Is Creativity Management An Oxymoron?
I recently gave a presentation at Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design on a topic entitled "Is creativity management an oxymoron?"
The essential confusion to people resistant to the idea of "creativity management" was the word "management." Replace it with the word "optimization" and the resistance disappears; all we're really trying to do is optimize the quality of the idea pool and optimize the implementation process.
Then you can suggest that most people already implicitly accept the idea of creativity management: if you ask them to solve a problem or engage in a particular endeavour, one of the things they're likely to do is herd people into a room with a flip chart and conduct some sort of brainstorming session and implicit in that action is the acceptance that certain methods, processes and procedures enhance creative output.
Then you can begin discussing how to improve the enormous amount of creative output people generate, from problem solving in everyday business life right up to the level or art.
Join the new mailing list. Get valuable tips of the day which you won't find anywhere else!
Why Creativity And Innovation Management Are Critical
In case you don't get it: creativity and innovation management are crucial to business sustainability and growth. And therefore underpin modern civilisation.
Creativity and innovation are how you measure productivity. By-products [of the good management of these] include increased revenue, margins, profit, jobs and a growing economy etc. It's not about how many hours a day you work, it's about how many effective tweaks you implement during the day (changes and additions that will lead to growth).
You need to demonstrate growth every quarter and the best way to do this is to consistently develop new products, services, processes, positions and paradigms. Any fool can cut costs.
You need to consistently be creative with and innovate your present product, service, process, positioning, and paradigm portfolio in order to stay ahead of the competition. This is managing the present generation.
Your present product, service, process, positioning and paradigm portfolio will eventually mature and decline. You need to have a new generation ready to take over. That means feeding ideas that are on the verge of monetization now. This is managing the next generation.
You need to seed and feed new ideas so that a pipeline of ideas, products, services, processes, positions and paradigms can be exploited in the distant future. This is managing distant generations.
Keeping the pipeline full enables a company to have new growth engines ready when existing ones begin to falter. If growth is the goal, the pace of replenishment must be faster than the pace of decline. Companies that keep growing are distinguished by their ability to create new businesses - they can create and innovate in their core businesses and build new ones at the same time.
Most companies are preoccupied with existing businesses; they must learn to pay more attention to where they are headed versus channelling all of their energy into where they are today.
It is safe to say that if you don't master this then your future is decline.
Join the new mailing list. Get valuable tips of the day which you won't find anywhere else!
Fundamental Core Concepts
Creativity and Innovation are often taught using fuzzy, airy-fairy, intangible, ungrounded, unscientific, unusable, undefined, mysterious terminology and theories. To get a handle on it you need to talk in real, tangible, usable, measurable concepts to explore the twelve major domains that are common in all fields of creativity. These are umbrella domains - each consists of a number of crucial, sometimes vexing, questions and concepts, including:
What are the critical differences between creativity and innovation? Are different competencies required? Can we measure each in any instant? Why are definitions so important? Etc.
Do "creative people" have common characteristics and, if so, what are they? Are they stable across situations? Is there a creative state? Etc.
Can creativity be learned and developed or is it a special gift? Why is it that some people just are more creative? How can good creativity leadership draw it out and develop it? Etc.
Why is motivation more important than nature or nurture? How can it be enhanced, measured and managed? Etc.
Blocks and unlocking. Organizational Culture. We can all be more creative, so what is stopping us? What properties of an organizational culture cultivate productivity? How do organizational cultures create blocks? How can blocks be prevented? What's the matter with status games? Etc.
What properties of an organizational structure foster creativity and innovation? Organizational structure results from a number of factors and modifying it is often not desirable, so how do we get around this? How is it possible to maintain hierarchies yet enhance creativity and innovation? Etc.
What is the most effective team structure? What is the value of intellectual cross pollination? Is there value in diversity? What is more effective, collaboration or competition or both? What is the value of masks and trance (wearing different faces)? Why should you be aware of group size? Etc.
What is the role of knowledge? How do we effectively collaborate and use networks to frame-break and reduce path dependency? How do we tap into tacit knowledge? Does mastering all the literature foster creativity and innovation or does over-specialization cause blinkered vision? Etc.
What are the differences between radical and incremental creativity and the consequences for structures, processes, skills and resources? Is it wiser to target radical or incremental ideas? Is there a relationship between the two? Can one lead to the other? Etc.
Is there value in structure and goals or is "do your best" more effective? Is there value in time pressure? Is it good to force innovation? How often is innovation forced? Should we just wait for inspiration or force it? Etc.
Is there a process that makes insight, eureka, the aha! experience more likely? Does this process allow us to produce a stream of consistently good ideas? What is the relationship between incubation and insight? What is the process of creativity? How is quality derived from quantity? What is the value of prolific productivity? Etc.
How do we value an idea, so as to decide how to invest resources? How do we risk manage the innovation process? Is there value in failure? Are some ideas better than others? Are some valuation methods better than others? Is originality an illusion? Creative versus critical thinking? What are the harsh facts of life for all innovators? Etc.
Etc.
All of these questions, and more, are answered.
This material is invaluable for a) the creativity and innovation consultant, leader, director or manager and b) the creative person, idea generator or innovator wishing to produce or improve tangible creative output.
The concepts are universal. This material applies to all variety of domains and industries: including human capital management, product development, organizational culture and structure management, management consultancy, intrapreneur and entrepreneur, think tanks, creative corporate strategy, business creativity etc.
Included in the package (value $375):
Powerpoint Presentation
A ready to go powerpoint presentation (with detailed notes) that is a companion to the Fundamental Core Concepts. Ideal for consultants, coaches, workshops, training, and management presentations.
Fully editable.
Contains 50 slides, 300+ bullet points.
Divided into 4 sections : Contents, Theory, Data and Conclusions, Summary.
59 pages of detailed notes.
Clearly identifiable set of notes for each set of slides.
Clearly identifiable notes for each bullet point within a slide.
Multiple academic and real life examples to form powerful arguments.
For and against theories for each argument.
Instantly apply your own design template (powerpoint function).
Covers all the topics discussed on this web site.
Included in the package (value $350):
Creativity And Innovation DIY Audit
Ready to go creativity and innovation quantitative sheets for DIY audits. Ideal for coaches, consultants, leaders and managers. a) Simply rate each process or practice on a scale of 0 to 10. Includes more than 150 practices and processes that sharpen your management of creativity and innovation.
Find your zero ratings - processes or practices you are not considering or incorporating at all.
Find strengths and weaknesses and target weaknesses for improvement. Compare and contrast strengths with weaknesses. Identify obstacles.
Find contradictions. For example, respondents often provide a high value when asked if they intensely investigate a problem. But then answer low when queried about problem investigation practices.
Focus leader behaviour. Do your managers know what they should be doing?
Consistently rate yourself to monitor improvements.
Ask others to rate you - staff, colleagues and clients - find discrepancies between how you perceive yourself and how others perceive you.
Create an action plan to guide positive change.
Benchmark existing practices, processes, attitudes and beliefs with focused one-on-one interviews.
Divided into sections (organizational culture, structure, group structure, learning and development, motivation, knowledge management, radical versus incremental creativity, process, idea valuation and more). Ensure you are taking holistic action.
Included in the package (value $350):
Good Idea Generator
More than 300 techniques to help you generate a substantial pool of good ideas and help you problem solve.
All creativity and problem solving workshops use a variety of techniques to do essentially four things: a) unblock the mind, b) tap into tacit knowledge, c) trigger the mind into working at various cognitive levels and d) apply a) and b) and c) to the areas of problem identification and idea generation. Individuals and groups are given a set of mental and physical tasks or exercises designed to elicit ideas. Creativity and problem solving workshops can be useful: working in groups can produce a lot of laughter, the coordinator can help reduce the negative elements of group dynamics and personal psychology that hinder creativity but, most importantly, the coordinator forces you to think of ideas (extract tacit knowledge, form relationships) using various exercises. However, you can't attend a workshop every time you need an idea, so this software contains more than 300 of those exercises, which can be performed alone on a single computer or in a group over a network.
Each exercise requires only five ideas. Each exercise requires you to look at the problem or the solution in a different way. Each exercise is chosen randomly. Thus, only by performing five exercises, it is possible to quickly produce 25 ideas. By persisting through 50, 100, 200, 300 exercises, it is possible to generate a substantial idea pool.
Research has revealed that by requiring five, short ideas and performing many, different exercises the mind is forced to frame-break and reduce path dependency; multiple areas of the subconscious are accessed to a significant depth in short bursts; the mind is tasked and stimulated at various cognitive levels; energy is conserved (intensely thinking of ideas can be tiring work). As it can be said with great confidence that simply being prolific produces good ideas, by completing 20, 50, 100, 150, 200, 300 or more exercises, you will greatly increase the chance of producing a quantity of quality ideas. Further, the more exercises you perform, the more unblocked and confident you become and the more fun and radical will be your ideas. The randomness of the exercises means that you can start again without fear of repetition.
More than 300 well known and original exercises are included, such as REVERSAL, ATTRIBUTES, SCAMPI, ENHANCEMENT, REDUCTION, RANDOM INPUT, ASSIMILATION, various ASSERTION techniques, various UNBLOCKING techniques, PROVOCATION, REFRAMING, various MATRICES, HOWTO combinations, OVERSIZE, UNDERSIZE, GENIUS, FEEL ME, DISTORTION, MUD-SLINGING, TWO-WORDS, METAPHOR, AERIAL, SWOT, SECOND BEST, SHOUT, CONCEPT FAN, STORYTELLING and STORY FORMING scenarios and much more.
The variety of exercises means that any form of problem can be addressed or any type of idea can be generated - from thinking of a new brand name to saving your marriage to developing a character for a film script to coming up with new products to finding something original to say at your next business presentation. Even complex problems that require new knowledge and have practical impediments can be solved, usually by incrementally toying with various ideas until radical leaps are made. Apply these techniques to any problem at your convenience and never be stuck for a good idea again.
This release contains 372 creativity + 117 creative writing exercises.
Works on all Windows operating systems above 95; runs on a Mac with the appropriate Emulator or dual boot scenario.
Included in the package (value $450):
Business Creativity And Innovation Software
More than 100 critical business models at your disposal - each lets you draw out business problems and develop solutions from a slightly different perspective.
Works on all Windows operating systems above 95; runs on a Mac with the appropriate Emulator or dual boot scenario.
Join the new mailing list. Get valuable tips of the day which you won't find anywhere else!
© All Rights Reserved kal [AT] managing-creativity.com
4a Westwick Gardens, London, W14 0BU
510+ stage Hero's Journey, Monomyth, Screenwriting Structure, Screenplay Structure, Story Structure
