Motivation Management and Creativity in high-level professional teams

Research and Design (R&D) is strategically a high-value add operation within Crutchfield Chemical Engineering (CCE), an international chemical and fibres manufacturer. To aid this, creativity and innovation is an important aspect amongst open-task employees, however recent downsizing and organisational change has affected a number of key performance indicators within their elite Corporate Technology Design (CTD) teams, with overall, invention disclosures, patent applications, and new product launches lower than expected, even taking into account the material effects of downsizing. The annual HR study evaluated a number of areas within the five elite CTD R&D teams, and found while the necessary technical skills were well represented, there was a significant issue with employee motivation. The results showed, the Lumen team, appeared to have high levels of motivation, three were intermediate, and the Absorb team was rather low. The director decided to engage an organisational psychologist to collect information as to the differences and mediating effects that recent events have had on the teams. The following analysis makes use of daily worker diaries and collated survey data, from HR and the organisational psychologist. The annual review from HR highlighted a number of areas relating to employee motivation, and concluded that team Lumen and Absorb scored 5.0 and 3.3 respectively, with the other team scoring within the intermediate range (Exhibit 5 & 6, Case Study). This difference is not represented amongst the personality traits within the team members which are demonstrated through their Average Trait Intrinsic Motivation on the Work Preference Inventory (Exhibit 7, Case Study). According to their personality traits, team Lumen and Absorb scored 3.0 and 3.1 respectively, with other teams deviating within two basis points. This quantitative data highlights that individual personality traits with all teams have a high potential to be intrinsically motivated.
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