Information technology based organisations are faced with the challenge to develop creativity and innovation among their people.
Such organisations must develop an organisational culture that encourages creativity among its employees.
A flexible organisational structure is necessary for creativity. A process for developing new ideas in products and services should be in place. A trustful leadership that does not over control people and open channels of communication among the members of the organisation will go a long way in developing a creative culture.
Considerable contact and communication with other institutions, willing to accept change, must be established. Encouraging employees to develop new ideas will also go a long way to promote creativity.
Both creative and judicial thinking are important
1. Creative thinking is “future-oriented”. It looks to the future and tries to find a more effective way to do things, to find new techniques and methods.
2. Judicial thinking is “past-oriented”. It relise on past experience in evaluating new ideas, methods and techniques.
3. It is important to keep both types of thinking in proper balance and not utilise one at the cost of neglecting the other. They complement each other. Together they make an excellent combination.
Creative decisions
Being creative does not necessarily mean coming up with revolutionary ideas. It does mean taking a fresh and uninhibited approach when making decisions and not being restricted by what has been done in the past.
Creative Leaders not only have new ideas but also elicit new ideas from their employees. The Leader set the creative tone; if he or she encourages creativity, the members will sense this and act accordingly.
The creative person
People tempt to think of themselves and others as being creative or not creative. But being creative is not an all-or-nothing characteristic. Everyone can be creative to some extent.
Creativity is not a mysterious power given to a selected few. Typically, the person who believes “Creative is not my bag” has never tried to use his or her creative powers.
Characteristics of creative people
Creative people have a youthful curiosity throughout their lives. They are also emotionally expressive and sensitive to the world around them and the feelings of others.
Creative people tend to have a positive self-image; they feel good about themselves. It is said that creative people have the ability to tolerate isolation and are nonconformists. Creative people often have thrill-seeking tendencies and are always persistent.
Knowledge
Creative people spend a great number of years mastering their chosen field.
Education
Education does not increase creativity. Education that stresses logic tends to inhibit creativity.
Intelligence
Creative people do not necessarily have high IQs. The threshold for IQ is around 130. After that, IQ does not really matter.
Creative people have been found to posses the following intellectual abilities; sensitivity to problems, flexibility in firming fluid association between objects, thinking in images rather than words, and synthesizing information.
Personality
Creative people are typically risk takers who are independent, persistent, highly motivated, skeptical, open to new ideas, able to tolerate ambiguity, self-confident, and able to tolerate isolation. They also have a strong sense of humour and are hard to get along with.
Social habits
Contrary to stereotypes, creative people are not introverted nerds, creative people tend to be outgoing and enjoy exchanging ideas with colleagues.
Establishing a creative climate
1., Schedule regular practice session for creative thinking.
2. Build a creative climate in which the desire and willingness to be creative will be ever present. It is important to encourage creativity among all.
3. Build an “Idea Bank” an idea reservoir - by building up idea sources. Thus all will have an ever wider frame of reference to which, ideas may be related. Relatedness is important for creativity.
4. Concentrate. Don’t let anything distract you. Stick to one problem. Keep plugging.
5. Believe in yourself. Everyone can come up with good ideas when they put aside judicial thinking.
6. Let the unconscious take over. When we’re exhausted we should stop thinking and the unconscious will keep working.
7. Build big ideas from little ones. Add to what has already been thought out.
8. Be enthusiastic and confident. This opens the mind for creative ideas.
9. Be ready for ideas when they’re ready to flow.
Characteristics of a creative organisation
1. An organisational culture that encourages and expects creativity from employees.
2. Rewards are given to employees for innovative ideas.
3. Top managers who support innovation and imagination.
4. A flexible organisation structure.
5. A process for developing new ideas in products and services.
6. A trustful management that does not over control people.
7. Open channels of communication among members of the organisation.
8. Considerable contact and communication with outsiders.
9. A large variety of personality types.
10. Willing to accept change, but not enamoured with change for its own sake.
11. Enjoyment in experimenting with new ideas.
12. Encourages people of various education levels and generalists (as opposed to only specialists) to contribute new ideas.
13. Attempt to retain creative people even during times of financial difficulty.
14. Has little fear of the consequences of making a mistake.
15. Select people and promote them primarily on the basis of merit.
16. Uses techniques for encouraging ideas, such as suggestion systems and brainstorming.
Blocks to our natural creativity
1. Fear. If we are frightened, we cannot be creative. Creativity requires us to be looking out, experimenting, risking.
2. Self-consciousness. You should never be doubtful of what people will think of your creations.
They might laugh, they might faint, they might criticize, they might ignore. So if you’re too preoccupied with other people’s reactions. It will stunt your creativity.
3. Depression. Depression is about believing that you can’t change anything, that things are bad and always will be. Depression is about passivity. In many ways, it is the opposite of creativity.
4. Reluctance to commit. Creativity is about commitment. We speck of ‘committing ourselves to paper, the picture is very apt. We have to invest in our ideas, plans and suggestions to bring them out into the open, to let them exist in some shape or form.
So, paradoxically, some people’s creativity is blocked because they have too many ideas and they can’t commit to any of them.
How creative are you?
self-check
1. I am a curious person.
2. I look for opportunities to solve problems.
3. I respond to changes in my life creatively by using them to redefine my goals and revising plans to achieve them.
4. I am willing to develop and experiment with ideas of my own.
5. I rely on my hunches and insights.
6. I can reduce complex decisions to a few simple questions by seeing the “big picture”.
7. I am good at promoting and gathering support for my ideas.
8. I think ahead of other people.
9. I dig out research and information to support my ideas.
10. I am supportive of the creative ideas from my peers and subordinates and welcome “better ideas” from others.
11. I read books and articles to stay on the “cutting edge” in my areas of interest.
12. I believe that I am creative and have faith in my creative skills.
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