JULIAN SHREEVE Principal Consultant

NICOLE STEAD Consultant

WHAT DOES IT REALLY TAKE TO GET PEOPLE TO BE CREATIVE & INNOVATIVE IN THE WORKPLACE?

CONTENTS

ABOUT ASK 4

SLIDE DECK 7

RECENT ARTICLES & BLOGS 19

SUGGESTED READING 29

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ABOUT ASK®

ASK® designs, delivers and evaluates bespoke management and leadership development solutions that improve workplace performance. We combine formal and informal learning methodologies grounded in experiential and adult learning theory with best practice in learning transfer and a trans-theoretical approach to behavioural change to deliver enduring improvement in workplace productivity.

We work with leaders to implement solutions to the organisational challenges of our times:

CHANGE – we work with leaders to facilitate complex organisational change

PERFORMANCE – we work with leaders to improve individual, team and organisational performance

TALENT – we assess and develop leaders of the future.

Our individual and team development solutions are built on a common Engage, Learn and Transfer platform but are customised to meet our clients’ specific needs. They frequently feature:

‘Rich’ (360°, psychometric, observation and peer) feedback

Paper and computer-based management simulations

‘Soft’ skills development

Workplace-based Executive Coaching and Personal Development Mentoring

Facilitated Action Learning Sets

Tools, job aids and templates to facilitate learning transfer

Managed informal workplace learning through projects, assignments, secondments and volunteering.

To evidence the effectiveness of our solutions we have developed a unique evaluation methodology that measures the incremental gains in workplace productivity that arise as a consequence of improvements in management and leadership effectiveness.

Since its foundation, ASK® has focused on the attitudinal and behavioural challenges associated with effective leadership and management; providing individuals, teams and organisations with insights into their behaviours and coupling this with skills improvements to deliver sustained improvement in performance.

Find out more about us and the work that we do on our website:

askeurope.com

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We hope you found this What does it really take to get people to be creative and Innovative in the workplace? Webinar insightful. We thought you might find these slides a useful reminder of the topics covered during the session.

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RECENT ARTICLES & BLOGS

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A number of the articles that our consultants have contributed to both generalist and specialist press in recent months have addressed the subject of Creativity and Innovation. We’ve included some brief extracts, along with links to read the full text of these articles.

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FROM OUR BLOG

TORTOISE-BRAIN VS HARE-BRAIN:

CREATIVITY AT WORK

The trick, I suspect, lies in how well companies manage and deploy the creative talents of their staff, and how much ‘creativity’ – which can but does not have to mean ‘problem solving’ – is valued in a company’s culture. Jean V. Dickson’s article, Creativity and the HR Department, highlights just some of the negative attitudes that abound in some organisation’s approach to the apparent eccentricities that Csikszentmihalyi has identified as powerful indicators of exceptional creativity. Depressingly, these seem to boil down to either not hiring them in the first place, or in trying suppress creative instincts in those creatives that do manage to ‘sneak under the radar’.

From my own experience as a creative (having worked as a writer, musician and visual artist), there is also another important element here, and those managers who perform least well at managing the processes (and personalities) of creative staff might benefit from reflecting on it. Csikszentmihalyi has shown us that ‘creatives’ tend to view ‘problems’ in a more complex way, exploring their subtleties and nuances. But if, in serving the success and sustainability of their organisations, creatives are to evolve not just ‘innovative’ but high quality solutions, the managers charged with their supervision should perhaps ponder an old truism – the time-cost-quality triangle.

Click to read more

FROM OUR BLOG

KEEPING YOURSELF ON YOUR TOES:

STAYING CREATIVE

There’s an awful lot of ‘pick’n’mix’ about nowadays, where the simplicity of sharing, reposting or clicking a ‘Like’ button means the same things circulate endlessly. As everything becomes digital, it becomes easier to copy. Theoretically, it becomes easier to manipulate too, but copy and paste seems more widespread than copy and heavily rework. So is that being creative, or is it posing as being hip, Daddy-o? Isn’t it rather closer to being spotted wearing this season’s ‘must have’ (ahem) t-shirt than to having designed it? I’m thinking that there are two types of bird towards the bottom of this Heirarchy of Theft (which I’m also thinking it looks more original with Capital Letters too – cheap tricks have the same potency as cheap music). The lowest rung is occupied by parrots and lyre birds, who simply repeat what comes through their ears. They’re whistling a happy tune, but they’re not composing.

There’s a layer up from this – perhaps we can call them magpies – who have their metaphorical bird companion’s eye for the shiny, lustrous object, gathering and assembling them into glittering hordes. Fine art’s been here with the whole assemblage thing (which my Fine Art friends will no doubt advise me sagely was played out decades ago), although many of us probably also did something similar at primary school. We called it collage.

Click to read more

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FROM OUR BLOG

ALL WORK AND NO PLAY:

HOW TO STRANGLE INNOVATION

HR communications might perhaps give a message – intentional or otherwise – that anything that strays from written diktats will lead to the massacre of the first-born, and people with immense latent creativity might move on to more agreeable shores. But, in most organisations, I don’t think HR is close enough to the action to actually stifle innovation.

The second, rather bigger point that Emma’s article missed was, with due respect, an open goal. Indeed, the point was sitting right there in its title: actually stimulating innovation never quite made an appearance. The argument began and ended with “There have to be some rules: anyone sensible knows that”, but what the rules were to achieve didn’t quite heave into view. Given the distance between HR and day-to-day working life, that’s perhaps not so surprising. But another article – published in McKinsey Quarterly– seemed to strike nearer the mark, addressing the behaviour of people who might rather more directly impact on the working life of others: How leaders kill meaning at work.

Click to read more

FROM OUR BLOG

BOOK REVIEW: WHERE GOOD IDEAS COME FROM –

STEVEN JOHNSON

Given its centrality to market-based economies, innovation is an important theme: rather like Matthew Syed’s Bounce (read our review), Johnson’s task is partly to debunk what he sees as a myth – in this case, that innovation is something that comes to us in a blinding flash, a dream or some kind of divine spark.

Like Syed (and using what is now the accepted formula for the ‘big think’ read), Johnson amasses a wide range of examples to illustrate his arguments and to conclude that there are seven elements that are the true underpinnings of innovation, which include: the adjacent possible (essentially one thing leads to another, but recognising the importance of the pre-existing thing as crucial to the leading); allowing hunches time to evolve; recognising, accommodating and exploring error; serendipity; borrowing ideas from other disciplines (which Johnson refers to using the language of evolutionary biologists as exaptation), and liquid networks (in a way, creativity’s version of ‘freedom of assembly’).

Click to read more

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FROM OUR BLOG

MENTAL AND PHYSICAL ROOMS:

REMOVING OBSTACLES FOR YOUR CREATIVES

I couldn’t help but remember that age old maternal cliché – “You treat this place like a hotel” – and wonder if it is now the organisation and not the employees treating the place that way, possibly as it is concerned more with turnover and occupancy than with personalisation or comfort. (For every boutique pied-a-terre experience in the world, there are many more motels.)

Managing space, décor and noise (an often ignored factor) is a complex equation, but the creative world provides at least argument against an easy ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach, as American novelist and university lecturer J Robert Lennon reflects in one recent blog. As he argues, the most likely outcome of imposing a mantra “ass + chair + write” is a stiff bottom and a blank sheet of paper. Rather than simplistic approaches, he counsels that understanding people’s needs is the basis for providing better advice:

"Here’s the correct way to advise somebody: Love them. Respect them. Know them. Read their stuff, understand where they’re coming from.”

He may be writing from a specific focus, but this surely isn’t advice that is too difficult to translate to other disciplines – indeed, understanding individual needs and drivers is a cornerstone of good management. Ask yourself how your organisation works with its creative elements. Does it send them process manuals and diagrams, or does it spark their interest with links to interesting thinking about creativity at work?

Click to read the full posting

FROM OUR BLOG

PROCESS: SAFETY BLANKET OR WET BLANKET?

Most of us probably accept – even on bad days – that a few rules are required to prevent everything spinning off into chaos. Indeed, the history of leaderless groupings is fraught with structural disintegration: getting somewhere in any sense requires at least some degree of discipline. Scratch any intelligent creative and they will also tell you that their work requires a constant flow of decision-making, usually guided by some sense of prevailing values – even if they may find these difficult to clearly articulate. Despite their detractors’ opinions, most creative do not spend a lot of time ‘messing about’.

The downside of process is more likely to be predictability: not in itself grounds for divorce outside the workplace, but a contributing factor to its literal or emotional workplace equivalents on many an occasion. Processes that leave too little room for experiment or serendipity can create a tendency to similarity and repetition: follow the same process and you’ll most likely get the same result. Sit through one too many episodes of X Factor or The Voice (or, for that matter, The Apprentice) and tell me if you disagree. If you don’t want diminishing returns, try altering the destination.

I suspect the problem that underpins this on-going divide more accurately belongs on the other side of the chasm. Those that are most drawn to the benefits of process are also most likely to just plain like the idea of process: after all, anarchy – from a perfectly respectable Ancient Greek word that means ‘without rulers’ – is defined more frequently by its detractors than its adherents. I

Click to read more

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FROM OUR BLOG

NEW YEAR’S RESOLUTIONS? BURN THE

SPREADSHEETS AND BUY TEA BAGS AND A HAMMER

There’s a time and a place for breathing… and, outside of personal intimacy or interrogation techniques, it’s not down someone else’s neck. Most of us appreciate that risk should be managed, but equally that there is a relationship between risk and reward. Einstein may have said ‘a man who never made a mistake never made anything’, but the sentence needs ‘interesting’ on the end of it to capture an important element of innovation. Henry Ford captured it more closely when he said:

"Even a mistake may turn out to be the one thing necessary to a worthwhile achievement.”

I don’t know if Ford uttered those words before or after the Fordlandia debacle (read our article about that – and Ford’s ultimate legacy in Detroit – here), but history certainly casts them as ‘the words of experience’. But remember that without mistakes we wouldn’t have penicillin. And, as Johnson records, mistakes have played important roles in the development of things as diverse as our understanding of the origin of the universe, valves, and pacemakers: if you think your managerial heart couldn’t take the strain of dealing with mistakes, the medical solution wouldn’t exist without them either.

Click to read the full posting

FROM OUR BLOG

WHEREVER GOOD IDEAS COME FROM,

THEY NEED TO BE KEPT ALIVE

Seeing nascent talents as something to nurture informs another metaphor. Emerging talent, or freshly hired ones, are something that can be simply walked away from: they aren’t latch-key kids, responsibility for which can be fitted in around HR’s other, more pressing priorities. Armed with the realisation that performance is achieved through people, the priority becomes to nurture – to ensure opportunities are available, that development is not just encouraged but supported. Where resources are tight, the metaphorical incubator may not be state of the art: ingenuity in crafting an approach from the equivalent of car parts – bits of process, some existing skills, some effective attitudes – will be called for, but the imperative should be to focus on the outcome: capabilities that develop, talent that matures, engagement that doesn’t wither on the vine.

I’m conscious that the analogy could be perceived as crude in more senses than one, but ‘conception’ is – comparatively speaking – the easy part of the process. Raising the outcome demands rather more of everyone involved. Like our biological offspring, employees have an important part to play – taking greater responsibility is part of their own development. But like parents, we can’t wash our hands (so to speak) at the moment of birth. As well as an incubator, you need to think of metaphorical schooling and socialisation. But the longer route is more rewarding, and it takes everyone further.

Click to read more

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FROM OUR BLOG

ART, SCIENCE AND SOGGY BOTTOMS

This evening, much of the UK will grind to a halt on its sofas to watch the final of The Great British Bake Off. But is baking an art or a science? Will the winner earn the carved crystal cake stand for their astounding artistry or their technical brilliance. The answer, of course, is both. If you want the pot of gold, you need a rainbow. If you want a rainbow, you win by including as many of the colours as possible. A rainbow with only one colour is just a stripe.

Without a touch of creativity, a Victoria sponge will only be A.N.Other Victoria Sponge no matter how perfectly executed. But a glittering creation that cunningly melds the flavours of (for example) licorice and lime but which undermines itself with a raw middle won’t carry off the crown either. No matter how tear-jerking its baker’s back story, how many beads of sweat they’ve wiped from their brow under the glaring gaze of the judges or how ‘passionately’ they’ve dedicated it to someone with whom they have a profound emotional connection, someone has to eat it and enjoy it. The contestants don’t just have to charm the judges, they have to feed them too.

Baking – like writing fiction, playing music or producing a painting (or, whisper it, HR) – isa process. You have to really know the ingredients, whether they are flour and eggs, pitch, rhythm and tempo or plot and character. That’s not an optional extra, it’s a given. The flair is the distinguishing feature, but it has solid foundations. No matter how hard you try, applying fondant icing to a soggy bottom won’t win you any friends.

Click to read the full posting

SUGGESTED READING

The following documents may provide additional food for thought or inspiration.

BOOKSWhere Good Ideas Come From: The Seven Patterns of Innovation – Steven Johnson, Penguin, 2011

HBR's 10 Must Reads on Innovation – Harvard Business Review Press, 2013

Ten Types of Innovation: The Discipline of Building Breakthroughs - Larry Keeley, Helen Walters, Ryan Pikkel and Brian Quinn, John Wiley & Sons, 2013

RESEARCH AND SURVEYSAn Empirical Investigation into the Impact of Personality on Individual Innovation Behaviour in the Workplace - Salih Yesil and Fikret Sozbilir, in Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences, Volume 81, pp 540 – 551 (2013)

State of Create study: Global benchmark study on attitudes and beliefs about creativity at work, school and home – Adobe, April 2012

The Creative Dividend: How Creativity Impacts Business Results – Adobe/Forrester Consulting, August 2014

OTHER RESOURCESCreativity in the Workplace (Helpsheet) - www.well-online.co.uk, no date

Innovation Potential Indicator – OPP

The Innovator’s Method: How Great Innovators Lead Differently - Jeff Dyer and Nathan Furr , Harvard Business Review, 22 Dec 2014

Measuring Creativity in the Workplace – Michael Kerr, Humor in the Workplace, 21 August 2014

Measuring Creativity: We Have the Technology - Werner Reinartz, Harvard Business Review, 12 March 2013

Measuring Innovation part 1: Frequently Used Indicators - Leif Denti, InnovationManagement.se, 15 February 2013

The Top 6 Predictors of Creative Performance in the Workplace - InnovationManagement.se, no date

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