288 Organizational Behavior marketing strategies and the like. For the benefit of employees, the HR function can take dec strategies to improve employee performance, perks/benelits, etc. : The leadership of the organization requires to see the need and have passion to use technol decision making, understand the limitations of these techniques, and should push usage of techy ® across all functional areas. However, organizations need to be cautious of overriding on techyay and need to consider other aspects while making decisions. ° CREATIVITY oy The opening vignette to this chapter described how Google actively ey, Tiga eenee employees in organizational decisions and relies on their creativity to ide orginal ideas thatmake | new software applications and improvements, Creativity is the developmeneq a socially recognized original ideas that make a socially recognized contribution." Although there arg contribution, unique conditions for creativity that we discuss over the next few pages, its Part of the decision-making process described earlier in the chapter. We rly qq creativity to find problems, identify alternatives, and implement solutions. Creativity is not someth, saved for special occasions. It is an integral part of decision making. Exhibit 74 illustrates one of the earliest and most influential models of creativity.” Although thee are other models of the creative process, many of them overlap with the model presented here. The first stage is preparation-the person’s or team’s effort to acquire knowledge and skills regarding the. problem or opportunity. Preparation involves developing a clear understanding of what you are t to achieve through a novel solution and then actively studying information seemingly related to the topic. ‘Source: Based on Graham Wala, The Art of Thought New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1928) Exhibit 7.4 The Creative Process Model ‘The second stage, called incubation, is the period of reflective thought. We put the problem aside, bit our mind is still working on it in the background."* The important condition here is to maintain a low divergntthinking {| level awareness by frequently revisiting the problem. Incubation does nol mea Reframing a prablem ina | that you forget about the problem or issue. Incubation assists divergent thinking- unique way and reframing the problem in a unique way and generating different approaches to te generating different issue. This contrasts with convergent thinking-calculating the conventionally approaches totheissue. J accepted “right answer” to a logical problem. Divergent thinking breaks us ava from existing mental models so that we can apply concepts or processes fom completely different areas of life. Consider the following classic example: Years ago, the experiment lightbulbs in Thomas Edison’s lab kept falling off their fixtures until a technician wondered whether tt threaded caps that screwed down tightly on kerosene bottles would work on lightbulbs. They did, ax the design remains to this day.i the third stage of creativity, refers to the experience of suddenly becoming aware of a unique ght is often visually depicted as a lightbulb, but a better image would be a brief flash of light ps a briefly flickering candle, because these bits of inspiration are fleeting and can be quickis that they can jot down their ideas before they disappear. Also, flickering ideas don’t keep = schedule; they might come to you at any time of day or night. are merely rough ideas. Their usefulness still requires verification through detailed logicai mn, experimentation, and further creative insight. Thus, although verification is labeled the final creativity, it is really the beginning of a long process of creative decision making toward ent of an innovative product or service. This ongoing process, as well as the conditions and that support creativity, are apparent at Nottingham-Spirk Design Associates, Inc. As tions 7.1 describes, the successful Cleveland-based industrial-design firm relies on divergent agent meetings, prototyping, focus groups, and an inspiring work environment to produce marketable new ideas every year. ity—The Foundation for Innovation ity is one of the foundation pillars for innovation. Culture and traditions have an influence on interests, levels of creativity and nature and style of its outcome. The expressions of creativity the form of art, culture, music, products, services to sustain in deprived or harsh conditions, ¢ optimum utilization of scarce resources, etc. The combination of creativity and alization leads to innovation where knowledge too has key role to play. According to in”, “Creativity is making a connection between or combining two elements, which were not pusly connected or combined.” ifee conditions are essential to foster creativity among individuals in a society and provide titive advantage to organizations and a country’s economy” al importance is required to be given to nutrition and health from early childhood as it has mplications for later stages of life. of Creativity According to Stamm’, following are the features of creativity: vity is an inherent quality in an individual, but to transform it into an idea and innovation s team effort. tivity does not come out of the blue, but it is based on the body of knowledge acquired by an ividual and also undergoes the process of refinement over the years. trait of creativity exists in all the individuals, but only the level differs. onmental Factors required to Promote Creativity in Organizations In order to promote Support creativity in an organization, the following aspects deserve attention as creativity, to a extent, depends on these”: Support for Creativity: This requires an environment of openness, transparency, open flow of information and support for new ideas Decision Moking and Creativity 289 Si—— SEZs 290 Organizational Behavior CONNECTIONS ie Going for Wow at Nottingham-Spirk You might say that cr=zivity is a religious exper ence at Nottingham-Sairx Desicn Associates, Inc, A few years ago, the dustriai-design company moved into an old churc7 in Cleveland's university park area. Perched atop an escarpment on 5 acres of property, the 1920s actezon-shaged limestone building looks like a Roman zemple. Inside, employ- ees work in a large rotunda below a domed ceiling supported by 20 columns. Symbols of the original church remain, including a choir loft and soaring pipe organ. “You can’t help but walk in here and say, “I want to create something new,” says John Not- tingham, who cofounded Nottingham-Spirk with John Spirk three decades ago. Along with having an inspiring church building, | give co-worker Craig Saunders (standing) a “WOW" rating for | Nottingham-Spirk supports creativity through its | one ofthe firm's creative products, the Swiffer SweeperVac risk-tolerant learning orientation culture. “We stick —i 4 ‘our necks out,” says Nottingham. “If we fail, we go down the wrong path, we dust ourselves off and go the other ay. We understand that’s innovation.” The cofounders and their 70 employees also discover ideas by looking around stare shelves. “We're trying to figure out what consumers will want two years down the road,” explains Spi. “We look and see what's nat there,” Nottingham adds. “We literally visualize an innovation sitting on the sheif next to the compet tion at a price point.” These activities produce sparks of insight, bt they are only the starting point inthe creative process, “Anyone can have a good idea,” says Nottingham. “The difficult thing is to get it to market. You've got to make the idea work and prove its feasibility as a product.” To transform ideas to profitable products, Nottingham-Spirk forms teams of upto 0 employees who hold twa types of meetings. Inthe first meeting, called a diverging session, team members brainstorn ideas. “We start with a creative session, people from aur team that can complement each other, and we come up with as many ideas as you can,” says Nottingham, These ideas are dacumented as scribbles and sketches on slips ofp per; upto 100 of them plaster the walls by the end of the session In the second round of meetings, called converging sessions, each idea is systematically evaluated by the team. pass around note cards, each with a word or phrase on it that says, who cares, nice, at wow," Nottingham explains. The person who introduced an idea can explain it further, and then each team member judges the idea by selecting ne of the three cards, “If everyone holds up a wow card, you know you've got something,” says Nottingham, The wte cares ideas get tossed out. Some of the nice ideas are developed further by an idea champion. For example, the Si olStraight one-minute Christmas tree stand received mainly nice ratings when it was first proposed, but co-workes gave it wow ratings after Nottingham-Spirk designer Craig Saunders refined it further. Almost T milion SwivelStraight stands were sold in the product's frst five years on the market. Diverging and converging sessions are complemented by focus group meetings and client feedback to improve prototypes. Nottingham-Spirk’s redesign of the round metal paint can, which hias changed litle over the past centuy, is a case in point. Employees knew from experience the frustration of working with traditional paint cans. “We could't think of another consumer product that you need a screwdriver to opan and a hammer to close,” says designer Craig Saunders. So Saunders and his co-workers created a paint can with a twist top and built-in no-drip pour spout Whe? shawn an early pratatype, potential users claimed the container wouldn't stack well in werehouses and stores, soit# Team members at Nottingham-Spirk Design Associates, IncGad prototype was made wider and more stackable. Next, users were concerned that the plastic container would it was dropped. "So we took 2 bunch of them up on ladders and dropped them,” says Nottingham. “They This feedback made the Twist and Pour paint can an instant success; Sherwin-Williams tripled sales of its Boy paint ine first six months to its creative work environment and innovation process, Nottingham-Spirk has registered close to 500 Bots and helped cents achieve more than $2U billion sales over the past three decades. its most visible innovations de the Crest SoimBrush, invacare Corp. wheelchairs, Swiffer SweeperVac, wide oval-shaped antiperspirant ers, MRI scanner design, and the Twist and Pour paint can.” ‘Autonomy: This needs to be provided in daily conduct of work and enables to create a sense of § ownership and control over work. Resources: Organization should provide all necessary resources in the form of information, ‘facilities, and materials which support and sustain creative environment. {. Challenging Environment: The environment should provide negative and positive incentives to " challenge the employees and stimulate their creative senses, Organizational Limitations: Conservatism and internal conflicts need to be considered as they obstruct creativity in an organization. order to survive in an environment of uncertainties and growing pressures of globalization, creativity tld lead to development of innovative products/services/processes and thereby provide competitive vantage to organizations. dracteristics of Creative People one is creative, but some people have a higher potential for creativity. Four of the main mracteristics that give individuals more creative potential are intelligence, persistence, knowledge gud experience, and a cluster of personality traits and values representing independent imagination. ist, creative people have above-average intelligence to synthesize information, analyze ideas, and ly their ideas.” Like the fictional sleuth Sherlock Holmes, creative people recognize the significance I bits of information and are able to connect them in ways that no one else could imagine. Then rhave the capacity to evaluate the potential usefulness of their ideas. though intelligence helps people to discover new ideas, an equally (or more) important characteristic person's persistence to seek out these ideas through trial and error in the face of resistance. In words, creative potential includes the persistence of trying out more ideas, whereas less creative ple give up sooner. Creative people have persistence because of a higher need for achievement, a ffong motivation from the task itself, and a moderate or high degree of self-esteem. In support of this, nt study reported that inventors have higher levels of confidence and optimism than do people in sneral population, and these traits motivate inventors to continue working on and investing in a ject after receiving diagnostic advice to quit.” Inventor Thomas Edison highlighted the importance srsistence when he famously said that genius is 1 percent inspiration and 99 percent perspiration. and his staff discovered hundreds of ways not to build a lightbulb before they got it right! ‘A third feature of creative people is that they possess sufficient knowledge and experience on the ubject.* Creativity experts explain that discovering new ideas requires knowledge of the fundamentals. ir example, the 1960s rock group The Beatles produced most of their songs only after they had layed together for several years. They developed extensive experience singing and adapting the | Music of other people before their creative talents soared.292 Organizational Behavior a Although knowledge and experience may be important in one sense, they can also und creativity because people develop mental models tha lead to “mindless behavior,” whereby 4% questioning their assumptions.” This relates to the discussion easlier in this chapter on mental eee namely, that they sometimes restrict the decision maker's ability to see different Perspective, overcome this limitation, some corporate leaders like to hire people from other industries and areas of experts, For instance, Geotcey Ballard, founder of Ballard Power Systems, hired a chemist a better battery. When the chemist protested that he didn't know anything about batteries, Bala replied: “That's fine. I don’t want someone who knows batteries. They know what won't yd Ballard explained that he wanted to hite people who would question and investigate avenues gn experts had long ago closed their minds to. The point here is that knowledge and experience double-edged sword. It is an important prerequisite for creativity, but too much routinizai,, knowledge and experience can cause people to be less investigative The fourth characteristic of creative people is a cluster of personality traits and values that g an independent imagination: high openness to experience, moderately low need for affili strong values around selfdirection and stimulation. Several studies report that these characteristics improve the individual's creative potential under some circumstances.*! Let's each of them: ' isa 0 of ‘UPpont ion, and Personal examine High openness to experience. This Big Five personality dimension represents the extent to why Person is imaginative, curious, sensitive, open-minded, and original (see Chapter 2) + Moderately low need for affiliation. People are more creative when they have less need for soci approval and have a somewhat high (but not necessarily very high) degree of nonconform, Because of these characteristics, creative people are less embarrassed when they make mistakes, and they remain motivated to explore ideas even when others criticize them for their persistence © High self-direction and stimulation values, Self-direction includes the values of creativity and independent thought; stimulation includes the values of excitement and challenge. Together, these values form openness to change-representing the motivation to pursue innovative ways {sce Chapter 2). ich a Organizational Conditions Supporting Creativity Intelligence, persistence, knowledge and experience, and independent imagination represent a Person's creative potential, but the extent to which the person has more creative output depends on a work environment that supports the creative process.*? Before describing the contextual influences on Creativity, we need to point out that different combinations of situations can equally support creativity, there isn’t one best work environment.*? With this caveat in mind, let’s consider some of the conditions that seem to unleash creative potential. One of the most important conditions that supports creative practice is that the organization has a learning orientation; that is, leaders recognize that employees make reasonable mistakes as part ofthe Creative process. “Creativity comes from failure,” Samsung Electronics CEO and vice chairman Yun Jong:yong recently advised employees. “We should reform our corporate culture to forgive failure if workers did their best.” Motivation from the job itself is another important condition for creativity” Employees tend to be more creative when they believe their work benefits the organization and/or larger society (ic. task significance) and when they have the freedom to pursue novel ideas without bureaucratic delays (ie., autonomy). Creativity is about changing things, and change is possible only when employees have the authority to experiment. More generally, jobs encourage creativity when they are challenging and aligned with the employee's competencies.Decision Making and Creativity 293 [i ong with supporting a learning orientation and intrinsically motivating jobs, companies foster ivity inrough open communication and sufficient resources. They also provide a reasonable level of Security, which explains why creativity suffers during times of downsizing and corporate Fucturing** Some companies support the reflection stage of creativity by designing nontraditional Paccpaces.®” Google is one example. The Internet innovator has funky offices in several countries that fe hammocks, gondola- and hive-shaped privacy spaces, slides, and brightly painted walls. some degree, creativity also improves with support from leaders and co-workers. One study sited that effective product champions provide enthusiastic support for new ideas. Other studies vest that co-worker support can improve creativity in some situations whereas competition among rkers improves creativity in other situations. Similarly, it isn't clear how much pressure should be ‘don employees to produce creative ideas. Extreme time pressure is a well-known creativity tor, but lack of pressure doesn’t seem to produce the highest creativity, either. ivities That Encourage Creativity Bring people with strong creative potential and providing a work environment that supports creativity fr two cornerstones of a creative workplace. The third cornerstone consists of various activities that help mployees think more creatively. One set of activities involves redefining the problem. Employees might encouraged to revisit old projects that have been set aside. After a few months of neglect, these fojects might be seen in new ways.®” Another strategy involves asking people unfamiliar with the issue Gréferably with different expertise) to explore the problem with you. You would state the objectives and five some facts and then let the other person ask questions to further understand the situation. By alizing the problem, listening to questions, and hearing what others think, you are more likely to n new perspectives on the issue.” "A second set of creativity activities, nown as associative play, ranges from art classes to impromptu rytelling and acting, For example, British media giant OMD sends employees to two-day retreats in » countryside, where they play grapefruit croquet, chant like medieval monks, and pretend to be dog collars. “Being creative is a bit like an emotion; we need to be stimulated,” explains Harriet Frost, ione of OMD’s specialists in building creativity. “The same is true for our imagination and its ability to ¢ up with new ideas. You can’t just sit in a room and devise hundreds of ideas.””" = Another associative play activity, called morphological analysis, involves listing different dimensions of a system and the elements of each dimension and then looking at each combination. This encourages eople to carefully examine combinations that initially seem nonsensical. Tyson Foods, the world’s argest poultry producer, applied this activity to identify new ways to serve chicken for lunch. The ‘keting and research team assigned to this task focused on three categories: occasion, packaging, taste. Next, the team worked through numerous combinations of items in the three categories. his created unusual ideas, such as cheese chicken pasta (taste) in pizza boxes (packaging) for “concessions at baseball games (occasion). Later, the team looked more closely at the feasibility of these ombinations and sent them to customer focus groups for further testing.” ‘A third set of activities that promote creative thinking falls under the category of crass-pollination.® 0s5-pollination occurs when people from different areas of the organization exchange ideas. ‘eativity comes out of people bumping into each other and not knowing where to go,” claims Laszlo ack, Google's top human resource executive. IDEO, the California-based product design company, éngages in cross-pollination by mixing together employees from different past projects so that they ~ Share new knowledge with each other. © © Cross-pollination highlights the fact that creativity rarely occurs alone. Some creative people may >be individualistic, but most creative ideas are generated through teams and informal social interaction.BE 294 organizational Behavior Mother's Creative Cross-Pollination Mother is an unusual creative agency with an equally unusual name, located in a converted warehouse in an artsy district of London. All of this quirkiness fuels, creativity, but the ad agency's most creative practice is its workspace arrangement. The company’s, 100 or so employees perform their daily work around one monster-size table—an B-foot-wide reinforced-concrete slab that extends 300 feet like a skateboard ramp around the entire floor. If that image isn't sufficiently unusual, consider this: Every three weeks, employees are asked to relocate their laptop, portable telephone, and trolley to another area around the table. “At the end of every three weeks we have a tidy Friday, which helps keep the mess down, and then we mave the following Monday,” explains Stef Calcratt, one of Mother's founding partners. “One week, you may be sitting nnextto a finance person and opposite a creative. The next, you'll be sitting between one of the partners and someone from production.” Why the musical-chairs exercise? “It encourages cross-pollination of ideas,” Calcraft answers. "You have people working on the same problem fram different nerspectives. Itmakes problem-solving much more organic."* This probably explains why Jonathan Ive, the award-winning designer of Apple computer products, always refers to his team’s creativity rather than his own. “The only time you'll hear [ Jonathan Ive] use the word ‘T’ is when he’s naming some of the products he helped make famous: iMac, iBook, iPod, says one writer.°° The next chapter turns our attention to the main concepts in team effectiveness, a well as ways to improve team decision making and creativity. nn heen meneame en Chapter Summary Decision making s a conscious process of making choices among one or more altematives with the intention of moving toward some desired state of affairs. The rational choice paradigm of decision making includes identifying problems and opportunites, choosing the best decision style, developing altemative solutions, choosing the best solution, impiementing the selected alternative, and evaluating decision outcomes.