Creativity and Conflict
The atmosphere of growing intolerance in the country reminds me of a debate that took place a few years back in one of my Leadership development programs. The discussion started on how an organization can support creativity and innovation. For any organisation to grow it is critical to harness the collective competence of the organization and ensure that all its members are able to contribute to their fullest.
The discussion zeroed on one key element that is common between creativity and conflict; both germinate from "difference". Organizations that have mechanism and systems to support, encourage and appreciate the difference are found to have greater creative expression and innovation while the organizations that do not tolerate the difference end up having less engaged employees and greater conflict.
Appreciation of difference creates safe environment for expression of new and untested ideas. It encourages risk taking and builds the environment that others would support. To systematically encourage appreciation of differences, organizations adopt the policies of diversity in gender, sexual orientation, physical abilities etc. And these policies have made our work places richer, humane and exciting.
India today is at that point of history where if we adopt the approach of appreciating the difference we will create positive atmosphere of creative entrepreneurship ..else it would be another wasted opportunity spent in intolerance and conflict restricting young Indians entrepreneurial spirit.
Software Developer at Wipro Technologoies
9 年Good one
CEO at EnableX, Board Advisor, Mentor
9 年Appreciating the differences in cultures or opinions is the beginning or the basis for setting up the environment that facilitates creativity and innovation. However, the next phase is equally and probably more important - driving the process of innovation and creativity on a sustained basis.. The organizations which have 'accepted' differences are not necessarily able to drive creativity..
Global head of advisory and Regional Human Resource professional, Human Capital consultant, Certified Executive Coach
9 年Well said Rajesh. It is a coincidence that I logged on to Linked in to echo similar views??How perfectionism and over engineered processes are in conflict with creativity and entrepreneurship. It is paradoxical to appreciate "conflict" and "differences". Once you master the art, Organisations could be in different orbit.
Associate Director - L & D at SourceFuse
9 年Hi Rajesh Pandey ! Nice to see you in action ! Concisely written. However, there seems to be a difference in spelling of 'organization' vs 'organisation' in the article. Is it a typo or deliberate?