Creative Thinking Organization : 4Ps Creativity Model

Access Your Organization's Creative Pool Of Human Resources for Innovation

Most businesses are passionate to promote creativity, an intangible trait. People in organizations with creative abilities can determine the viewpoint, processes, and culture of creativity. The people's creative capacity encourages innovation, cultivates outstanding talent and leadership, and shapes a high level of awareness from outsiders on the organization.

All organizations benefit from innovation because it allows you to be more agile and flexible. For business to thrive, Peter Drucker told us, “The commercial enterprise has two—and only two—basic functions: marketing and innovation” (Forbes, 2012, July 13). Both concepts require creativity and each are interdependent. Further from Drucker's view, we can say that marketing's duty skews towards new and imaginative methods in the form of innovative advertisements, while innovation is to produce creative products and services in tune with consumer demands. Both are crucial for your successful business to happen.

A degree of built-in creative regularity is essential in the your corporate setting to improve overall business and people efficiency. That does not indicate you cannot explore creative fun at work. Simply put, innovation equals creativity with little fun in between.?The importance of innovation at work according to a study from Accenture, found that?"Ninety-three percent of surveyed executives said the long-term success of their organization’s strategy depends on their ability to innovate and 70 percent place innovation among their company’s top five priorities." Despite this top level commitment, the study found a decline in the satisfaction with innovation performance (Accenture, 2013). In review, these companies witnessed their innovations withering, although the idea of innovation still tops their minds.

The question for you is. How to make sure you are not one of them with declining innovation rates?

Perhaps, our answers reported in the organizations with formalized innovation management systems. According to Accenture (2013), companies with a formal innovation approach are nearly twice as likely to be extremely happy with their first idea generating abilities as those without (43 percent vs. 24 percent). More to the point, it is about generating the initial idea to spark your innovation journey. This refers to the role of creative thinking, which defines the ability to generate new ideas that eventually are considered for commercialization in innovation projects.

With creativity positioned as a premium skill, the holy grail to turn an organization into a creative powerhouse is still vague. Having known that, creative thinking is increasingly highly regarded as a must-have individual ability, regardless of your industry.

Creative thinking is an employability skill for everyone to master. All organizational innovation stems from individual creativity, however, it is not all individual creativity stems from organizational creativity. While both are similar in meaning, they are not identical in producing results.

To put it another way,?individual creativity refers to ideas or innovations developed by a single person - for example, an engineer creating a unique machine model or an administrator devising a new automated procedure.

Drawing from larger context, ideas or inventions produced by a group of employees working for the same company are referred to as organizational creativity. That might be a group working on a new product's development, for instance. Thus, creative thinking organization is the ultimate goal to achieve.

In thriving creatively, businesses as whole organizations, must have certain creativity requirements and meet them. So, how do you go above the low number of "Thirty-eight percent vs. 22 percent [that] are very satisfied with the return on their innovation investments" (Accenture, 2013). One aspect to turn up the dial of innovation could be what the researchers discovered that most firms lack a method to lead innovation. This is noted in an exploratory study of more than 30 companies in the United States and Europe (Desouza, et al, 2009). The main difficulty is the lack of a systematic method or organizational focus for innovation initiatives.

On the other side of achieving any innovation goal, organizations are more productive, inventive, and successful when they invest in creativity. A study of 5,000 people in the United States, Europe, and Japan on their opinions about creativity for Adobe State of Create Report in 2016 (Sharma, 2016) discovered that organizations focusing efforts on creativity are more likely to:

-Boost staff productivity efficiency (78 percent agree).

-Employees who are happy (76 percent ).

-Have a lot of happy and satisfied customers (80 percent ).?

-Enhance the client experience (78 percent ).

-Encourage new ideas with fostering innovation (83 percent ).

-Be prosperous financially (73 percent ).

Benefiting creative thinking organization is that creativity being frequently seen as the initial stage in the innovation process. In this regard, an evergreen creative thinking and problem-solving framework may offer an answer to organizational wide creative abilities.

Formulated by Rhodes (1961), the 4Ps creativity model displays a multitude of elements highlighted in theories of creativity as the important factors of 4Ps — Person, Process, Product, and Press. This research paradigm divides creativity into four categories that address the answers to encourage creativity at individual up to the organizational levels.

The psychologist Mel Rhodes explains that each of the Four Ps has the potential to affect our ability capacity to think creatively, and we all react differently to the diverse stimuli linked to each of them.

The Four Main Areas Make a Difference To Your Overall Creative Thinking In Organizations

A spotlight on Rhodes (1961) in defining the 4Ps of Creativity: Person, Process, Press and Product as:

“The term person, as used here, covers information about personality, intellect, temperament, physique, traits, habits, attitudes, self-concept, value systems, defense mechanisms, and behavior” (page. 307).

"The term process applies to motivation, perception, learning, thinking, and communication” (page. 308).

"The term press refers to the relationship between human beings and their environment” (page. 308).

“The word idea refers to a thought which has been communicated to other people in the form of words, paint, clay, metal, stone, fabric, or other material. When an idea becomes embodied into tangible form it is called a product" (page.309).

Within the 4Ps model, individuals and organizations behave in vastly different ways. Individuals can act how they choose, as compared to, organizations that must value efficient and predictable outcomes. When referring to the creativity of a whole organization, this may be an issue that challenges the leadership and people alike.

Adding to the complexity of churning out creative outcomes in today's context, creativity ranges from generating new ideas right up to innovations, improvement, transformations, optimization, art, literature, music, design, technology and so much more.

In order to produce creative breakthroughs, companies require a high level of mastery over creativity. To that, individual and group creativity is a prerequisite for innovation; the first term is required to easily do when alone, while, the second term of collective creativity can run into setbacks. Remember, too many cooks spoil the soup!

Getting a deeper grasp of creativity's origins and impacts through the 4Ps may assist your organization in developing a framework for understanding, analyzing, and nurturing creativity.

First P = People (Are The Pulse Of Creativity)

Any creativity activity revolves upon the individual. The heart of creativity lies in your People, who produce the Product using their talents with creative ability, operating within the environment (or Press), and their drive of motivation in Process. Ironically for people, on the whole, they are risk adverse and opposed to change.

Thriving in today's economy, much more than surviving, is about your business taking chances with innovation. As a result, leaders such as yourself, face a dilemma to balance risk with inventiveness. Often, these two opposites collide on the argument that organizational management leans toward adverting risk at the expense of dooming innovation that comes with uncertain profit potential. This if it happens to you , may lead to stagnation of your company culture to creative thinking.

The next challenge is that creative factors are viewed by Rhodes (1961) as not measured in intelligence tests at individual. More so is the difficulty or reluctance of the social group to accept new ideas, especially those that are novel. This roadblock complicates the process of finding innovative minds (Rhodes, 1961, page.308). Henceforth, group acceptance of a creative idea or a person who is deemed creative will affect the robustness of the innovation outcomes.

As it is said, the sum of people's contribution outweighs the individual idea. This boils down to your business wanting creative individuals with the ability to work together in order to innovate. Group level creativity might not work for everyone in your whole organization. However, research found the value in combining ideas from a variety of sources as encouraging to support group creative thinking. Contemplate that a small amount of instruction in creativity tools and concepts created 350 percent more ideas than groups that did not get training, and these ideas were 415 percent more unique.(Puccio, et al.,2018). This indicates that training and skills development can help to gel people together because their creative motive might be monetary or simply about human interaction. Thus, people are your biggest asset to push your creative thinking organization agenda forward towards fruition

Second P = Process (Is Idea Management Mechanism)

Complementing creatively capable people in contributing to innovation is the organization's and leader's support by putting in place a proper innovation process. It is how a person thinks when trying to solve an issue or come up with a fresh solution. The term "process" refers to the mental process and creative procedure, although earlier focus is on the mindset side. Individual and corporate creativity can benefit from a strong idea management strategy.

Usually individual creativity is hampered when people do not write down or record their thoughts. Rather, people that you know can either 1) resolve to do it later and forget, or 2) they decide not to do it at all out of convenience. There is also the fear of looking dumb or not being heard as the reasons to being significant obstacles to organizational creativity. Both problems may be solved by a solid idea management approach, which offers feedbacks and promotes all ideas. Thus, a simple idea management approach can help your organization to pull attention and resources. Particularly when the void in individual's idea creates an innovation vacuum that can be compensated with a collective idea pool from a group.

Managers can promote and assist in the creation of strong creative thinking organizations. Through innovation management policy and practice, creative thinking organizations can establish a blueprint or template for sustainable innovation programmes instead of relying on bursts of innovation.

Comparative to the creativity at organizational level, the individual creativity depends on the person's mood and efficiency. People can be readily motivated in your organization, especially when you open up room to grow in creativity. This refers to Gallup 2017 American Workplace Survey that 35% of workers are only given time to be creative at work a few times per year (Wigert & Robison, 2018, December 19). Imagine the uptake in creative output if businesses or organizations are willing to go the extra mile with a creative space complemented by motivation through incentive, reward, and recognition.

On the back of creative thinking that defines a person's capability in a subject, the intrinsic motivation and extrinsic motivation are determining factors of successful outcomes (Shane, et. al., 2003). More importantly, creativity flourishes when people's talents intersect with their strongest inherent interests. The most creative people are really enthusiastic about their work, so much so that grouping them for organisational innovation may often outperform an individual's originality.

A well-thought-out structured procedure in guiding your team from concept creation to the execution of a creative project is a key to successful innovation. Therefore, an idea management approach (on an online or offline platform) is the ideal organizational point for all your innovation activities. It will structure and build a successful innovation process to flow your organization's creative resources towards an innovative outcome.

Third P = Product (Is Idea Management Mechanism)

Flowing from a comprehensive creative process is the nurturing of people to be creative in producing a concept to become a tangible object. The Person creates the product, which is the outcome of the creative process.

Products are viewed as the result of the Process and the Person. Product also is about your business's most recent invention. According to Rhodes (1961), if a product is investigated and traced back to the moment of inspiration, the generated ideas and circumstances that led to the idea may be tracked. Each mental or physical creation records the thinking of a person during a time. This creation trail is key to replicable creative thought process and implementation of innovation to sustain your inventions for business.

Current agreement dictates that the Product must be new and helpful. To do so, each organization can establish its own creative thinking consensus method. However, the track record for creativity falls short in the study by Accenture (2013) with findings revealing "among the main reasons that innovation results fall short are too much “renovation” in place of breakthrough ideas, and too much “invention” against the challenge of commercializing at scale." Hence, leaders need to work with their people to produce unique products/services, which are also viable to pursue as profitable gains. Doing that may still face a setback. This is because creative items according to their newness faces an absence of any conventional approach for categorizing artefacts based on the worth of ideas or the degree of originality. As a result, any item is referred to as a creation, and all of them are shrouded in mystery (Rhodes.1961, page.309). Consequently, organizations would have to be more open and flexible with accepting the creative ideas, even though the ideas may seem crazy at first. Do you recall the critics of the ideas that static phones of yesteryears can be smart portable with computing prowess, or the idea about flying and self drive cars, and so many more advancements that are proven as inventions in time.

Fourth P = Press (Is Surrounding Support)

The environment and atmosphere in which the Person operates and performs in order to generate the Product are represented by the Press.

Press refers to the situations that encourage or inhibit creativity. Successful conglomerates like Disney, Google, Pixar, Microsoft, Netflix, and Apple are known to have improved their organizational creativity by artfully creating better working environments. Within Press, companies cultivate the creative organizational culture, resources, best practices, and many other aspects of support for creative endeavors.

Organizations need a certain physiological and physical environment to grow creativity. Otherwise, the thought of upsetting the status quo can let people to dismiss a novel concept , let along to support it. Radical new ideas stand being stifled because their novel aspects are out of favor with individuals fearing or detesting change.

In terms of the environment, individual creativity does offer you with significant advantage over the organizational innovation. Individuals are free to generate ideas anytime and anyplace. The workplace, on the other hand can provide additional strengths, which is about openness to generation and exchange of ideas in any location and time.

Creative thinking organizations are keen to break down walls that frequently pose as innovation constraints for businesses. In this context, people are relieved to offer individual ideas while participating in group-based creative gatherings within a supportive environment that permits fluid?as well as spontaneous innovation.

Putting All The 4 Ps Together

In totality, both organizational and individual creativity benefit your innovation yield. Doing that, organizational creativity must comprehend the harmonious balance of all four components of creativity thinking model in order to survive and thrive. So, organizations must hire the right people and encourage their innovation. The opportunity to 1) foster an environment conducive to creativity and 2) implement effective idea management procedures are also critical. Finally, creative thinking organizations should recognize that any individual creativity is prized dearly while it is equally important for people to contribute creatively together as a group for diverse innovation to exist.

References

Accenture. (2013, May 13). Accenture Study: Innovation Efforts Falling Short Despite Increased Investment. Retrieved June 23, 2021, from Accenture.com website: https://newsroom.accenture.com/subjects/supply-chain-management/accenture-study-innovation-efforts-falling-short-despite-increased-investment.htm

Desouza, K. C., Dombrowski, C., Awazu, Y., Baloh, P., Papagari, S., Jha, S., & Kim, J. Y. (2009). Crafting organizational. INNOVATION: MANAGEMENT, POLICY & PRACTICE, 11(1).

Forbes. (2012, July 13). Peter Drucker On Marketing.?Forbes. Retrieved from https://www.forbes.com/2006/06/30/jack-trout-on-marketing-cx_jt_0703drucker.html?sh=78f512a3555c

Puccio, G. J., Burnett, C., Acar, S., Yudess, J. A., Holinger, M., & Cabra, J. F. (2018). Creative Problem Solving in Small Groups: The Effects of Creativity Training on Idea Generation, Solution Creativity, and Leadership Effectiveness. The Journal of Creative Behavior, 54(2), 453–471. https://doi.org/10.1002/jocb.381

Rhodes, M. (1961). An analysis of creativity.?The Phi Delta Kappan,?42(7), 305-310.

Shane, S., Locke, E.A. & Collins, C.J., 2003. Entrepreneurial Motivation.?Human Resource Management Review, 13, pp.257–279.

Sharma, M. (2016). Creativity Drives Business Success—Key Takeaways From the 2016 State of Create Report. Retrieved June 21, 2021, from Adobe Blog website: https://blog.adobe.com/en/2016/11/01/2016-state-of-create-report.html#gs.3w5nzf

Visual Paradigm Online. (2021). Creative Thinking: Disney’s Creative Strategy. Retrieved June 17, 2021, from Visual-paradigm.com website: https://online.visual-paradigm.com/knowledge/disney-creative-strategy/what-is-disney-creative-strategy/

Wigert, B., & Robison, J. (2018, December 19). Fostering Creativity at Work: Do Your Managers Push or Crush Innovation? Retrieved June 21, 2021, from Gallup.com website: https://www.gallup.com/workplace/245498/fostering-creativity-work-managers-push-crush-innovation.aspx

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Wong Siong Lai

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