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Creating Creative Organizations
Enhancing Employee
Creativity
© Victor E. Sower, Ph.D., C.Q.E.
How do I evaluate employee
creativity?
How do I ensure that I have
creative people on my teams?
Creativity Exercise
Fluency
The ability to generate many
ideas easily
Flexibility
The ability to come up with many
different types of ideas
Creativity Grid
Fluency - no. of ideas
20
10
0
100%
50%
0%
Flexibility - % using cup as container
Creativity Grid
Fluency - no. of ideas
20
Fluent
but not
Flexible
Very
Creative
Very
Uncreative
Flexible
but not
Fluent
10
0
100%
50%
0%
Flexibility - % using cup as container
“Measures of ideological fluency and
flexibility apparently do not relate
reliably to real-world creative
achievement within a discipline.”
David Perkins, 1988
An organization is creative when its
employees do something new and
potentially useful without being directly
shown or taught.
The results of creativity in organizations are
improvements and innovations.
Six Elements of Organization Creativity
•
•
•
•
•
•
Alignment
Self-Initiated Activity
Unofficial Activity
Serendipity
Diverse Stimuli
Within-Organization Communication
Source: Robinson & Stern, Corporate Creativity
Alignment
• The degree to which the interests and actions of
each employee support the organization’s goals.
• Lack of alignment is one of the main reasons for
lack of creativity in an organization.
• Alignment is both intangible and hard to achieve.
Ways to Promote Alignment
• Clarity about what the key goals of the
organization are.
• Commitment to initiatives that promote key
goals.
• Accountability for actions that affect key
goals.
Self-Initiated Activity
• Unexpected creative acts will result only
from self-initiated activity.
• The desire to initiate creative acts not only
already exists within most people, but is
derived from an urge as deep rooted as
hunger.
• Action is needed by organizations to
promote self-initiated creativity.
Effective Ways to Respond to
Employee Ideas
•
•
•
•
•
Include everyone.
Make the process easy to use.
Have strong follow-through.
Document ideas.
Base system on intrinsic motivation.
Unofficial Activity
• Work done without direct official support
can make it possible for an organization to
improve in ways it never expected.
• A period of unofficial status can bring some
important benefits that are often lost with
official status.
Serendipity
The faculty of making happy and
unexpected discoveries by accident.
Serendipity
The faculty of making happy and
unexpected discoveries by accident.
Sagacity
Gifted with acuteness of mental discernment;
having special aptitude for the discovery of
the truth; devising the means for the
accomplishment of goals.
Ways to Promote Serendipity
• Increase awareness of the accidents that
occur.
• Increase the organization’s domain of
sagacity to turn more accidents into
fortunate ones.
Diverse Stimuli
• A stimulus can either push someone in a
completely new direction or give that
person fresh insight into what he or she has
already set out to do.
• The majority of stimuli that lead to
organization creativity arise in connection
with the work itself.
Ways to Promote Diverse Stimuli
• Identify stimuli and provide them to employees.
• Rotate employees into every job they are capable
of doing.
• Arrange for employees to interact with those
inside and outside the organization who are likely
to be the source of stimuli.
• Create opportunities for employees to bring into
the organization stimuli they get on their own.
Within-Organization
Communication
• The majority of creative acts in
organizations bring together components
from unexpected places.
• If communication occurs only through
official channels, the employees who know
about these components but who do not
ordinarily communicate with each other will
never interact.
Ways to Promote WithinOrganization Communication
• Provide opportunities for employees who do not
normally interact with each other to meet.
• Ensure that every employee has a sufficient
understanding of the organization’s activities to be
able to tap its resources and expertise.
• Create a new organization priority: all employees
should know the importance of being responsive
to requests for information or help from other
employees.
Six Elements of Organization Creativity
•
•
•
•
•
•
Alignment
Self-Initiated Activity
Unofficial Activity
Serendipity
Diverse Stimuli
Within-Organization Communication
Source: Robinson & Stern, Corporate Creativity
The Importance of Leadership