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Joyce Wycoff
All of us who've been around for a while know that enhancing creativity of employees is a somewhat cyclical activity for organizations. With the intense pressure on today's organizations, creativity-boosting is on a roll. Several Innovation Network members were featured in a recent Reuter Business Alert discussing this topic. Here's a recap:
Gerald Haman, president of Creative Learning International -- There is a premium on individual and group creativity and, among companies with more than 100 employees, four out of ten conduct some kind of creativity orientation or training. The reason for this spread "is the need to deal creatively with significant amounts of information that flow through organizations."
Stan Gryskiewicz, senior fellow for creativity at the Center for Creative Leadership -- "Creativity has been off in the wilderness for a while, but downsizing has emphasized its importance. So it is enjoying a comeback, a renaissance in the corporation. But with a difference. Creativity enhancement with a two-or three-day course is not the way that most companies are going: instead they are trying to build creativity into their processes, to make it systemic." (Also see Gryskiewicz's "Positive Turbulence" article available in the Organizational Innovation section of articles.)
J. Daniel Couger, professor of management science at the University of Colorado Springs and founder of that school's Center for Research on Creativity and Innovation -- "Inevitably, halfway through my presentation to a management group, a manager will raise her hand and say, 'Wait a minute. I don't want my people to be more creative. They can't implement the systems I need done on time, and within budget, as it is.' This kind of objection assumes that encouraging employees to be more creative will just give them a license to sit around and 'blue sky.' But this is not a true picture of real creativity." Couger does not strive to get executives to come up with the "Big Idea." "In fact," he states, "that's the kind of thinking that distorts creativity and gives people who've never had a Big Idea the notion that they aren't creative. The reality is that most inventions result from a methodo- logical, systematic process."
Couger encourages groups to pause at four pre-determined points and address creativity issues and possibilities before going on to the next stage. He states, "These stops lengthen the development by a half of 1%. But their return on investment is substantial. In two creativity programs I've fostered, at United Technologies and Federal Express, return on investments were around 200%."
Obviously, the practice of enhancing creativity in organizations is evolving. Creativity, for creativity's sake, however, is only an interesting process. Applying creativity to real challenges and opportunities in an environment that encourages collaboration and supports risk taking and the open flow of information transforms it into innovation ... the only unlimited asset available to organizations.