how to kill creativity in 10 easy steps!

Based on Managing & Organizations - Clegg, Kornberger & Pitsis (2005)

10: When the proposed idea is not radical enough, just say that the idea is not really new – and that someone else already did it

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9: When the proposed idea is tooradical, you can always argue that no one has done it before – and that there might be reasons for this

8: Embrace new ideas when you talk, but do not do anything about them

7 Be the exclusive

spokesperson for

every new idea,

regardless of

whether it is your

own or not

6: Never talk to

employees on a

personal level,

except for annual

meetings – at

which you praise

your social and

communicative

leadership skills

5: Create boundaries between decision-makers, technical

staff, and creative minds. Make sure that they

speak different languages

4: Always pretend to know more than anybody around you. Especially be suspicious when people from below come up with ideas. You know better!

3:Make sure that creative staff do a lot of technical and detailed work.

Make sure that they do their own bookkeeping, and count everything you can count as often as possible

2: Run daily checks on the progress of

everyone’s work. Be critical (they love it!) and withhold positive

feedback, which would only encourage them to

do things that are potentially dangerous

1: Police your employees by every procedural means that you can devise. Insist that they stick to the rules of good old bureaucracy and fill in many forms that need to be signed by almost every senior manager in the organization