We assume creativity as the expression of highly original ideas.

But, if we deeply look into

examples like how Pablo Picasso reinvented the conventions of paintings we get to see,

creativity isn’t all about originality. To be really creative, the idea should be sensible, useful

and actionable. For example, if we look into Amazon, it recreated the process of selling goods

to its customers by building an eCommerce store. The idea should influence the process of

business gets done- by improving service, product or developing a new way to approach the

process. The three major components of creativity are expertise, creative thinking skills and

motivation. Expertise is the way which includes her basic talent for thinking scientifically with

all the technical abilities and knowledge the person have. Creative thinking refers to how

people approach problems and find solutions. This completely depends on the personality, the

way the person thinks and works. Motivation determines how much they are dedicated to their

work. When I was assigned the responsibility of leading the Suspension Department for the

prestigious Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) BAJA which was the intercollegiate

engineering design competition for mechanical engineering students, we were supposed to

build an innovative design and use creative manufacturing methods for a stand out in the

competition. We had a passionate and diversified team working on this. For this, as a team

leader, I divided the whole team of 30 members into 5 different sub-departments and asked

them to come up with different creative concepts which could be implemented to get the best

output. We read different design, cost and marketing reports of top automotive companies,

analysed how did they came up with innovative concepts and recreated the existing designs by

adjusting variables such as reducing the weight of the vehicle which eventually turned up to be

a creative design.

“How to kill creativity” by Teresa M.Amabile gave insights about how creativity is being

undermined unintentionally at different work environments. There are several major reasons
for doing that one of that is to maximize business imperatives such as coordination,

productivity and control. He went on explaining briefly about Business creativity which meant

creativity isn’t all about the expression of highly original ideas but should influence the way

business gets done by building up a process methodology. His argument is based on higher-

level managers who focus on superlatives which can crush creativity. In his perspective

creativity is an idea that must be appropriate- useful and actionable. His research shows that

both can be achieved. It influences by improving a product or by opening up a new way to

approach a process in not just R& D, but also in aspects such as accounting. He believed

imaginative thinking, expertise and motivation are essential to creativity. Also, creativity skills

depend on people personality, how he/she thinks and works achieve creative success if

perceives through a difficult problem. Managerial practices that can affect creativity are

challenge, freedom, resources, workgroup features, superiorly encouragement and

organisational support. Quantitative survey (KEYS) is taken by all employer to asses

workplace condition analyse the managerial practices which affect creativity.

“The weird rules of creativity” by Sutton (2001) is an interesting case as it allows us to explore

the different realms of creative thinking. It does a great job in shifting our focus from a

traditional to a more conventional and rational approach. Traditionally, have a more

conservative opinion about new ideas. These new ideas could not only take the form of

innovating a new product or service but also in the form of improving existing procedures or

policies to improve overall working efficiency or improve the existing product line. Fast-

changing environment makes it extremely difficult to analyze the outcomes which breathe

hostility towards creation. This article brings out interesting facts to light about creativity.

Emphasis is laid on hiring, management and risk tolerance by an organization to improve and

aid creativity. It also talks about how people who are generally not considered important or
vital for the team can prove to be an integral part of achieving success. Change is not welcomed

by all but this article provides insight on how certain techniques can incorporate change,

“Weird rules of creativity” enhance creativity by conflicts, hiring people that make you

uncomfortable or who you don’t like to help you may lead to internal conflicts which are a

major threat. Keep creative people away from biggest customers and critics and anyone whose

major concern is earning money. Should let creative people generate a lot of work, hence a lot

of failures and successes can be seen, but we need to give that space to experiment with new

things. Random selection is the best way to ensure that new ideas are not biased by knowledge

of past successes. They should not let teams get too cosy to encourage fight between

ideas. “How to kill creativity” enhances creativity by enhancing certain aspects of

management such as (allocation of resources, freedom etc.) Challenge - allow people to get

into jobs that match their expertise to ignite intrinsic value. Freedom - allow people to decide

how to get a job done to ignite intrinsic value. Freedom for the process to tackle the problem

effectively change in goals with freedom is pointless. Resources - the time is the most essential

thing for creativity. It cannot be rushed, moreover, creativity is a slow process and managers

that provide strict deadlines stand in this way. Workgroup features. Diversity can lead to

interesting ideas. This has three main features - excitement towards their goal, willingness to

help teammates in a difficult situation and each member must recognise and respect the

knowledge and opinions of others. Supervisory encouragement - people are motivated for a

short period of time and need an external push to ignite and fuel intrinsic value. Culture of

evaluation can make a focus on rewards and punishments which may they think they might

influence creativity, but eventually, it kills creativity.

Both articles focus heavily on how management is an integral element to manage creativity in

an organization. ‘Motivation, expertise and imaginative skills’ are essential for creativity.

Imaginative skills are based on the personality of an individual with external forces having

little or no impact on it. On the other hand, even though expertise can be influenced by external

factors such as conventions, conferences, in-house training etc., they are often expensive and

time-consuming. Motivation, more specifically ‘intrinsic and extrinsic motivation’ according

to me is key for managing motivation.

Managers can implement or influence various variables in an organization to provide comfort

and a supportive environment for employees to flourish. An organization that does not realize

the efforts put in by employees in a project despite it being a failure is a major hindrance for

improvement. This creates a feeling of fear, decreases confidence to experiment and

commitment of its employees. As seen in the Chemical centrals case, managers proved to play

an important part in structuring the organization that helped employees be creative. As

mentioned earlier, imaginative thinking is based on the personality of an individual and cannot

be influenced. What can be implemented is a fear free environment, one that rewards failure

and punished inability to act. With reference to my experience when I worked as a business

development trainee at a consulting company in Dubai, I was given some amount of autonomy

to improve performance and achieve results. I used past experiences from colleagues to be

creative and use it to my advantage. Brainstorming and deriving knowledge from other

departments, we allocated a Referral who would introduce business opportunities to the

company and return a commission in return. This not only created time value but also increased

our credibility in the market as the Referral was local and the company was relatively new in

the Nepal market. In conclusion, the management must play an important role in managing

creativity in an organisation by providing the right amount of freedom, efficient allocation of

resources, right balance in teams, providing motivation to employees and challenging them at

every stage to boost creativity.