by Brian Lincoln

Imagination is a priceless asset that enables each and every one of us to envisage a better, new or different outcome. And it’s this latent potential that organisations need to stimulate and foster amongst all their employees, sooner rather than later, if they are going to develop and grow rather than stagnate and disappear.

For many organisations the ability to think creatively is, sadly, still considered to be the exclusive domain of the management and/or advertising and marketing teams. However, the most progressive organisations have recognised the fact that creativity is an innate capability that’s present in all their employees, and have changed the way they do things in order to liberate this uncharted asset.

Creativity leads to innovation
There are many hundreds of definitions of creativity, but my preferred, inclusive expression is ‘seeing what everyone else has seen, but thinking what no one else has thought’. Creativity is about the generation of ideas, the quality and/or quantity of the idea(s) is not the issue. Given the opportunity to express them, every employee will have ideas that can lead to improvements that will benefit the organisation in some way; that’s being creative.

It’s important not to confuse creativity with that talismanic word ‘innovation’. Innovation is the process of designing and implementing new ideas. It’s possible to have hundreds of creative ideas every day, but they can only be termed ‘an innovation’ once they’ve been successfully implemented.

Most organisations will acknowledge their need to be more creative and many will be tempted by the quick fix option. Some will, no doubt, claim that they’re satisfied with a degree of success from a ‘one-off’ hit, but will have failed to realise the longer-term benefits of developing a strategy to ensure an ongoing focus on creativity that will sustain their competitive edge.

A systemic approach to creativity

Research and experience has shown that sustained, effective deployment of creativity in any organisation requires, first and foremost, commitment from the leadership; supported by a strategy that engenders new ways of thinking across all parts of the business. The PricewaterhouseCoopers Innovation Survey of the Times Top1000 UK Companies in the late 90’s found that the best performing 20% of companies had 3 distinctive characteristics that underpinned their success and distanced them from the competition:

• an idea management process
• the fostering of a creative climate
• an open management style that balanced the leader/follower relationship

These are key elements of a systemic process that need to be interconnected for sustained creativity and innovation to be prevalent in the organisation.

1. The creative environment

Creativity cannot thrive in a vacuum or an intolerant environment, which is why top performing organisations have acknowledged the greater potential that can be realised by establishing a sharing, supportive environment that enables creative thinking to prosper. One that encourages and affirms initiative and creativity in both individuals and teams; accepting mistakes as a learning curve and a route to new and better ideas. It’s these attitudes and behaviours that motivate and connect with people at a deeper level and are the basic building blocks for an organisation intent on developing a creative climate.

Research by Göran Ekvall in Sweden in the late ‘80’s identified 9 dimensions for measuring organisational climate which he describes as: the attitudes, feelings and behaviour patterns which characterise life in the organisation.

• Resources - Idea Time; Idea Support; Challenge & Involvement.
• Personal Motivation - Trust & Openness; Playfulness & Humour; Absence of Interpersonal Conflict.
• Exploration - Risk Taking; Debates about the Issues; Freedom.

More recent research amongst organisations in the US has indicated that the dimensions in greatest need of improvement were (1) Risk-Taking, (2) Idea Time, (3) Idea Support, and (4) Trust and Openness.

But it’s not okay to be creative here
It takes time for organisations to change established attitudes and patterns of behaviour. That’s why it’s so important for management to take the lead in modelling new patterns of behaviour that will encourage others to believe that it’s no longer a waste of their time to think creatively. This may mean breaking some of the rules and conventions that have become barriers to creativity in the organisation. Stepping outside an organisation’s cultural norms can be a little scary, but there are usually others around who will share the desire to become more creative and who may also be willing to share the risk.

Organisations have a tendency to be left-brain dependent, relying on logic, reason and rationality. But, by allowing the creative energy of right-brain thinking to express itself more easily, they will begin to experience a flow of latent creative ideas that has the potential to transform the organisation.

2. Understanding different Creative Styles

One of the major blockages to idea acknowledgement and acceptance in organisations derives from preconceptions about the person who is proposing the idea and their perceived motives. Which is why the first rule of idea generation is that all participants ‘defer judgement’ on other people’s ideas.

It’s only in recent years that, thanks to British psychologist Dr Michael Kirton, we’ve had the benefit of new insights that help us understand how people are creative.

When Kirton studied how managers in large organisations went about ‘problem solving’, he found that two distinct cognitive thinking ‘styles’ emerged in their approach to initiating change and solving problems.

His work on what’s now commonly referred to as ‘creative style’ indicated that people were inclined towards what Kirton, somewhat contentiously, termed as either an adaptive style or an innovative style. The distinctive difference between the two is that those who demonstrated:

• an adaptive approach to creativity showed a preference for operating within defined structures and systems; applying their creativity within existing patterns and procedures, aiming to make incremental improvements by ‘doing things better’
• an innovative approach showed a preference for operating with less structure and rules; applying their creativity outside existing patterns and procedures, seeking alternative ways or step changes by ‘doing things differently.’

Although diverse in approach, Kirton asserted that organisations needed the benefit of both creative styles. However, he also discerned that ideas originating from ‘adaptive’ sources were more likely to gain management support; as they would tend to stay within existing patterns of how things were done. Whereas ideas originating from ‘innovative’ sources would have less chance of being supported as they would, almost certainly, break-away from existing corporate patterns.

Kirton’s pioneering work can help organisations to appreciate the value of these discrete approaches to creativity, for example, when management is forming teams and/or considering the type of creative input that’s required to address particular situations.

3. Creative processes

Having addressed the creative environment that values different creative styles and empowers people to think creatively about all aspects of the organisations activities, the third element to consider in liberating creativity within organisations is the systems and tools that will help the organisation to manage the creative process.

Here are some simple guidelines to prepare the way for an enduring creative process:

• Take your time, don’t push too hard - encourage the team/group to take ownership of the whole process.
• Focus the team/group on its objectives - this is a good place to start being creative.
• Focus on the future – don’t dwell on current problems, which are well known.
• Clearly link all activity and objectives to business aims and outcomes.

There’s a wide range of well-documented ‘creative process’ models to consider, so, organisations have the opportunity to hand-pick what’s most appropriate for them. There are, however, consistent themes that span all of them. For example:

• All creative processes involve purposeful analysis of the issue(s), imaginative idea generation, and critical evaluation – ensuring that the process is a balance of imagination and analysis.
• Whilst older models tend to imply that creative ideas result from subconscious processes, largely outside the control of the creative thinker, current models tend to imply purposeful generation of new ideas, under the direct control of the creative thinker.
• The total creative process requires an impetus to action and the implementation of ideas. Devoting energy to the idea generation without a robust process to help the organisation convert them into concrete realities, is not a viable option.

Problem-Solving Tools
There's also a wide variety of tools available to assist with both the creative and critical thinking activities. Some examples from the ideas “toolbox” include:

For creative thinking

• Brainstorming with ‘Post-Its’ - the same as brainstorming, but more inclusive ( also quicker and more suitable for the quieter participants )
• Brain-writing - a variant of brainstorming which encourages a progressive build-up of ideas
• Forced Relationships – using pictures and objects, unrelated to the problem, to stimulate original thinking

For critical thinking

• Highlighting - grouping options into categories to help further development
• Paired Comparison Analysis (PCA) - prioritising and comparing options
• Evaluation Matrix - evaluating options against agreed selection criteria

Final Thoughts

The August 2002 edition of the Harvard Business Review was devoted entirely to innovation. This was only the second time in this highly influential publication’s 80 year history that it has majored on a single topic. The innovation edition featured corporate innovation and managerial techniques, processes, and policies that are necessary for new thinking, new products and services, and profits.

Of particular interest to the HBR editors was the ability and will of those organisations that had been able to sustain creativity and innovation throughout the organisation over many years.

Both the DTI and the CBI currently have programmes promoting creativity and innovation, encouraging organisations to liberate the creative resource that’s available to them through their employees. Those that are already committed to this course of action are reporting a number of associated benefits such as:

• Employees are more committed and better aligned with company objectives
• Improved employee morale and staff retention
• Cost savings and a reduction in wastage
• A safer working environment (some industries report 20% of ideas received relate to safety)

In a decade that has seen supermarkets become banks, trading on the internet and an increasing priority on environmental issues, the future is both uncertain and full of opportunity. Does your organisation have the imagination to create its own success story in the 21st century?

Brian Lincoln runs the Creative Dimensions consultancy. He can be contacted by e-mail or on +44-(0)1672-540359

Copyright © Creativity Unleashed Limited 2006
Last update 13 September 2006

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