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... s tend to flail and flounder. In the recent critique of American industry's research and development (R& D) efforts, [ 18 ] Deborah Shape and Rustum Roy levy the charge that R& D managers have largely failed to provide direction to their workers. They charge that we devote too much time, effort, and money to basic research which does not go anywhere. What we need, they argue, is more "purposive" basic research, where workers are given purpose and guidance, even for their basic research. Some practical objective should always be kept in mind, even for the most basic of research.
This need not diminish the pure science value of the basic research; the work of Louis Pasteur should serve as ample proof. Get Rid of the Disincentives The most common disincentives for creativity and innovation arise in an atmosphere of fear, fear of being penalized for failure, fear of not getting adequate administrative support, or fear of not having enough time. That is one reason the new venture team programs in the Fortune 500 companies surveyed by Peters and Waterman are usually specifically designed to relieve team members from all other duties during the project. The team is protected by the "executive champion" from external forces and disruptions and punitive actions for failure. The team is protected from the red tape of their company's bureaucracy by the ombudsman / expediter . The "champion" programs in the Fortune 500 companies that were evaluated by Peters and Waterman exemplify just the opposite of micromanagement-at least once a champion and his or her development team are established.
There is a good bit of management imposed during the initial stages of project approval, setting of goals, allocation of resources, and establishing the ground rules for the team. But once the team is formed and under way, successful management seems to require that they be left alone. The team does its own managing, at least to the extent they are able. Avoidance of micromanagement is equivalent to providing more autonomy for professionals and their teams. But excessive autonomy is probably not desirable. Pelz and Andrews found that the most autonomous of their scientists and engineers did poorly, presumably because they were isolated from stimulation; some central coordination and direction is necessary for best productivity.
The self-reliant and autonomous individuals should be able to produce more; in fact, if their superiors do not provide direction, they must be self-reliant in order to achieve. In a climate of complete freedom, autonomous individuals must have exceptional drive and motivation in order to keep achieving. On the other hand, under tight, micromanaged situations, the productivity of self-reliant individuals is not enhanced. Give Your People Some Slack, Freedom and Time for Meditation Here we refer to mental freedom, as well as freedom from external constraints, to let emerging ideas take one where they will, even if they violate common wisdom or the constraints of time, money, and facilities. Arieti also makes the point that the creative person must have time where he or she does nothing, as viewed in conventional terms by superiors in an organization, for example. If the workers must always be "doing" something (running an experiment, shuffling paperwork), they do not have the opportunity for uninterrupted reflection on their work.
A case can be made for being too productive in the usual sense. One junior scientist I know was given some wise advice by his more experienced mentor: "Young man, you would do well to publish less so that you can publish better. " Arieti asserts that creative thought usually involves a period of meditation and aloneness. Aloneness is akin to sensory deprivation, a state in which the subject is less distracted by conventional stimuli, cliches, modes of thinking, and is free to tap his or her inner basic resources. The common emphasis on teamwork is justified, as seen in the Pelz and Andrews study.
Yet each team member must have time alone, free of distractions and interruptions, to reflect creatively on the team's problems. Continued pursuit of a problem is often required before the creative solution emerges. [ 19 ] Leaders should give people time to pursue unresolved problems and not punish them as long as they are earnestly trying. Jung is quoted as saying that to get creative thought to emerge from its incubation stage, one must have a "special training for switching off consciousness, at least to a relative extent, thus giving the unconscious contents a chance to develop. " Be Quick to Recognize - and Use - Error A rat uses its errors to help find the way through a maze, and in a similar but more sophisticated way creative thinkers must be assisted by their leaders and colleagues to recognize and use their thinking errors as they grope with the creative solution to a problem. In scientific and technical arenas of thought, mistakes can be quite useful in posing issues in a new way and in inviting unique approaches to a problem. Be Quick to Recognize - and Use - Good Ideas Although leaders can't force creative thought, they certainly can be receptive to it and recognize and value it when it happens. The best way to express value for an idea is to implement it.
Make Your People Secure, Not Threatened The companies surveyed by Pelz and Andrews have found that it is important to provide opportunities for scientists and engineers to have their names associated with a product, a report, or a process. The companies also favored practices that promoted the status of individuals, such as 1. letting professionals present their own work (briefings, reports, and so on), 2. giving them some autonomy, 3. minimizing the management from above, and 4.
letting them help set goals and priorities. The Pelz and Andrews study showed a clear increase in productivity in those workers whose managers let them set their own goals and priorities and to influence policy-making. This principle is explicitly embodied in the "champion" programs of the Fortune 500 high-tech companies that Peters and Waterman studied. Change Attitudes about Yes-Men and Conformity Conformity is the enemy of creative thought. As might be expected, people differ greatly in their conformist tendencies.
Some conformity is probably imposed by cultural and educational conditions. For example, in one formal test which quantified conformist tendencies in terms of percentage of responses to questions that were influenced by group pressure, military officers had the highest conformity score of 33 percent; by comparison, college sophomores had a conformity score of 26 percent, while scientists in industry had a score of only 14 percent. [ 20 ] Notably, the range of individual scores in each group was from 0 to 100 percent, which means that each group does contain potentially creative people, even though in some groups conformity may be very conspicuous. In examining common practices that get in the way of creativity and innovation, Hickman and Silva [ 21 ] have developed a list of six common blinders that keep leaders from creativeness and innovation. They are resistance to change, reliance on rules and conformance, fear and self-doubt, over reliance on logic and precision, black and white thinking, and over reliance on practicality and efficiency.
As practical remedies to such blinder problems, Hickman and Silva suggest several exercises that will help both leaders and workers: (1) set a personal quota of one new idea a day, (2) pick an organizational rule that gets in the way and break it (in a benign way that won't harm you or the organization), (3) read literature on creativity, (4) indulge in fantasy and wild thinking, particularly when you are swamped with technical detail, (5) for any problem, force yourself to consider many solutions, and (6) defer evaluation of an idea (toy with it, explore its ramifications). Show the Mavericks You Tolerate - Even Value - Them By definition, creative people are more likely to be nonconformist, not only in their thinking but sometimes in their attitudes and behavior. If such people are valued in an organization for what their ideas can do for the group, then a certain amount of tolerance for unconventional behavior is the price that has to be paid. Sometimes creative, innovative people are uncomfortably aggressive. They may be driven by ambition and are not very tolerant of obstacles, be they material or managerial. "Best workers gripe the most, " was the conclusion drawn by one analyst of a survey of industrial productivity. Clearly, malcontents and chronic complainers are not much of an asset to an organization.
But it is axiomatic that the best producers and self-starters are assertive, sometimes "pushy, " and even obnoxious. In the Pelz and Andrews survey, there was a striking correlation between productivity and the fact that the scientists and engineers did NOT fully share the goals and interests of higher management. However, they were responsive to input and direction, both from management and from colleagues. Provide Formal Means for Idea Generation Among the various tactics that can be used are frequent use of seminars and symposia, where the "in-house" people are expected to make presentations. Debate should be encouraged, but it needs to be conducted in a positive, nonthreatening way. Brainstorming sessions can be especially useful, provided they are well structured and controlled.
The proper environment for effective brainstorming has been described by Osborn. [ 22 ] The basic premise is that creativity requires free and uninhibited thought, coupled with critical analysis and synthesis. However, the typical human cannot think imaginatively and critically at the same time. Thus, Osborn advocates a brainstorming session in which (1) criticism is ruled out, (2) free-wheeling is welcomed (the wilder the idea, the better), (3) many ideas are better than a few, and (4) combination of ideas into new ways is encouraged. To make sure that "imagine ering" is fully stimulated, an atmosphere of excitement and enthusiasm is needed, along with a tolerant, noncritical attitude toward "off the wall" ideas. But, if a brainstorming session ends at this point, then all one has is a collection of imaginative ideas, none of which may have real value.
Subsequent critical analysis is required to winnow out those ideas that can be criticized, reformulated, and recombined into useful concepts that can lead to true innovation. How about computerized Delphi conferences? I don't think anybody does that, but the technology is available. One popular technique to make such problem-solving communication more systematic could employ a modification of the so-called Delphi method. [ 23 ] This is a structured communication approach to problem-solving, planning, forecasting, and decision-making that involves individual contributions of information and insight, followed by some critique of all the individual contributions, followed by responses of the individuals and revisions of their original ideas. To modify the approach for brainstorming functions, it would be ideal to have a computerized conference approach, wherein a computer tallies all the input and makes it available in real time. Create a Climate for Discussion and Disagreement In their analysis of successful executives, Hickman and Silva concluded that they never ceased their curious probing. "They are imaginative and innovative developers who can transcend old habits...
They make an abiding commitment to creativity, always setting aside the time and resources to nurture it. "[ 24 ] Such a climate stimulates workers to come forth with their ideas, giving management a chance to use those inputs to generate even better, more workable ideas. Creativity feeds upon itself, producing more and more creative ideas. The creativeness of professionals is directly proportional to the extent to which they can communicate with both supervisors and with peers. Leaders should openly solicit the ideas of workers-and then LISTEN to what they say. This serves not only the positive motivational purpose of making workers feel like they are important, but it also gives the leadership access to information and ideas they might otherwise not obtain. This principle lies at the heart of Deming's quality control philosophy, which has been so successfully employed by Japanese industry.
Workers need good, clear channels of communications with superiors, particularly the leaders who operate at the policy-making levels. Among the reasons this is important is that in this climate workers have some hope that they have access to policymakers when they get a good idea. They need not fear that somebody else will "steal their thunder" and get the credit for their idea. The leadership, in turn, encourages the surfacing of new ideas only if they openly value it and provides positive reinforcement to those who advance new ideas, even ideas that are not feasible. In the case of peer communication, Pelz and Andrews found that increased productivity was directly correlated with the number of peers whom a given worker contacted as well as the total number of contacts. Give Your People Influence on Policy-making Another factor that correlates positively with innovation is the degree to which the workers exert influence upon decision-making. [ 25 ] Not surprisingly, if the worker knows he has no clout with the leaders, he has little confidence that his ideas can get accepted and implemented.
So why risk exposing one's ideas to possible criticism? Thus, it is in the best interests of leaders and their organizations to make each worker feel important and to solicit their ideas in nonthreatening ways. In any hierarchy, one of the hurdles that a new idea must overcome is the worker's immediate administrative superior. He sets the psychological...
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Research essay sample on R Amp D Creative Thought
