Can we manage creativity and
innovation?
There is little doubt that in a world with a breakneck pace of change and everincreasing demands for both novelty and convenience, an organisation’s ability to
innovate quickly and reliably is often its key to success. Creativity and innovation,
however, are by their very nature unstructured and unpredictable, and therefore
fit poorly into most corporate structures. Consequently, especially in mature
companies, there seems to be a gap between the excellence of their employees
and the quality of their innovation.
We have lost track of the number of times that we have been asked how people
who are tasked with creativity and innovation in an organisation can be
effectively managed.
A year before we started to write together, in 2009, a group of telecoms
colleagues produced a paper, “The Management of Creativity and Innovation”[1].
In that paper, they suggested a set of prerequisites for an optimal innovative and
creative environment:
Five prerequisites for effective innovation in an organization
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A leadership style that is participative, democratic and non-authoritarian
A role framework that allows both discretion and autonomy
An organisational structure which is essentially flat
A culture that is supportive of qualified risk-taking
Systems and processes that enable people to easily share their ideas and
non-traditional thinking within the organisation.
While feedback on the paper has been very positive, over time it has become
clear that organisational and leadership changes in isolation are not sufficient to
enable and sustain creativity.
In 2011, with the help of a colleague at the Judge Business School (Dr Ben
Hardy), we wrote a short piece on the importance of thinking time,
“Understanding the Power of Reflection”[2], inspired by the creativity we saw in
researchers who were often among the only people we knew given time just to
think. In the conclusions, we wrote: “A workplace that encourages and facilitates
reflection is one that will be more productive in the long-term, and companies that
have embraced this way of working have seen astonishing success”.
Of course these environmental and structural changes are only as good as the
employees who experience them. The final piece of the creativity and innovation
puzzle is always getting the right people in the first place and then creating the
right kind of space for them to succeed.
A year later, we wrote a follow-on piece, “Changing the Game: Using gamechangers to stimulate organisational growth”[3], where we discussed how to hire
outstanding individuals and then allow them to have a real and sustainable
impact.
It was clear from our conversations with “game-changers”, in particular, that if
people perceived that their efforts are not recognised, they would soon become
de-motivated and move somewhere that did recognise their efforts and give them
opportunities to make a tangible difference. Perhaps surprisingly, we also found
that past a certain level, pay was not a major incentive compared to recognition
and achievement, and certainly was not a powerful tool for retention in many
cases. The key to enabling and sustaining creativity was two-fold: first, remove
the barriers to creativity and innovation, and second, motivate and retain the right
employees to innovate.
After completing the paper on game-changers we took some time out to reflect
on our experience both in industry and academia while continuing to work with
exceptionally innovative and creative people.
This latest experience has allowed us to add another four key messages for
managers:
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Give your people the space to think and grow. They need time to read, reflect,
and share ideas with others.
Ensure that mechanisms exist which allow both organisational and peer
recognition for excellence.
Help, guide and empower your people by removing any real or perceived
barriers and boundaries.
Be prepared to take personal risks as in large and bureaucratic organisations
it is often more productive to ask forgiveness than permission.
So back to our initial question: Can we manage creativity and innovation?
The answer is yes, but often this cannot be done without, in some cases, some
key organisational and cultural changes, which will enable the five prerequisites
originally stated above. However, having ensured that the organisation is fit for
innovation, the next four key messages must then be both embraced and
supported. As these are by no means easy to retrofit in an organisation that has
not built them as part of their core principles, we would recommend that they are
probably best tackled through strong mentoring and leadership programmes.
While these processes and key messages are not easy or painless for a mature
organisation to embrace and implement, our experience is that the return on
investment will be both large and long-lasting and will make the organisation fit
for the future.
Jeff Patmore (University of Cambridge) & Dr Tanya Goldhaber (BT)
------- [1] - http://www.academia.edu/1583075/The_Management_of_Creativity_and_Innovation
[2] - https://www.academia.edu/1583105/Understanding_the_Power_of_Reflection
[3] - http://www.academia.edu/1871019/Changing_the_Game_Using_gamechangers_to_stimulate_organisational_growth
---------(First published on the RSA's Social Network site on August 7, 2014)