Brought to you by Jeff Thoren, DVM  

These day’s, there’s hardly a mission statement that doesn’t herald it, or a CEO who doesn’t laud it.  And yet despite all of the attention that business creativity has won, maddeningly little is known about day-to-day innovation in the workplace.

Where do breakthrough ideas come from?
What kind of work environment allows them to flourish?
What can leaders do to sustain the stimulants to creativity?

Teresa Amabile, who heads the Entrepreneurial Management Unit at Harvard Business School , has been grappling with those questions for nearly 30 years.  She recently completed a study designed to “crawl inside people’s heads and understand the features of their work environment as well as the experiences and thought processes that lead to creative breakthroughs.”

Here’s this month’s feature ...

The 6 Myths Of Creativity -- by Bill Breen

From Fast Company -- Issue 89, December 2004

Highlights from the article:

Teresa Amabile’s work is overturning some long-held beliefs about innovation in the workplace.   If you want to quash creativity in your organization, just continue to embrace these six myths:

• Myth #1: Creativity Comes From Creative Types.  There’s a common perception among managers that some people are creative, and most aren’t.  That’s just not true.  Creativity depends on a number of things: experience; talent; an ability to think in new ways; and the capacity to push through uncreative dry spells.  Intrinsic motivation -- people who are turned on by their work often work creatively -- is especially critical.  Amabile believes, “most people aren’t anywhere near to realizing their creative potential, in part because they’re laboring in environments that impede intrinsic motivation.”  Many companies still have a long way to go to remove barriers to creativity.
    

• Myth #2:  Money Is a Creativity Motivator.  Research on creativity suggests that money isn’t everything, many people don’t think about pay on a day-to-day basis.  Bonuses and pay-for-performance plans can even be problematic when people believe that every move they make is going to affect their compensation.  In these situations, people tend to get risk averse.  People put far more value on a work environment where creativity is supported, valued, and recognized.  People want the opportunity to deeply engage in their work and make real progress.  So it’s critical for leaders to match people to projects not only on the basis of their experience but also in terms of where their interests lie.  People are most creative when they care about their work and they’re stretching their skills. 
    

• Myth #3:  Time Pressure Fuels Creativity.  People were the least creative when they were fighting the clock.  Time pressure stifles creativity because people can’t deeply engage with the problem.  Creativity requires an incubation period; people need time to soak in a problem and let the ideas bubble up.
    

• Myth #4:  Fear Forces Breakthroughs.  On the contrary.  Creativity is positively associated with joy and love and negatively associated with anger, fear, and anxiety.  When people are happy and excited about they’re work, there’s a better chance that they’ll make a cognitive association that incubates overnight and shows up as a creative idea the next day.
    

• Myth #5:  Competition Beats Collaboration.  There’s a widespread belief that internal competition fosters innovation.  Actually, creativity takes a hit when people in a work group compete instead of collaborate.  The most creative teams are those that have the confidence to share and debate ideas.  But when people compete for recognition, they stop sharing information.  And that’s destructive because nobody in an organization has all of the information required to put all the pieces of the puzzle together.
    

• Myth #6:  A Streamlined Organization Is a Creative Organization.  Creativity suffers greatly during a downsizing.  People’s fear of the unknown leads them to basically disengage from work.  Unfortunately, downsizing will remain a fact of life, which means that leaders need to focus on the things that get hit.  Communication and collaboration decline significantly.  So too does people’s sense of freedom and autonomy.  Leaders will have to work hard and fast to stabilize the work environment so ideas can flourish.

For the full text article, go to ...
http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/89/creativity.html

The Need for Creativity

According to Richard Fairbank, chairman, president and CEO of Capital One Financial, People who work in a specific industry often don’t see, or respond to, the changes taking place around them.  That’s because the industry’s conventional wisdom is so embedded in their brains that they don’t notice how stale it has become.  Fairbank refers to an old Will Rogers saying to emphasize his point ...

“It ain’t what he don’t know that scares me.  It’s what he knows that just ain’t so.”

Certainly, creativity and innovation are essential elements for the ongoing growth and viability of both individuals and organizations.  To foster these, start by evaluating which of the “6 Myths of Creativity” are stumbling blocks for you or your company.

“When people are doing work they love and they’re allowed to deeply engage in it -- and when the work itself is valued and recognized -- then creativity will flourish.  Even in tough times.”  -- Teresa Amabile

Next Month

Conventional wisdom says get back to basics, cut costs, stick with the tried and true.  Conventional wisdom is doomed.  The winners are the innovators who are making bold thinking an everyday part of doing business.

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