Customer center

We are a boutique essay service, not a mass production custom writing factory. Let us create a perfect paper for you today!

Example research essay topic: R Amp D Creative Thinking - 2,238 words

NOTE: Free essay sample provided on this page should be used for references or sample purposes only. The sample essay is available to anyone, so any direct quoting without mentioning the source will be considered plagiarism by schools, colleges and universities that use plagiarism detection software. To get a completely brand-new, plagiarism-free essay, please use our essay writing service.
One click instant price quote

... l tone of his unit, and that tone may encourage creativity or may actively discourage it. Junior level professionals are easily intimidated or disheartened in attempts to sell their ideas. The senior scientists studied by Pelz and Andrews who were the most effective in implementing ideas were those whose superiors "stayed out of the way, " with respect to the actual conduct of the research. For this level of employee, the proper role of leaders would seem to be limited to encouragement, friendly criticism, and of making resources available. It is one thing for workers to have a good idea.

It is another to get them to "surface it. " Some work environments discourage innovation, if not actively, at least unwittingly. The 3 M company, noted for the large number of diverse product innovations, has a slogan: "Thou Shalt Not Kill a New Product Idea. "[ 26 ] Of course they do not implement all of the employees' ideas, but they make it company policy to encourage all the ideas they can get. They don't intimidate their employees with criticism, but rather encourage and help them to develop their ideas into marketable products. To sell an idea, it must be communicated comprehensibly.

Although the illusion of success can be obtained by "snowing" superiors with complex ideas they do not really understand, their sustained support will ultimately require that they do in fact understand what they are supporting. In most cases, support is not given in the first place if the idea is not clear and understandable. The advocate of ideas must also have sufficient status and credibility for the ideas to be taken seriously. Optimize Interpersonal Interactions Progressive leaders actively seek ways to increase communication and break down interdepartmental barriers among its workers. Specific actions range from the physical design of work and recreation space to open forums where workers make presentations in front of their peers and superiors. Such devices not only improve technical communication per se, but they also make workers more aware of the skills and achievements of their peer competitors.

This environment instills a desire to run faster just to keep up. Get the Right People Together The principle of critical mass in personnel management is well known. Bright people stimulate each other, particularly if each person has a different background and set of technical skills that he brings to a common problem. This team concept is explicitly fostered in many R& D companies. In many organizations, it is not feasible to create critical mass; there just is not enough money to hire necessary new talent. Sometimes, however, the problem can be overcome by tearing down the barriers that separate the boxes on an organization chart and building dashed-line connections between the boxes so that close interaction can occur among the people with common interests but who are assigned to different organizations.

Administrators who are real leaders rise to the top and impose massive reorganization where necessary to reassign people to create critical mass and optimize effectiveness. There must be clear lines of authority and responsibility, however. Cavalier use of dashed lines on an organizational chart leads to situations where nobody is responsible to anybody for anything. Create Study Teams, Evaluation Groups Many traditionally managed R& D operations have historically seen the value of creating interdisciplinary teams to solve problems. A recent workshop review of this management practice by NASA has confirmed its utility. [ 27 ] Where management often falls short is in implementing the good ideas that emerge from such study and evaluation groups. Periodically Regroup the Organizational Teams Research teams grow stale with age, and their productivity generally falls off after four or five years, as the Pelz and Andrews study clearly showed.

They also learned, however, that shuffling people around to new research teams was not effective if it was done against their will. Give the Teams Autonomy The success of new-venture teams derives not only from the positive motivation that comes from championing a cause but also from the fact that the team is autonomous. Each member knows that he or she is responsible to the team and that the team is responsible for its own success or failure. If teams are allowed to operate in an environment where nobody can get the credit and nobody can take the blame for foul-ups, there is little incentive to do one's best.

Keep People from Getting Too Specialized Overspecialization gets in the way of creative thought. A research team with people of diverse backgrounds creates a stimulating intellectual environment that can promote the evaluation of problems from a broader perspective and lead to new ways of seeing problems and solutions. Moreover, many projects require a diversity of technical skills, which is obviously provided in a diversely structured team. Many of us have habitually considered technical expertise as a critical component for productivity. Thus, workers who specialize are considered experts. But Pelz and Andrews found that the most productive workers were those who specialized in more than one technical area.

Presumably, this served as a stimulus for creativeness. A related observation was that research teams that have worked a long time in a certain area, and acquired status as the in-house experts, gradually declined in their productivity. Better results are sometimes achieved when management deliberately assigns a project to a team other than the one with the most expertise. Pelz and Andrews also found, to their surprise, that productivity was greater in those scientists and engineers who worked at several levels, including both basic and applied research. Those who focused on either basic research or applied research only were usually much less productive. This may indicate that the more productive scientists and engineers are more productive because they are capable enough to work at several different levels.

However, it is also possible that efforts to make them work at different levels actually can stimulate their creativity and productivity. Unexpectedly, it was the younger workers whose productivity was most impaired by being required to focus in depth on a subject. Leaders are advised not to assign young workers to a narrow piece of the problem, but rather to see that they read and talk about it from many angles. Recognize and Exploit the Age Effects Conventional wisdom holds that young people are the most creative. In physics, for example, it is commonly believed that great discoveries must be made before the age of 35, or they will not happen at all. When this issue was examined by Pelz and Andrews, they found a biphasic curve, with a peak in the 30 s, followed by a decline, especially in the late 40 s.

However, there was another spurt of creative productivity after 50. The late 40 s decline was quite distinct, and was most marked with government workers, compared with those in industry or the universities. At all ages, and in all work environments, productivity was greatest in those scientists who were motivated by their own ideas rather than the ideas of management. Newly formed research groups are the most creative and productive. For example, when research directors of 21 industrial labs were asked to rank their teams or sections on such criteria as "creativity, " they found that the most creative groups were less than 16 months old. According to the survey by Pelz and Andrews, the height of a group's creative powers lasts about five years, after which they generally decline.

They explain this phenomenon on the basis of their idea that a certain amount of creative tension is needed; in this case, the tension and stimulation are achieved by placing staff on a new team in which the insecurity of proving oneself to new peers brings out the best in each worker. The typical decline with age of the group can be partially offset if the group becomes especially cohesive, while at the same time becoming intellectually competitive. The cohesiveness is illustrated by the frequency of communication among team members, which under normal circumstances is quite high during the first year, but falls off drastically as the group ages. Competitiveness included competition among individuals in the team as well as competition between a given team and other teams.

Stagnation also sets in because an older group tends to get specialized, and the members' approaches to problems become more stable and stereotyped. The loss of a broader perspective, and the creativity that goes with it, is best offset when management challenges an older group with problems outside its expertise. Leaders are advised to avoid letting a group come to believe that they are the in-house experts in a special area; in fact, some leaders will deliberately assign a problem within an older group's specialty to another group which has no such expertise. Reorganize The more productive professionals in the Pelz and Andrews study were those in organizations that had a relatively "flat" organization tree, with few levels at which veto or interference can occur. Pelz and Andrews also found that conventional management schemes that were designed to make workers dependent on their supervisors were counterproductive. Specifically, real productivity declined when the primary source of evaluation was the immediate supervisor.

As Pelz and Andrews put it: "If you deliberately wanted to stamp out independent thought in the subordinates, could you design a better system?" Transitioning Creativity to Innovation To get a creative idea is one thing, but to get it transitioned into the innovation of a new product or service requires other personal characteristics. Innovative people need the kind of mind-set that can produce the succession of processes that lead to successful innovation, such as 1. generating the idea, 2. informing "significant others, " 3. "selling" the idea effectively, 4.

planning the development process, and 5. overcoming constraints (time, money, relevance). Even though an organization may have plenty of such people, management practices will determine the extent to which these personal characteristics can be expressed. Technology transition is the theme of a growing body of business literature, which we need not dwell on here. The Bottom Line Creativity and innovation are not mysterious forces over which leaders have no control. Progressive leadership can and does create a climate that encourages creativity and innovation.

As we have reviewed here, there are many specific leadership initiatives, validated by the success of certain high-tech companies, that enlightened leaders can take to stimulate creativity and innovation in any work setting. Notes 1. D. N. Perkins. The Mind's Best Work (Cambridge, Mass. : Harvard University Press, 1981). 2.

Donald C. Pelz and F. M. Andrews. Scientists in Organizations: Productive Climates for Research and Development (Ann Arbor, Mich. : University of Michigan, 1976). 3. Recommended references include: 1.

A. Taylor and J. W. Getzels, eds. , Perspectives in Creativity (Chicago: Aldine Publishing Co. , 1975); H.

See. From Dream to Discovery: On Being a Scientist (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1964); G. Nierenberg, The Art of Creative Thinking (New York: Simon and Schuster. 1982); and C. R Hickman and M A.

Silva, Creating Excellence (New York: New American Library, 1984). 4. I. S. Bruner in Contemporary Approaches to Creative Thinking, ed. H. E.

Gruber, G. Terrell, and M. Wertheimer (New York: Atherton Press, 1964), 1 - 30. 5. Pelz and Andrews, Scientists in Organizations. 6. S.

Arieti, Creativity: The Magic Synthesis (New York: Basic Books, 1976). 7. Ibid. 8. D. G. McClelland in Contemporary Approaches to Creative Thinking, ed. H.

E. Gruber, G. Terrell. and M. Wertheimer (New York: Atherton Press. 1964), 141 - 74. 9. F.

M. Andrews "Social and Psychological Factors Which Influence the Creative Process" in Perspectives in Creativity, ed. l. A. Taylor and 1. W.

Getzels (Chicago: Aldine Publishing Co. , 1975). 10. Pelz and Andrews, Scientists in Organizations. 11. T. J. Peters and R. H.

Waterman, Jr. , In Search of Excellence (New York: Harper and Row, 1982). 12. Many authors have written books with the aim of helping people to develop their own creative powers. Some of them are Eugene Raudsepp, How Creative Are You (New York: Putnam's Sons, 1981); Roger von Oct, A Whack on the Side of the Head (New York: Warner Books, 1983); Gerald Nierenberg, The Art of Creative Thinking (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1982); A. Koestler, The Act of Creation (New York: Dell, 1964); A. S.

Parkes, "The Art of Scientific Discovery, " Perspectives in Biological Medicine I (1959): 366 - 78. 13. H. Krebs, "The Making of a Scientist, " Nature 215 (1967): 1441 - 45. 14. "Bell Labs on the Brink, " Science 221 (1983): 1267. 15. Pelz and Andrews, Scientists in Organizations. 16. Arieti, Creativity. 17.

Pelz and Andrews, Scientists in Organizations. 18. D. Shape and Rustum Roy, Lost at the Frontier: U. S. Science Policy Adrift (Philadelphia: ISI Press, 1985). 19.

Arieti, Creativity. 20. R. S. Crutchfield in Contemporary Approaches to Creative Thinking, ed. H.

E. Gruber, G. Terrell, and M. Wertheimer (New York: Atherton Press, 1964), 120 - 40. 21. C.

R. Hickman and M. A. Silva, Creating Excellence (New York: New American Library, 1984). 22. A. F.

Osborn, Applied Imagination (New York: Scribner's, 1953). 23. H. A. Linstone and M.

Tariff, The Delphi Method (Reading, Mass. : Addison-Wesley Publishing Co. , 1975). 24. Hickman and Silva, Creating Excellence. 25. Pelz and Andrews, Scientists in Organizations. 26. Peters and Waterman, In Search of Excellence. 27. White-Collar Productivity and Quality Issues (Washington, D. C. : American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, 1985), 143 - 50.


Free research essays on topics related to: technical skills, creative thinking, york simon, critical mass, r amp d

Research essay sample on R Amp D Creative Thinking

Writing service prices per page

  • $18.85 - in 14 days
  • $19.95 - in 3 days
  • $23.95 - within 48 hours
  • $26.95 - within 24 hours
  • $29.95 - within 12 hours
  • $34.95 - within 6 hours
  • $39.95 - within 3 hours
  • Calculate total price

Our guarantee

  • 100% money back guarantee
  • plagiarism-free authentic works
  • completely confidential service
  • timely revisions until completely satisfied
  • 24/7 customer support
  • payments protected by PayPal

Secure payment

With EssayChief you get

  • Strict plagiarism detection regulations
  • 300+ words per page
  • Times New Roman font 12 pts, double-spaced
  • FREE abstract, outline, bibliography
  • Money back guarantee for missed deadline
  • Round-the-clock customer support
  • Complete anonymity of all our clients
  • Custom essays
  • Writing service

EssayChief can handle your

  • essays, term papers
  • book and movie reports
  • Power Point presentations
  • annotated bibliographies
  • theses, dissertations
  • exam preparations
  • editing and proofreading of your texts
  • academic ghostwriting of any kind

Free essay samples

Browse essays by topic:

Stay with EssayChief! We offer 10% discount to all our return customers. Once you place your order you will receive an email with the password. You can use this password for unlimited period and you can share it with your friends!

Academic ghostwriting

About us

© 2002-2024 EssayChief.com