Managing for Creativity

Every CEO would love to have staff who are innovative and creative. In the competitive environment of today’s market, the company that comes up with an innovative product or service before the competitors is going to reap massive gains.

???????????I believe that having creative staff does not happen by accident or by divine blessing. Companies can nurture the creativity of their staff by providing an environment that is conducive to innovation. Alex Osborn, known to be the father of “Brainstorming” and a founder of the Centre for Studies in Creativity, once said: “Creativity is so delicate a flower that praise tends to make it bloom while discouragement often nips it at the bud.”

???????????The CIO’s job, as the advisor to the organisation for the strategic use of IT, requires him to create and innovate. Some organization actually calls the CIO the Chief Innovation Officer. If IT is to help increase the productivity of the organisation, then new systems need to be introduced to automate laborious processes or to re-engineer them. If IT is to be used as a strategic tool, then there should be new systems to make the organisation more agile in new business and technology environments. The IT staff that the CIO manages will have to support him in coming up with the new ideas and innovations.

??????????By creating and maintaining an environment conducive to creativity and innovation, the CIO is able to reap other benefits like lower levels of staff turnover, increased job satisfaction, increased work motivation and involvement and increased sense of personal challenge and achievement amongst employees. Studies have shown that the social environment and personal traits influence the level and frequency of creative behaviour. Assuming that most employees are hired based on the quality of their personal traits, social factors will therefore account for most of the creative behaviour that the CIO can bring about. Fortunately, it is always easier to change the social environment (or people’s perception of it) than to change traits and abilities.

???????????For a start, the mindset of the staff must be geared towards a risk-taking orientation. Staff should adopt an offensive strategy of taking the lead versus a defensive strategy of simply wanting to maintain the status quo. This can only happen when management is ready to forgive mistakes and allow staff to have a second chance of making good on an idea or innovation. This does not mean, however, that foolhardiness or wilful negligence should be tolerated.

???????????Staff empowerment is another strong factor in influencing creative behaviour. This means, allowing employees freedom to decide what to do or how to accomplish a task, thus giving them a sense of control over their own work and ideas.

??????????Management must have an enthusiasm for new ideas and encourage employees to innovate. Providing incentives for staff to contribute ideas through a Suggestion Scheme is a possible manifestation of this. Other means include encouraging staff to participate in Work Improvement Teams, Quality Improvement Teams, Innovation Teams and so on. Good ideas should be publicised throughout the organisation to instil a sense of pride in the employees who have contributed them.

???????????A corporate climate marked by free sharing of information, open co-operation and collaboration across levels and departments, between management and workers, enables the employee to develop his ideas in consultation with colleagues. Joint projects across departments should be encouraged, for they usually give rise to higher quality innovations.

??????????Employees who have come up with good ideas should be rewarded. If the idea leads to massive savings and profits, then the employees might be allowed to retain some of the savings or profits. Some companies are also helping staff to patent their innovations and allowing them to have a share of the royalties received.

???????????Frederick Herzberg once wrote: “It’s the job of a manager not to light the fire of motivation, but to create an environment to let each person’s personal spark of motivation blaze.”?By its very characteristic of ‘charting into unknown territories’, creativity cannot be managed by telling employees exactly what they should do to produce a novel or useful result. However, it may be possible to manage for creativity instead of directly managing creativity. Managers can successfully maintain continuous innovation by fostering work environments that stimulate creativity, eliminate factors that undermine creativity and striving to achieve an optimal balance between these two.