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** NEW MEMBER BONUS! Join now and receive an advance galley of Doug Hall's new book: 'Meaningful Marketing: How to sell more with less effort' and a CD of his national program BrainBrew Radio featuring '30-Second Gurus' and practical advice for entrepreneurs. For more info: staff@thinksmart.com

** If you want your employees to think smarter in these challenging times, the InnovationWizard may be just what you're looking for. For more info go to: http://www.thinksmart.com/lead/wizard.html or email staff@thinksmart.com.

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Creating a Creative Culture

'We are all immigrants into a new time. This inevitably requires that the patterns we've inherited from the past must be tested against a new set of realities that nobody sees clearly.'
-- Margaret Mead

'Creativity, Inc.' has just been released by Harvard Business School Press and we're delighted to present a short stimulating article by the authors. ASTD's 'Training and Development' magazine recommends the book, saying in part:

'Finally! A book on creativity in the workplace that targets the people who can make a difference. 'Creativity, Inc.' reaches the fundamentals of creativity and the impact of innovation in the workplace, but it's directed toward upper-level management. ... 'Creativity, Inc.' is well written, readable, and motivating.

'On Nurturing Systemic Creativity'

by Jeff Mauzy and Richard A. Harriman

We contend that successful companies must establish constant, 'systemic' creativity ... that is, creativity at all times, in all areas, in all activities. This premise ups the ante for many organizations that have relied on sporadic outbursts of creativity: the periodic product breakthrough, the isolated invention of a new service, or the output of folks in so-called creative departments.

There is no recipe for systemic creativity. The field of systemic creativity and innovation is still so new that there are none of the requisite benchmarks needed for universal recipes. Yet from our research on creativity initiatives at dozens of organizations, we have found several practices that increase the chances that a company becomes systemically creative.

The first is to realize that systemic creativity operates in three arenas: individual creativity, the creativity practiced by coalitions and teams, and the support that organizations give to each. Once individuals have a clear sense of their own creativity wellspring, they can revitalize creativity in themselves and in the people around them. Creativity for coalitions and teams begins with the fragile process of moving from creativity to innovation, which is about shifting from the generation of novel and appropriate ideas to the implementation of those ideas. A company needs to provide the resources, the strategy and the climate that encourage both individuals and groups to perform at their creative best.

Making sure that creativity operates in these three arenas requires four dynamics to be in place: motivation, curiosity and fear, breaking and making of connections, and evaluation. These dynamics are the heartbeat of systemic creativity.

Organizations that are systemically creative have no artificial designations between 'creative' people and 'everyone else.' Everyone is responsible for leading with creativity ... for sparking ideas and shepherding them into useful innovation. A receptionist, no less than a corporate manager, can observe an unhappy customer, create an idea to correct the situation, and work to make the idea happen. Being systemically creative requires people from all levels to take such initiative.

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Adapted with permission from Harvard Business School Press from Creativity, Inc.: Building an Inventive Organization by Jeff Mauzy and Richard A. Harriman. Copyright 2003 Jeff Mauzy and Richard Harriman. All Rights Reserved. Jeff Mauzy is a consulting manager and Richard Harriman is managing partner with Synectics, Inc., a pioneering creativity consulting firm that helps organizations tap the best source of ideas their own people to generate growth, streamline operations, and meet other critical challenges. They are based at the firm's Cambridge, Mass., headquarters. For more information on Synectics, go to www.synecticsworld.com.