How To Kill Creativity

When I consider all the organizations I have studied and worked with over the past 22 years, there can be no doubt: creativity gets killed much more often than it gets supported. For the most part, this isnt because managers have a vendetta against creativity. On the contrary, most believe in the value of new and useful ideas. However, creativity is undermined unintentionally everyday in work environments that were established-for entirely good reasons-to maximize business imperatives such as coordination, productivity and control. Managers cannot be expected to ignore business imperatives, of course. But in working towards these imperatives, they may be inadvertently designing organizations that systematically crush creativity. My research shows that it is possible to develop the best of both worlds: organizations in which business imperatives are attended to and creativity flourishes. Building such organizations, however, requires us to understand precisely what kinds of managerial practices foster creativity-and which kill it. Business Creativity

We tend to associate creativity with the arts and to think of it as the expression of highly original ideas. Think of how Pablo Picasso reinvented the conventions of painting or how William Faulkner redefined fiction. In business, originality isnt enough. To be a creative, an idea must also be appropriate-useful and actionable. It must somehow influence the way business gets done-by improving a product, for instance, or by opening up a new way to approach a process. Expertise and creative thinking are an individuals raw materials-his or her natural resources, if you will. But a third factor-motivation-determines what people will actually do. The scientist can have outstanding educational credentials and a great faculty in generating new perspectives to old problems. But is she lacks the motivation to do a particular job, she simply wont do it, her expertise and creative thinking will either go untapped or be applied to something else.

Managing Creativity

Managers can influence all three components of creativity: expertise, creative-thinking skills, and motivation. But the fact is that the first two are more difficult and time consuming to influence than motivation. Yes regular scientific seminars and professional conferences will undoubtedly add to the scientists expertise in hemophilia and related fields. And training in brainstorming, problem solving, and so-called lateral thinking might give her some new tools to use in tackling the job. But the time and money involved in broadening her knowledge and expanding her creative-thinking skills would be great. By contrast, our research has shown that intrinsic motivation can be increased considerably by even subtle changes in an organizations environment. That is not say that managers should give up on improving expertise and creativethinking skills. But when it comes to pulling levers, they should know that those that affect intrinsic motivation will yield more immediate results. CHALLENGE of all the things managers can do to stimulate creativity; perhaps the most efficacious is the deceptively simple task of matching people with the right assignments. Managers can match people with jobs that play to their expertise and their skills in creative thinking and ignite intrinsic motivation. Perfect matches stretch employees abilities. The amount of stretch, however, is crucial: not so little that they feel bored but not so much that they feel overwhelmed and threatened by a loss of control. FREEDOM, when it comes to granting freedom, the key to creativity is giving people autonomy concerning the means-that is, concerning process-but not necessarily the ends. People will be more creative, in other words, if you give them freedom to decide how to climb a particular mountain. You neednt let them choose which mountain to climb. In fact clearly specified strategic goals often enhance peoples creativity.

AUTONOMY around process fosters creativity because giving people freedom in how they approach their work heightens their intrinsic motivation and sense of ownership. Freedom about process also allows people to approach problems in ways that make the most of their expertise and their creative thinking skills. The task may end up being a stretch for them, but they can use their strengths to meet the challenge. RESOURCES The two main resources that affect creativity are time and money. Managers need to allot these resources carefully. Like matching people with the right assignments, deciding how much time and money to give to a team or project is a sophisticated judgment call that can either support or kill creativity. CONSIDER TIME Under some circumstances, time pressure can heighten creativity. Say, for instance, that a competitor is about to launch a great product at a lower price than your offering or that society faces a serious problem and desperately needs a solution-such as an AIDS vaccine. In such situations, both the time crunch and the importance of the work legitimately make people feel that they must rush. Indeed, cases like these would be apt to increase intrinsic motivation by increasing the sense of challenge. WORK-GROUP FEATURES If you want to build teams that come up with creative ideas, you must pay careful attention to the design of such teams. That is, you must create mutually supportive groups with a diversity of perspectives and back grounds. Why? Because when teams comprise people with various intellectual foundations and approaches to work-that is, different expertise and creative thinking styles-ideas often combine and combust in exciting and useful ways. Again, creating teams requires managers to have a deep understanding of their people. They must be able to assess them not just for their knowledge but for their attitudes about potential fellow team members and the collaborative process, for their problem-solving styles, and for their motivational hot buttons. Putting together a team with just the right chemistry-just the right level of diversity and supportiveness can be difficult, but our research shows how powerful it can be.

Supervisory Encouragement

ORGANIZATION SUPPORT Encouragement from supervisors certainly fosters creativity, but creativity is truly enhanced when the entire organization supports it. Such support is the job of an organizations leaders, who must put in place appropriate systems or procedures and emphasize values that make it clear that creative efforts are a top priority. Most important, an organizations leaders can support creativity by mandating information sharing and collaboration and by ensuring that political problems do not fester.

6 Tips to Help Ignite Your Creativity and Increase Your Success The list of 6 pointers below which Ive compiled from various successful people will help ignite your creativity and re-charge your motivation:
1. Try something new for 30 days This is a great suggestion which I recently heard in a presentation from Matt Cutts who is a search optimization engineer at google. Trying something new for a month is a fantastic way to re-build your creativity and whet your curiosity. This can also help you discover the thing that you love doing in case you werent sure what it was to begin with. In terms of the Internet there are countless of free and premium courses and products available in which you can learn or discover a new skill which you can use to enhance your creativity. 2. Do what you love People who make a living from doing what they love instantly have a head-start on those who hate or are indifferent to their jobs. Apart from the fact that you feel good doing what you love, you also have no negative baggage which comes from the stress and resentment of doing

3.

4.

5.

6.

something you dont like. If you dont know what you love doing, then maybe applying point 1 above might help you. Keep your goals to yourself at least in the beginning Sometimes when you decide to muster up the courage to try something new its a good idea to keep your goals a secret initially. This may sound counter-intuitive because most people think that by making their intentions known they can increase their visibility and hence their chances of success because somebody out there might offer some help. Well thats true to an extent but in a lot of cases the people you might be sharing your goals with might not have the same enthusiasm and mindset as you, and quite often they will try to talk you out of your crazy ideas and tell you that its just too hard. Therefore, unless youre certain that you are talking to people with a similar attitude as yours, hold on to your goals and plans until youve put them into practice. Be curious When you start digging deeper into something out of curiosity, you usually find that not only do you enhance your knowledge about that thing, but sometimes you might come up with creative ideas which you would never have thought of if you hadnt indulged your curiosity. So next time you are reading or watching a tutorial about how to do something for your blog, why not delve deeper and experiment with what youve learnt and see what happens. Improve Improving yourself both in terms of knowledge and in general can only serve to benefit you and those around you. Most of us are increasingly becoming aware of the huge economic changes sweeping the worlds societies in terms of employment and what it means to be financially secure. Having a regular job for 20, 30 or 50 years until you retire is a thing of the past. The new reality is that people who can re-skill quickly and who regularly add to their existing skills will be better off in todays economic climate. Focus The ability to focus determines the outcome of the task you are trying to accomplish. Therefore whenever you set yourself a task, see it through to completion by doing regular highly focused little chunks at a time. Doing small manageable chunks can make the highest mountain seems like a mole hill.

Creativity and success are not just something necessarily reserved for a special few and now with information and knowledge so readily accessible from the Internet, cultivating your creativity has never been so easy. Therefore applying some of the ingredients above to your life will go a long way in maximizing your chances of reaching your goals.

FRED E. FIEDLERS CONTINGENCY THEORY of leadership effectiveness was

based on studies of a wide range of group effectiveness, and concentrated on the relationship between leadership and organizational performance. This is one of the earliest situationcontingent leadership theories given by Fiedler. According to him, if an organization attempts to achieve group effectiveness through leadership, then there is a need to assess the leader according to an underlying trait, assess the situation faced by the leader, and construct a proper match between the two.
Leaders trait In order to assess the attitudes of the leader, Fiedler developed the least preferred co-worker (LPC) scale in which the leaders are asked about the person with whom they least like to work. The scale is a questionnaire consisting of 16 items used to reflect a leaders underlying disposition toward others. The items in the LPC scale are pleasant / unpleasant, friendly / unfriendly, rejecting / accepting, unenthusiastic / enthusiastic, tense / relaxed, cold / warm, helpful / frustrating, cooperative / uncooperative, supportive / hostile, quarrelsome / harmonious, efficient / inefficient, gloomy / cheerful, distant / close, boring / interesting, self-assured / hesitant, open / guarded. Each item in the scale is given a single ranking of between one and eight points, with eight points indicating the most favorable rating.

Friendly 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Unfriendly

Fiedler states that leaders with high LPC scores are relationship-oriented and the ones with low scores are task-oriented. The high LPC score leaders derived most satisfaction from interpersonal relationships and therefore evaluate their least preferred co-workers in fairly favorable terms. These leaders think about the task accomplishment only after the relationship need is well satisfied. On the other hand, the low LPC score leaders derived satisfaction from performance of the task and attainment of objectives and only after tasks have been accomplished, these leaders work on establishing good social and interpersonal relationships.
Situational factor

According to Fiedler, a leaders behavior is dependent upon the favorability of the leadership situation. Three factors work together to determine how favorable a situation is to a leader. These are:

Leader-member relations - The degree to which the leaders is trusted and liked by the group members, and the willingness of the group members to follow the leaders guidance Task structure - The degree to which the groups task has been described as structured or unstructured, has been clearly defined and the extent to which it can be carried out by detailed instructions

Position power - The power of the leader by virtue of the organizational position and the degree to which the leader can exercise authority on group members in order to comply with and accept his direction and leadership

With the help of these three variables, eight combinations of group-task situations were constructed by Fiedler. These combinations were used to identify the style of the leader.

Figure 1: Correlation between leaders LPC scores and group effectiveness Leadership Effectiveness

The leaders effectiveness is determined by the interaction of the leaders style of behavior and the favorableness of the situational characteristics. The most favorable situation is when leadermember relations are good, the task is highly structured, and the leader has a strong position power. Research on the contingency model has shown that task-oriented leaders are more effective in highly favorable (1, 2, 3) and highly unfavorable situation (7, 8), whereas relationship-oriented leaders are more effective in situations of intermediate favorableness (4, 5, 6).

Fiedler also suggested that leaders may act differently in different situations. Relationshiporiented leaders generally display task-oriented behaviors under highly favorable situations and display relationship-oriented behaviors under unfavorable intermediate favorable situations. Similarly, task-oriented leaders frequently display task-oriented in unfavorable or intermediate favorable situations but display relationship-oriented behaviors in favorable situations.

HARRY BLANCHART MODEL

Another Different Diagram

QUALITATIVE AND QUANTITATIVE RESEARCH

Qualitative research is used to explore and understand people's beliefs, experiences, attitudes, behaviour and interactions. It generates non- numerical data, e.g. a patient's description of their pain rather than a measure of pain. In health care, qualitative techniques have been commonly used in research documenting the experience of chronic illness and in studies about the functioning of organisations. Qualitative research techniques such as focus groups and in-depth interviews have been used in one-off projects commissioned by guideline development groups to find out more about the views and experiences of patients and carers.
Quantitative research generates numerical data or data that can be converted into numbers, for example clinical trials or the National Census, which counts people and households

Features of Qualitative & Quantitative Research

Qualitative "All research ultimately has a qualitative grounding" - Donald Campbell The aim is a complete, detailed description. Researcher may only know roughly in advance what he/she is looking for. Recommended during earlier phases of research projects. The design emerges as the study unfolds. Researcher is the data gathering instrument. Data is in the form of words, pictures or objects. Quantitative "There's no such thing as qualitative data. Everything is either 1 or 0" - Fred Kerlinger The aim is to classify features, count them, and construct statistical models in an attempt to explain what is observed. Researcher knows clearly in advance what he/she is looking for. Recommended during latter phases of research projects. All aspects of the study are carefully designed before data is collected. Researcher uses tools, such as questionnaires or equipment to collect numerical data. Data is in the form of numbers and statistics.

Subjective - individuals interpretation of events is important ,e.g., uses participant observation, in-depth interviews etc. Qualitative data is more 'rich', time consuming, and less able to be generalized. Researcher tends to become subjectively immersed in the subject matter.

Objective seeks precise measurement & analysis of target concepts, e.g., uses surveys, questionnaires etc. Quantitative data is more efficient, able to test hypotheses, but may miss contextual detail. Researcher tends to remain objectively separated from the subject matter.

6 categories to enhance creativity

Top 10 Ways to Enhance your Creativity Creativity is generally regarded as desirable, and something to be enhanced. With this view in mind, below are some steps to help the development of creativity. However, although creativity is often thought of as relating to the creative and performing arts, remember that can take many forms. The criminal can turn creativity to illegal use as easily as the artist puts brush to canvas. Do not assume, therefore, that creativity is good in and of itself. Like most forms of power, it can be used for good or for harm. 1. Insist on giving yourself daydreaming time. Schedule it if necessary. During that time allow no shoulds or musts to intrude. Give your mind this time to float freely, untethered to tasks. Do not think of what you will be doing when this time is over. Allow yourself to gaze out of the window, stare at the clouds, daydream. 2. Be curious. Ask why? How? How come? Don't accept easy answers if they don't make sense to you. 3. Ignore tradition. Just because something has always been done that way, or used for that purpose, doesn't mean things can't change. 4. Play a game with yourself--or with others--in trying to find the most uses other than the obvious ones for every-day items like paperclips, bricks, anything that comes to mind. Like most of these points, this will stretch and develop your creativity muscles. 5. Ask "What if?" Pick one aspect of an ordinary situation and imagine what would change if that one aspect were different. Follow this through in all its implications. 6. Read science fiction. Allow yourself to become immersed in the worlds it depicts. Contemplate impossible things and parallel universes. The Queen of Hearts advised Alice to believe one impossible thing every day before breakfast. It was good advice. 7. Accept your initial ideas without judgment.

Give them time to grow and develop before you test them. Butterflies that have just emerged from the crysalis have wet, crumpled wings. Give them time to develop before you decide if they can fly. The reason brainstorming has become such a standby when group creativity is involved is that all criticism is put on hold during the initial idea-generating phase. Allow yourself the same freedom.

8. Take risks. It's okay to be wrong. By definition, to be creative you must consider new, and therefore untested, ideas. Einstein said that he could have ninety-nine ideas that were wrong before he got the one that was right. 9. Enjoy the PROCESS of creation. Do not focus on the result. The secret and ecstasy of creating is being in the flow, of losing yourself in the process. If you constantly break the flow to check to how the final result will look to others, to ask yourself, "Will it sell?" "Will it win?" you will subvert the process and possibly damage your creation. 10. Go ahead and DO IT! Don't wait for the perfect moment, it won't arrive. Painters paint, scrape the paint off and paint again. Writers write and delete. They don't wait until they can do it perfectly before they start. You do not need twelve sharpened pencils and perfect silence before you put pen to paper. Remember that Shakespeare wrote in an age when the whole family sat at the same table and shared the same oil lamp. It is unlikely that he had a separate study or could wait until the family had gone to bed in order to write. You CAN follow your muse.

Yahoo is Losing its share so apply these strategies.

Turnaround Strategy Objectives for Saving a Business Operating a business that is in a state of decline can test the skills of even the best businessman (or woman). Using a turnaround strategy plan as a guide can assure that no step is missed in the process of rebuilding your business. The turnaround strategy objectives give clear guidance that is broken down into easy to follow stages. Managing the Strategy Turnaround strategy objectives can vary depending on the company, its state of distress and the owners overall goal. Typically, the ultimate objective is to return the company to a state of normal. This would include becoming more profitable and solvent. Managing the turnaround is the first step, and this is acquired through leadership. Without proper leadership and a supportive and dedicated team, the turnaround wont get far. Keeping or regaining support from shareholders is achieved through communication and consultation. Strict management is required to maintain focus; for instance, managing the turnaround strategy as a project will accomplish this. Stabilizing for Survival Immediate stabilization of the business is required to guarantee even a short-term future. This is achieved through generating, managing and conserving cash flow. Cash management is gained from introducing a cash management system, centralizing that management, and rationing the availability of cash. Re-budget - suspend discretionary spending, and place strict controls on sales and purchase orders, pricing and sales contracts. Work on generating cash by disposing of unneeded assets, reduce your working capital and consider utilizing cost reduction options and short-term financing. Gaining Funds A business that has been in decline for any amount of time will usually need to regain capital and/or acquire funding. Management of the turnaround includes restructuring of finances. Distressed companies may have any number of financial problems facing them, and may also require additional money to return them to solid ground. Locating funding is often the most difficult part of the turnaround. Focus on internal funding first; options like reducing your working capital, selling assets, or appealing to shareholders. Utilize every avenue before resorting to outside funding. The distressed company can consider finance loans or private equity funding.

Fixing the Distress The last objective is certainly not the least, but very often, it is the most overlooked or ignored. Fixing operational, organizational, and strategic components of the business is crucial to its turnaround success. This may require changes in management and leadership; reorganizing staff and improving skills, or improving on service and delivery. Construct a new business mission statement and vision that reflects the companys new direction. Remember to create a long-term strategy for the success of the company. Creating and following a turnaround strategy is like making a new business plan. It takes you back to the basics of evaluating each aspect of your business and the industry it serves. It helps to identify areas that are weak and gives solid resolutions to restructuring your organization. Working a turnaround strategy greatly improves the chances of your businesses ability to recover.

Force Field Analysis

Force Field Analysis is a useful technique for looking at all the forces for and against a plan. It helps you to weigh the importance of these factors and decide whether a plan is worth implementing. Where you have decided to carry out a plan, Force Field Analysis helps you identify changes that you could make to improve it. By carrying out the analysis you can plan to strengthen the forces supporting a decision, and reduce the impact of opposition to it. To carry out a force field analysis follow these steps: Describe your plan or proposal for change in the middle. List all forces for change in one column, and all forces against change in another column. Assign a score to each force, from 1 (weak) to 5 (strong). For example, imagine that you are a manager deciding whether to install new manufacturing equipment in your factory. You might draw up a force field analysis like the one in Figure 1:

Once you have carried out an

analysis, you can decide whether your project is viable. In the example above, you might initially question whether it is worth going ahead with the plan. Where you have already decided to carry out a project, Force Field Analysis can help you to work out how to improve its probability of success. Here you have two choices: To reduce the strength of the forces opposing a project. To increase the forces pushing a project.