Managing Creativity – articles
Topic 1: Introduction to creativity
Barron, F., & Harrington, D. M. (1981). Creativity, intelligence, and
personality. Annual Review of Psychology, 32, 439-476. (read up to
Thought Disorder and Creativity on page 460, (= 21 pages) slide 8-9
Summary of research on creativity since the last major reviews of the field.
Creative people are often perceived and rated as more intelligent than less creative people.
Creativity involves the ability or tendency to form numerous and unusual associations.
Unusual associations were positively correlated with rated creativity.
In general, a fairly stable set of core characteristics (e.g. high valuation of esthetic qualities in
experience, broad interests, attraction to complexity, high energy, independence of judgment,
autonomy, intuition, self-confidence, ability to resolve antinomies or to accommodate
apparently opposite or conflicting traits in one’s self-concept, and, finally, a firm sense of self
as “creative”) continued to emerge as correlates of creative achievement and activity in many
domains.
Composite Creative Personality scale (Harrington 1972, 1975) Provide a good sense of
creativity scales: active, alert, ambitious, argumentative, artistic, assertive, capable, clear
thinking, clever, complicated, confident, curious, cynical, demanding, egotistical, energetic,
enthusiastic, hurried, idealistic, imaginative, impulsive, independent, individualistic,
ingenious, insightful, intelligent, interests wide, inventive, original, practical, quick,
rebellious, reflective, resourceful, self-confident, sensitive, sharp-wited, spontaneous,
unconventional, versatile and not conventional and not inhibited.
The creative person might very as a function of age, sex, and field of creative activity.
Creative scientists tend to be more emotionally stable, venturesome, and self-assured than the
average individual, whereas creative artists and writers tend to be less stable, less
venturesome, and more guilt prone.
Main message: difference DT and CT
DT: has positive effects on creativity.
Divergent thinking: search novel associations, combinations or perspectives that may be
useful. creating new associations. Related to intrinsic motivation (amabile) explores multiple
possible solutions in order to generate creative ideas
Convergent thinking: apply criteria, standards, and logics based on prior knowledge and
experience. following rules, prior knowledge, applying what you already know, previous
experiences. Related to extrinsic motivation (amabile)
They go hand in hand.
Consciousness-altering substances are counterproductive in creativity.
,Amabile, T. M. (1998). How to kill creativity. Harvard Business Review,
September/ October, 77-87. (= 10 pages) slide 9-11
To be 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.
3 Parts of creativity:
- Thinking imaginatively
- Expertise: encompasses everything that a person knows and can do in the broad
domain of his or her work.
- Motivation:
Extrinsic: comes from outside a person. Makes the person do his/her job in order to
get something desirable or to avoid something painful.
Intrinsic: comes from passion and interest in a person’s internal desire to do
something. When people are intrinsically motivated, they engage in their work for the
challenge and enjoyment of it. The work itself is motivating.
Intrinsic Motivation Principle of Creativity: people will be most creative when they
feel motivated primarily by the interest, satisfaction, and challenge of the work itself-
and not by external pressures.
What managerial practices affect creativity?
- Challenge: matching people with jobs that play to their expertise and their skills in
creative thinking, and ignite intrinsic motivation.
- Freedom: giving people autonomy concerning the means- process- but not the ends.
Autonomy around process fosters creativity because giving people freedom in how
they approach their work heightens their intrinsic motivation and sense of ownership.
It also allows people to approach problems in ways that make the most of their
expertise and their creative thinking skills.
- Resources: time and money. Organizations kill creativity with fake deadlines or
impossibly tight ones. Creativity often takes time. Also, a restriction of resources can
dampen creativity. Moreover, creative teams need open, comfortable offices.
- Work-group features: create mutually supportive groups with a diversity of
perspectives and backgrounds. Putting together a team with just the right chemistry –
the right level and supportiveness.
Members must share excitement over the team’s goal.
Members must display a willingness to help their teammates through difficult periods
and setbacks.
Every member must recognize the unique knowledge and perspective that other
members bring on the table.
- Supervisory encouragement: Most people need to feel as if their work matters to the
organization or to some important group of people. Managers can support creativity to
serve as role models, persevering through tough problems as well as encouraging
collaboration and communication within the team. Don’t punish creative efforts.
- Organizational support: Creativity is truly enhanced when the entire organization
supports is. Creativity-supporting organizations consistently reward creativity, but
avoid using money to bribe people to come up with innovative ideas (makes people
feel as if they are being controlled). Leaders can support creativity by mandating
information sharing and collaboration and by ensuring that political problems do not
, fester. Encourage teams to seek support from all units within their divisions and
encourage collaboration across all quarters.
Intrinsic motivation most important for creativity.
3 components creativity:
- Expertise; you know how to do things
- Motivational: why are you doing things (passion/interest): intrinsic/extrinsic
- Creative thinking: divergent thinking
Motivation:
Extrinsic motivation: comes from outside a person – money / competition (ARTICLE
HIRST!)
Intrinsic motivation: passion and interest. Internal desire to do something. Most
important. Managers can increase it by changes in the organizational environment:
- Challenge: assign people the right assignments. Too little- boredom, to much – loss of
control
- Freedom: give people autonomy concerning the means, no controlling. Don’t change
goals frequently. Clearly define goals. Grant autonomy in name only.
- Resources: deadlines can help to creativity, but don’t give fake or impossible
deadlines. Too many and too little resources work averse.
- Work group features: diverse group is better but brotherhood is important. The right
chemistry.
- Supervisory encouragement (manager to team or worker): recognize and praise
creative work. Highlight failure value to stimulate continuous experimentation.
- Organizational support (policies): value that creativity is priority. Mandate
collaboration and sharing. Solve festering political fights. Avoid using money to
bribe people to come up with new ideas.
, Kurtzberg, T. R., & Amabile, T. M. (2001). From Guilford to creative
synergy: Opening the black box of team-level creativity. Creativity
Research Journal, 13(3-4), 285-294. (= 8 pages) slide 11-13
How specific group processes and dynamics may affect team-level creative production, with
group diversity and group conflict as relevant variables for team creative processes and
products.
Diversity in groups
There are many individual characteristics that can potentially affect a group’s
processes and performance. Milliken and Martins (1f996) listed 14 such at-tributes:
race and ethnic background, nationality, sex, age, personality, cultural values,
socioeconomic back- ground, educational background, functional back- ground,
occupational background, industry experience, organizational membership,
organizational tenure, and group tenure.
On the one hand, diversity can aid the creative process by presenting a heterogeneous
set of perspectives for consideration. On the other hand, diversity also can hinder
group process by limiting common understandings and shared experiences, or by
creating such a divergence of ideas and styles that detrimental conflict can result.
Conflict in Groups
Topic 1: Introduction to creativity
Barron, F., & Harrington, D. M. (1981). Creativity, intelligence, and
personality. Annual Review of Psychology, 32, 439-476. (read up to
Thought Disorder and Creativity on page 460, (= 21 pages) slide 8-9
Summary of research on creativity since the last major reviews of the field.
Creative people are often perceived and rated as more intelligent than less creative people.
Creativity involves the ability or tendency to form numerous and unusual associations.
Unusual associations were positively correlated with rated creativity.
In general, a fairly stable set of core characteristics (e.g. high valuation of esthetic qualities in
experience, broad interests, attraction to complexity, high energy, independence of judgment,
autonomy, intuition, self-confidence, ability to resolve antinomies or to accommodate
apparently opposite or conflicting traits in one’s self-concept, and, finally, a firm sense of self
as “creative”) continued to emerge as correlates of creative achievement and activity in many
domains.
Composite Creative Personality scale (Harrington 1972, 1975) Provide a good sense of
creativity scales: active, alert, ambitious, argumentative, artistic, assertive, capable, clear
thinking, clever, complicated, confident, curious, cynical, demanding, egotistical, energetic,
enthusiastic, hurried, idealistic, imaginative, impulsive, independent, individualistic,
ingenious, insightful, intelligent, interests wide, inventive, original, practical, quick,
rebellious, reflective, resourceful, self-confident, sensitive, sharp-wited, spontaneous,
unconventional, versatile and not conventional and not inhibited.
The creative person might very as a function of age, sex, and field of creative activity.
Creative scientists tend to be more emotionally stable, venturesome, and self-assured than the
average individual, whereas creative artists and writers tend to be less stable, less
venturesome, and more guilt prone.
Main message: difference DT and CT
DT: has positive effects on creativity.
Divergent thinking: search novel associations, combinations or perspectives that may be
useful. creating new associations. Related to intrinsic motivation (amabile) explores multiple
possible solutions in order to generate creative ideas
Convergent thinking: apply criteria, standards, and logics based on prior knowledge and
experience. following rules, prior knowledge, applying what you already know, previous
experiences. Related to extrinsic motivation (amabile)
They go hand in hand.
Consciousness-altering substances are counterproductive in creativity.
,Amabile, T. M. (1998). How to kill creativity. Harvard Business Review,
September/ October, 77-87. (= 10 pages) slide 9-11
To be 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.
3 Parts of creativity:
- Thinking imaginatively
- Expertise: encompasses everything that a person knows and can do in the broad
domain of his or her work.
- Motivation:
Extrinsic: comes from outside a person. Makes the person do his/her job in order to
get something desirable or to avoid something painful.
Intrinsic: comes from passion and interest in a person’s internal desire to do
something. When people are intrinsically motivated, they engage in their work for the
challenge and enjoyment of it. The work itself is motivating.
Intrinsic Motivation Principle of Creativity: people will be most creative when they
feel motivated primarily by the interest, satisfaction, and challenge of the work itself-
and not by external pressures.
What managerial practices affect creativity?
- Challenge: matching people with jobs that play to their expertise and their skills in
creative thinking, and ignite intrinsic motivation.
- Freedom: giving people autonomy concerning the means- process- but not the ends.
Autonomy around process fosters creativity because giving people freedom in how
they approach their work heightens their intrinsic motivation and sense of ownership.
It also allows people to approach problems in ways that make the most of their
expertise and their creative thinking skills.
- Resources: time and money. Organizations kill creativity with fake deadlines or
impossibly tight ones. Creativity often takes time. Also, a restriction of resources can
dampen creativity. Moreover, creative teams need open, comfortable offices.
- Work-group features: create mutually supportive groups with a diversity of
perspectives and backgrounds. Putting together a team with just the right chemistry –
the right level and supportiveness.
Members must share excitement over the team’s goal.
Members must display a willingness to help their teammates through difficult periods
and setbacks.
Every member must recognize the unique knowledge and perspective that other
members bring on the table.
- Supervisory encouragement: Most people need to feel as if their work matters to the
organization or to some important group of people. Managers can support creativity to
serve as role models, persevering through tough problems as well as encouraging
collaboration and communication within the team. Don’t punish creative efforts.
- Organizational support: Creativity is truly enhanced when the entire organization
supports is. Creativity-supporting organizations consistently reward creativity, but
avoid using money to bribe people to come up with innovative ideas (makes people
feel as if they are being controlled). Leaders can support creativity by mandating
information sharing and collaboration and by ensuring that political problems do not
, fester. Encourage teams to seek support from all units within their divisions and
encourage collaboration across all quarters.
Intrinsic motivation most important for creativity.
3 components creativity:
- Expertise; you know how to do things
- Motivational: why are you doing things (passion/interest): intrinsic/extrinsic
- Creative thinking: divergent thinking
Motivation:
Extrinsic motivation: comes from outside a person – money / competition (ARTICLE
HIRST!)
Intrinsic motivation: passion and interest. Internal desire to do something. Most
important. Managers can increase it by changes in the organizational environment:
- Challenge: assign people the right assignments. Too little- boredom, to much – loss of
control
- Freedom: give people autonomy concerning the means, no controlling. Don’t change
goals frequently. Clearly define goals. Grant autonomy in name only.
- Resources: deadlines can help to creativity, but don’t give fake or impossible
deadlines. Too many and too little resources work averse.
- Work group features: diverse group is better but brotherhood is important. The right
chemistry.
- Supervisory encouragement (manager to team or worker): recognize and praise
creative work. Highlight failure value to stimulate continuous experimentation.
- Organizational support (policies): value that creativity is priority. Mandate
collaboration and sharing. Solve festering political fights. Avoid using money to
bribe people to come up with new ideas.
, Kurtzberg, T. R., & Amabile, T. M. (2001). From Guilford to creative
synergy: Opening the black box of team-level creativity. Creativity
Research Journal, 13(3-4), 285-294. (= 8 pages) slide 11-13
How specific group processes and dynamics may affect team-level creative production, with
group diversity and group conflict as relevant variables for team creative processes and
products.
Diversity in groups
There are many individual characteristics that can potentially affect a group’s
processes and performance. Milliken and Martins (1f996) listed 14 such at-tributes:
race and ethnic background, nationality, sex, age, personality, cultural values,
socioeconomic back- ground, educational background, functional back- ground,
occupational background, industry experience, organizational membership,
organizational tenure, and group tenure.
On the one hand, diversity can aid the creative process by presenting a heterogeneous
set of perspectives for consideration. On the other hand, diversity also can hinder
group process by limiting common understandings and shared experiences, or by
creating such a divergence of ideas and styles that detrimental conflict can result.
Conflict in Groups
