated after completion of the task. Often it is not possible to set objectives and simply move towards them a more flexible approach is required.

• Insufficient approach: because organizations are notorious for withdrawing support from creative groups, such a group must overtime communicate to gain acceptance and ensure support , especially when results seem elusive.

• Uncoordinated activity: when searching for solutions or ideas individual activity is often difficult to coordinate. As a result, a situation can quickly develop in which all the group members are engage in unsystematic initiatives, in such circumstances the cost escalate and performance suffers.

• Loss of heart : snags and setbacks can occur as a project proceeds. They can seriously demoralize the participants and lead to a collapse of the groups confidence, initiative and energy.

• Communication overload: creative teams need to communicate extensively. Sharing, brainstorming and discussing clarify issues. However, too much data can overload system, preventing key topics from being identified. Sometimes a special computing technology for sharing data and ideas, can provide breakthrough in managing communication.

• Inadequate review: as new ideas and data are generated, tasks change in character and scope . Because it is not easy to stay open to change, continuing to work on outdated guidelines can seem the easy way out . This temptation should be counteracted by review and replanning.

PERSONAL CREATIVITY

• The task of being creative requires exceeding usual boundaries and operating on a higher level of imagination. The reaction some people is to strain in effort to concentrate on getting the best from themselves. Such inner straining in-fact has an opposite effect, because creative capacity can be diminished by strain and undermine by forced imagination.

• Individuals may approach a problem with preconceived expectations, fail to be fully aware of the challenge or the changing factors and try to hurry towards a solution.

• While working on the creative assignment, the person can be sapped of strength by a stream of doubts, criticism and strain. Therefore it is not surprising that true creativity, which is a subtle human attribute, fails to thrive under such a hostile inner psychological situation.

• Personal creativity can be enhance by finding ways of calming the parts of oneself that promote tension.

• It is necessary to search into ones mental makeup to find personal barriers to creative expression.

ORGANIZATIONAL INNOVATION

• Almost every industry is undergoing radical change and although there will be periods of stability, such change is inevitable.

• Change means that managers must be innovators, capable of generating ideas, both big and small , and then managing change procedures to implement new products and processes.

• Innovation operates at all levels : radical and incremental, and both are important although the skills needed for each are different.

RADICAL INNOVATION

• A pharmaceutical firm decides to outsource 80 percent of its research and development work.

• A railway company moves from being owned by the public to being a commercial business.

• A hierarchical organization removes several layers from its structure and empowers each front line employee.

IN PURSUING RADICAL INNOVATION A MANAGER SHOULD:

• Analyze comprehensively the current strengths and weaknesses of the organization;

• Compare against best practices;

• Show willingness to be radical in thought and deed;

• Be able to create a broad vision;

• Involve and engage others;

• Design and implement subtle organizational change programmes;

• Be able to take difficult and, sometimes harsh, decisions if necessary;

• Motivate others constantly through times of upheaval;

INCREMENTAL INNOVATION

• Incremental innovation also known as continuous improvement is based on a different but complementary philosophy of organizational development. Here the principle is that sustained change is achieved not through broad changes but by a myriad of incremental innovation. For example, a project cannot be implemented with a concept idea alone .

• It requires meticulous planning, each module or stage being well thought out, assignment task and responsibilities , constant reviewing, adapting where needed etc. before it can be successfully completed.

IN PURSUING INCREMENTAL INNOVATION A MANAGER SHOULD ;

• Show willingness to believe in the creative power of people ;

• Inculcate problem solving and opportunity finding skills in every employee ;

• Reward all creative ideas ;

• Implement every idea with merit;

• Be open to innovation in the workplace ;

• Change from a directing to a coaching management style;

• Use specialists as supporters in the problem solving process;

• Adopt a stance of creative discontent , i.e.. Seeing every situation as capable of being improved ;

HOW MANAGERS CAN LEARN AND DEVELOP

• There are two modes in learning which impact what is being learnt and that which is developed . These are single loop learning and double loop learning.

• Single loop learning involves solving problems with their current definitions and a minor change in solution.

• Single loop learning is appropriate for routine issues

• Double loop learning occurs when individuals or organizers review the definitions and the circumstances through which the issues requiring learning occurs.

• In principle development depends on where the executive wants to be; where the executive is now ; and how the executive might progress.

UNDERSTANDING WHAT HAS TO BE DEVELOPED

• One approach to deciding what the executive needs to develop is to first understand what the job requires and the qualities needed to fulfill these requirements and comparing this to what qualities the executive possess. the resulting gaps then becomes the focus of attention.

• Though both the requirements of the job and the qualities needed to perform in the role will need to be customized at an individual level, it is necessary for an executive to know in general how the capabilities can be developed. These can be grouped into 4 categories:

• executive understanding: included in the first group are those abilities which primarily concern the executive knowledge and understanding.

• executive behavior: the second group covers those abilities concerns with improving executive behavior and action; that is, the interpersonal abilities of influence, integration and leadership. While all three are important , the need for effective leadership to transform organizations is increasingly viewed as particularly critically senior levels.

• executive mind: how executive think, their breath and focus as well as the mindset they adopt, fundamentally influences how they operate at senior levels. The cognitive and maturity abilities are therefore included in this group

• self directed development: the development ability is not only about what is understood and applied, but also on how one goes about this process. As the business environment is changing so rapidly, it is necessary that executives are strong self-learners or cultivate the habit the of self learning.