GUEST POST: Defining Creativity And How To Develop A Creative Culture – Dr Mike Rugg-Gunn

By Dr Mike Rugg-Gunn, CPsychol.

Director, Norman Broadbent Leadership Consulting

Introduction

Within the science of Psychology the notions of creativity and innovation are not the same concept. They require different thinking styles and behaviours to implement. Put simply, creativity is about idea generation and innovation is about idea implementation and thus is more concerned about the monetization of the bright idea.

Thus creative people think and act differently. Creative people are more likely to think in a divergent way – that is to say that their thinking involves the ability to generate a large quantity of ideas and to select unusual combinations of ideas that lead to no agreed solution. In contrast, convergent thinking is the ability to solve well defined problems that have a single correct answer. This is a skill found amongst innovators who use convergent thought processes to discriminate between the best idea and the also-rans.

Creative people behave in different ways too. Current theory suggests that personality is based on five key factors (Openness to Experience, Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness and Neuroticism). Within this context, creative people tend to score more highly than most for both Openness to Experience (where this is defined as having a good imagination, experiencing and valuing feelings and experimenting with new ideas) and Neuroticism (where this is defined as the intensity and feelings of negative emotions arising from negative beliefs about life in general). They score much less well for Conscientiousness where the focus is on goals without distraction, order and control. Conversely, these are exactly the skills required of the good innovator whose role it is to project plan to take great ideas to market; thus giving further credence to the notion that creativity and innovation are discrete psychological entities with only minimal overlap. This distinction can also be seen in two high profile corporate failures. Nokia once heralded as a leading company in creative solutions for mobile phones has been overtaken by the smart-phones like Apple iPhone and Google Android. However, Kodak’s failure was less about a lack of creativity and much more about slow innovation. Kodak invented the digital camera but failed to invest in its own creative output, fearing that it would cannibalize their traditional business. By the time Kodak realized this strategic error, it was too late, competitors had overtaken them leading them to file for bankruptcy protection.

Developing a culture of creativity

Corporate culture matters. It is the social glue that binds the organization together; it is a differentiator between one organization and another and creates a social identity for employees. The biggest way to misrepresent culture is to oversimplify it (‘e.g. it is the way things are done around here’). This is because culture works at several levels from the most overt (e.g. the brand, the offices, dress code and pace of working) to the less explicit (e.g. norms of behaviour and values) to the tacit or implied (e.g. taken-for-granted perceptions and thoughts). The biggest impact on corporate culture is derived from the behaviours of its leaders. Research is clear that good leadership matters as poor supervision or poor role modelling results in equally poor creative performance. So how do good leaders develop a culture that sustains creative endeavour?

Creative people value autonomy and professional achievement over power and status. Because creative people are passionate about their work the organization is secondary to their personal fulfilment. In this way creative people’s self-identity is framed by the work that they do rather than the organization that they work for. The cultural aim here is to create an environment that frees individuals from routine to enable them to indulge in more creative activities. Thus there is a minimum of structure and work is through relationships as there are few, if any, rules. This is because creative people are intrinsically motivated. That is to say that they enjoy intense emotional attachments to the creative projects being developed because they are enjoyable and deeply satisfying and because the journey is the reward. This is different from those extrinsically motivated where the focus is on external reward because work is a means to an end. What leaders choose to both recognize and reward is culturally formative and thus they should focus on fuelling intrinsic motivation (e.g. praise for a job well done; professional recognition or funding of professional development); external reward for those intrinsically motivated will be counter-productive.

Tom Ford (Creative Director) and Domenico de Sole (CEO) who were credited with the transformation of Gucci’s fortunes ten years ago enjoyed an almost father/son relationship. Thus senior level relationships are important and the leadership tone should be supportive rather than directive. Leaders need to set a culture of organizational encouragement including fostering of risk taking and idea generation. Creative work is, by its very nature, uncertain and because such work frequently generates multiple solutions there is an implication of significant risk. This suggests the need to tolerate failure and thus leaders need to be very careful how and when they evaluate creative endeavour. Because creative people will explore first and confirm later any premature criticism at the embryonic stages of the creative process runs the risk that they will withdraw. Some creative people are sensitive and thus carefully crafted praise will be much more motivational than casual admonition. Furthermore, good leaders should recognize not just the outputs of creative endeavour but also the process that delivered it and thus seek every opportunity to recognize and reward those who produce new ideas and re-affirm this as a core element of the desired culture.

A desired culture can further be re-enforced by what leaders attend to, measure and control. Creative people will not react well to commercial goals and targets as these hint at the notion of control which is an anathema to a creative process. Rather, research supports the notion that setting output expectations rather than specific goals allows leaders to direct the work without being unduly controlling as to how such work is accomplished. The key here is for leaders to keep it broad brush and not to punish failure providing that reasonable progress has been maintained. Thus keep process off the front end of the creative drive but rather introduce it at the outset of the innovation process to ensure that the route to market is well defined.

Leaders need to get diverse people to work together, build organizational support for risky new ideas or products and create a climate for supporting the ideas of others. This presupposes that the organization both values and is tolerant of diversity of personalities. As noted earlier, creative people frequently show personality traits that may be at odds with organizational norms of behaviour. While diversity of thought is valuable in the early stages of the creative process, this is less so in the latter stages, where ideas are firmed up into concrete proposals as part of the innovation process.

Further research suggests that information flows are key to ensuring that creative people have access to stimulating data. Thus leaders should heed the way that channels of communication are encouraged or dissuaded within an organization and seek to ensure adequate information flows into it. The culture should encourage push back, challenge and debate. What is important here is not necessarily that these emanate from either inside or from outside of the organization but rather that they help to generate increased frequency of ideas from those with diverse perspectives.

Finally, leaders influence culture through the organization design that they put into place. There is a notion within some industries that the solution to creative endeavour is to bring the brightest and best to work together. The Italian Renaissance during the fifteenth century was a time of prodigious creative endeavour; however it was not the case that the great artists or architects worked together. Rather, they competed with each other, effectively driving each to higher standards of creative excellence. This is not to suggest that healthy rivalry should preclude collaborative effort; more that leaders need to think through how they harness creative competitiveness within a collaborative work context. One example of this can be seen in GE’s aviation business where the engine of the Boeing 777 was delivered by two independent teams. One team won the design competition and the other team was charged to challenge and debate the others’ team outputs to push the project to higher standards.

Ten Top Tips For Fostering A Culture Of Creativity

Do:

• recognize your responsibilities as a cultural leader;

• take the bureaucracy off the people at the sharp end of the creative process;

• cheer the creative process not just the results;

• not punish failure and remember that carrot works better than stick;

• use intrinsic reward for creative people;

• celebrate and foster diversity in all its forms;

• encourage autonomy through setting output expectations for performance whilst allowing creative people to decide the means of delivery;

• encourage free flow of information both within and into the organization;

• ensure that healthy competitive rivalry is harnessed into collaborative endeavour that delivers better creative solutions quicker;

• remember that your competitors are working away to be more creative than you; thus a culture of creativity is a ‘must do’ not a ‘nice-to-have’.

 

Summary

Creativity and innovation are distinct entities requiring differing knowledge, skills and abilities to execute well. Leadership is the critical element in culture formation and indeed some researchers assert that culture is innovation as it provides the sense mechanism to generate ideas that may later be implemented as worthy products. Not all industries require creative people but some (e.g. those at the cutting edge of technology or fashion) will surely fold without it. Thus for these industries how to develop and foster a culture of creativity is a strategic imperative.

References

Amabile, T. M. (1996). Creativity in Context. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.

Angle, H. L. (1989). Psychology and organizational innovation. In A. H. Van de Ven, H. L. Angle & M. S. Poole

(Eds.), Research on the management of innovation: The Minnesota Studies (pp. 135-170).

New York: Harper & Row.

Brown, L. (2007). Psychology of Motivation. New York: Nova Science Publishers.

Cardinal, L. (2001). Technological innovation in the pharmaceutical industry; the use of organizational control in managing research and development. Organizational Science, 12, 19-36

Csikszentmihalyi, M. (2013). Creativity; The Psychology of Discovery and Invention. New York: Harper Perennial Modern Classics.

Ferrari, B., & Goethals, J. (2010). Using rivalry to spur innovation. McKinsey Quarterly. Retrieved from McKinsey & Co.:

http://www.mckinsey.com/insights/innovation/using_rivalry_to_spur-innovation

Gaule, A. (2006). Open Innovation in Action. London: h-i Network.

Gelade, G. (1997). Creativity in Conflict: The Personality of the Commercial Creative. The Journal of Genetic Psychology, 158(1), 67-78.

Girotra, K., Terwiesch, C., & Ulrich, K. (2010). Idea Generation and the Quality of the Best Idea. Management Science, 56(4).

McLean, L. (2005). Organizational Culture’s Influence on Creativity and Innovation: A review of the Literature and Implications for Human Resource Development. Advances in Developing Human Resources, 7(2), 226-246.

Lord, W. (2007). NEO PI-R: A Guide to Interpretation and Feedback in a Work Context. Oxford: Hogrefe.

Mumford, M., Scott, G., Gaddis, B. and Strange. J. (2002) Leading creative people: Orchestrating expertise and relationships. The Leadership Quarterly, 13, 705-750

Schein, E. (1997). Organizational Culture and Leadership. New York: Jossey-Bass.

Sternberg, R., Lubart, T., Kaufman, C., & Pretz, J. (2005). Creativity. In K. J. Holyoak, & R. G. Morrison,

The Cambridge Handbook of Thinking and Reasoning (pp. 351-369). New York: Cambridge University Press.

Stock, R., Six, B., & Zacharias, N. (2012). Linking multiple layers of innovation-orientated corporate culture, product program innovativeness, and business performance: A contingency approach. Journal of Academy of Marketing Science.

Tierney, P., & Farmer, S. (2011). Creative Self-Efficacy Development and Creative Performance Over Time. Journal of Applied Psychology, 96 (2), 277-293.

Van de Ven, A. H., & Angle, H. L. (1989). Suggestions for managing the innovation journey. Strategic Management Research Centre.

Xenikou, A., & Furnham, A. (2013). Group Dynamics and Organizational Culture. London: Palgrave Macmillan.

www.normanbroadbent.com