There are six aspects of creativity: knowledge, ability, insight, determination, situation, and invitation. Because each element must be present in modern organizations to foster good demonstrations of creative activity, these six elements provide a powerful repertoire for foresighted businesses.
Knowledge. The first step to establish creative procedures in an organization is to ensure that those challenged to be corporate innovators have had the advantage of gaining a thorough knowledge in the specific areas where they operate. If, for example, an innovator is to create a new car design, that individual must first know about the aerodynamics and other technical engineering aspects of automobiles. The same is true, of course, for creative artists; they must be skillful in all technical aspects of art, from drawing, sketching, and painting, to understanding the human form and other natural occurrences. They must also have extensive knowledge about the history of art.
Consequently, the first step to ensure that an organization's workforce has creative capacity is to complete a capacity-building step that allows acquisition of knowledge about the goods and services of the company. From this base of knowledge, other steps toward creativity are possible.
Ability. Individuals participating in a creative process must carry an array of abilities. No matter how much technical knowledge an individual employee might possess, an individual must possess an additional ability to see the connection between the knowledge base and a potential for the future, to draw on this ability in order to meld the two into a characterization of new products and ideas. Thus, an ability to demonstrate how knowledge is to be transformed into larger ideas is an aspect of creativity that must be present. When individual ability promotes an expansion of the current knowledge, it serves to form the nexus between what is known and what can be envisioned for the future.
Insight. In order for an ability of transformation to be demonstrated, an individual must experience conditions that foster insight into the problem or of the challenge of a given circumstance. Any creative enterprise will require numerous instances where the creative individual experiences insight into one part of the problem's solution. During the creative process, one insight and experimentation in an area can lead to yet another insight that sheds light on the problem and results in major advances toward solutions. These insights of discovery are repeated until there is an occurrence of what is blandly termed as having "all the pieces fall into place." Insight is the creative element that conditions full creative discovery.
Determination. Neither knowledge, ability, nor insight, however, are good enough on their own merits to bring about the creation of new discoveries. Innovation happens through a strong application of unvarying determination to any given problem. All of the great breakthroughs — in science as well as in the fine arts — were accomplished through a determined effort by the individuals seeking to make break-through discoveries. These innovations required the hard work of repeated efforts in the face of temporary failures, set-backs, and misdirection. In selecting those who will carry company innovation forward, it is important to ensure that these individuals have a predisposition toward determined and concentrated effort.
Situation. The situations supportive of creative endeavors have varied through time. In all cases, however, the creative situation is a physical and environmental circumstance in which the creator/inventor feels comfortable undertaking creative endeavors. It is also typical of the creative situation that it fosters creativity by allowing alignments that contribute to creative processes. Organizations will want to look carefully at how they are structured for creative problem solving. One strong indicators are the creative products themselves that are currently being developed. If there are none, an organization's leaders will want to examine why this is so. Typically, non-creative workplaces are those where the elements of situation and invitation are lacking.
Invitation. The creative element, "invitation," is closely linked but distinctly different from that of the situation. There can be excellent physical environments where creativity can take place but the invitation to create is not issued. Innovation can be thwarted by uninformed managers who understand little about the creative benefits of the organization. Open-space physical configurations, for example, hold potential for the free exchange of ideas. If a manager unwittingly creates an atmosphere where employees are restricted from free interaction, the creative enterprise is thwarted. The organizations that do not clearly invite creative activity are those that are found to be most deficient in innovative employee involvements.
Creative and innovative acts are comprised of complex and interactive elements that must be well-understood and purposefully inserted into the organizational structure before creativity can be experienced in significant and meaningful ways. If an organization wants to understand its creative capabilities, a first step is to question the presence of creative elements in the organizational structure and to assess the creative contributions that the organization makes, both to its employees and to its future expansion.
About the Author:
Billie G. Blair Ph.D is an organizational psychologist and owner of the management consulting firm, Leading and Learning, Inc. The company is an LA-based firm of 40 professionals who work with CEOs and executives, across the US and Canada, on issues of organizational change management, leadership, and personal and professional effectiveness. Their clients are a mixture of Fortune 500/1,000 companies and their departments/divisions, organizations, non-profits, government entities, and entrepreneurial start-ups.
