In a Nutshell
How do you feel about errors
and inefficiency? How about a lack of planning and a lack of control?
Many of us have pretty negative attitudes toward these things, and for
good reasons. However, an over-emphasis on efficiency, control, structure
and "zero defects" can hold back our creativity. To be optimally
effective, managers need to balance pressures for quality and efficiency
with opportunities for creativity and innovation.
With routine tasks being
increasingly automated and the competitive environment becoming more dynamic,
creative problem solving and innovation will play a greater role in determining
future managers' success or failure. Creativity
is the process of generating new and useful ideas. Innovation,
on the other hand, is taking a new idea and putting it to use. Managers
can increase their subordinates' creativity through the climate they create
and the way they treat their subordinates. The implementation of
creative ideas (i.e., innovating) must overcome people's resistance to
change. Charismatic, transformational leaders
are able to overcome that resistance.
In This Issue
The
Case of Kettering's Experiments with Red
One of my favorite stories
about innovation is Charles Kettering's experiments that led to his discovery
of a gasoline additive that reduces engine "knock." He thought that
by getting the gasoline to fire more quickly in an automobile engine, the
knock would be reduced. However, he did not readily identify a way
to get it to fire more quickly. He began to look for examples of
things that start quickly. Kettering observed that a plant called
trailing arbutus starts quickly in the sense that it blooms earlier in
the year than most plants. The arbutus also has distinctive red leaves,
and Kettering surmised that it must be their redness that allowed the arbutus
to bloom early. So, he decided to make gasoline red to see if it
would then fire earlier and create less knock. He searched his lab
for red dye, but could find none. He chose instead to add iodine
to the gasoline. Sure enough, the iodine additive did cause the gasoline
to fire more quickly and the knock was reduced. Kettering later attempted
to replicate the experiment with red dye to confirm that it was redness
that reduced the knock, but the red dye was not effective. It was
certain chemical properties of the iodine that reduced the knock rather
than it's color.
If Charles Kettering were
your employee, and you observed the work processes described above, would
you have been patient with those wild ideas? Kettering is one of
the twentieth century's great inventors, but many of us would find it very
difficult to allow one of our staff members to experiment in such an unconventional
way. Leading creativity requires a degree with patience as employees
explore their wild ideas. Many of them will fail, and their processes
will often seem to be inefficient. That's difficult for many managers
to tolerate, but necessary for optimal creativity.
"Hands
Off" Techniques--Creating the Climate for Creativity
Many of the most effective
ways for managers to promote employees' creativity and innovation are "hands
off" approaches. They are things managers can do to create the climate
for creativity that don't involve directly interacting with their staff.
The right organizational culture, resources available for experimentation,
collaboration in work groups and interesting work help create the ideal
context for employee creativity.
Organizational
culture. Culture is the set of shared norms, values
and beliefs in an organization. Many aspects of culture can affect
creativity. Organizations that show that they value creativity by
providing rewards and recognition for it naturally tend to get more of
it. On the other hand, organizations that value risk minimization
are somewhat less supportive of creativity. Climates characterized
by political game-playing and interpersonal competition also tend to restrain
creativity.
Resources
for experimentation. Creativity is often the result
of experimentation. Experimentation is resource intensive.
To promote creativity, organizations should permit funds, materials, facilities,
and the time needed for experimenting with new ideas. Time to reflect
and be imaginative is essential to creativity. Research has found
that pressures to be productive reduce creativity.
Collaboration.
History's great innovations have often been the result of collaboration.
Wilbur and Orville Wright worked as a team to invent the first airplane,
and they also benefited greatly from the input of other aircraft designers.
Work groups that have diversely skilled members, an openness to new ideas,
high levels of trust, commitment to their work, and good communication
foster creativity.
Interesting
work. Interesting jobs
stimulate intrinsic motivation, which in turn sparks creativity.
The classic example of a boring, routine job that has been converted to
an interesting job in several companies is auto assembly. Screwing
lug nuts on trucks all day as they pass by on a conveyor isn't very interesting.
However, working on a self-led team with other production workers to take
a truck through all the various stages of assembly and eventually driving
it out to the lot is much more interesting. Compared to mounting
lug nuts, working on a team that performs the entire assembly of a truck
...
"Hands
On" Techniques--Interpersonal Determinants of Employee Creativity
Are staff members expected
to be creative on the job? Are their creative ideas valued?
Should they experiment and take risks? Managers also signal the answers
to these questions in the way they treat their employees.
Openness
to new ideas. Managers who expect their staff members
to be creative get their input in decision making (i.e., use a participative
style) and give consideration to their ideas. To boost creativity,
managers must watch how they respond to their subordinates' original ideas.
Many (if not most) new ideas aren't practical. However, criticism
tends to discourage creativity. Hence, responses to novel ideas should
be informational, not judgmental or critical. Managers should encourage
adaptation and augmentation of impractical ideas rather than flatly rejecting
them.
Support
and encouragement. Managers who express a sincere
interest in their staff members and build interpersonal trust also create
a favorable context for creativity. Listening to, empathizing with
and encouraging employees makes them feel safe to take risks and be creative.
Transformational
Leadership--Converting Creative Ideas Into Innovation
Taking a creative idea that
"looks good on paper" and successfully implementing it is often the toughest
part of innovating. One of the reasons why it's so difficult is that
new ideas often require people to take a risk and do something new.
Employees' resistance to such change often kills innovation. It takes
a special kind of leader to bring about change.
Transformational leaders
have the ability to transform their organizations and their followers.
They're able to motivate their followers to give extra effort and to confidently
venture into unfamiliar territory. Transformational leaders can even
shape the values of their followers. They encourage their followers
to adopt values that are compatible with the organizations' needs and to
give those values a higher priority than their individual needs.
Transformational leaders
are charismatic. The word, charisma, comes from a Greek word that
means chosen or graced. Charismatic leaders seem to have been endowed
with a special gift that allows them to be effective leaders. They're
able to gain the confidence of and inspire their followers.
Research on charismatic
leaders has identified characteristics that we can all acquire and behaviors
that we can all perform. Charismatic leaders (a) have an ambitious
vision of what the group they lead can achieve, (b) are confident that
the group can achieve the vision, (c) are enthusiastic about the vision,
and (d) are able to convey the vision to others. People follow charismatic
leaders when they are excited and confident about the leader's vision.
Practicing This Management
Skill
Managing
the Climate
· Recognize and reward employee creativity
· Encourage risk taking
· Promote collaboration, not selfish competitiveness
· Allocate resources for experimentation--especially time
· Assign projects to teams with diverse members
· Redesign jobs to make them more interesting
Managing Relationships
· Ask for employees' input in decision making
· Give informational--not critical--feedback on original ideas
· Build
trust
· Listen
effectively
· Communicate
supportively
Leading Charismatically
· Have an ambitious vision for the group you're leading
· Clearly communicate that vision
· Be confident in yourself, the vision and your staff
· Be dynamic and enthusiastic
Sources
Amabile, T. M., Conti, R.,
Coon, H., Lazenby, J., & Herron, M. (1996). Assessing the
work environment for creativity. Academy of Management Journal,
39(5): 1154-1184.
Conger, J. A. & Kanungo,
R. N. (1988). Charismatic leadership. San Francisco:
Jossey-Bass.
Milliken, F. J., & Martins,
L. L. (1996). Searching for common threads: Understanding the
multiple effects of diversity in organizational groups. Academy
of Management Review, 21(2): 402-433.
Monge, P. R., Cozzens, M.
D., & Contractor, N. S. (1992). Communication and motivational
predictors of the dynamics of organizational innovation. Organizational
Science, 3: 250-274.
Oldham, G. R., & Cummings,
A. (1996). Employee creativity: Personal and contextual factors.
Academy
of Management Journal, 39(3): 607-634.
Redmond, M. R., Mumford,
M. D., & Teach, R. (1993). Putting creativity to work:
Effects of leader behavior on subordinate creativity. Organizational
Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 55(1): 120-151.
Schein, E. H. (1984).
Coming to a new awareness of organizational culture. Sloan Management
Review, Winter, pp. 3-16.
Shalley, C. E. (1991).
Effects of productivity goals, creativity goals, and personal discretion
on individual creativity. Journal of Applied Psychology, 76:
179-185.
Von Oech, R. (1983).
A whack on the side of the head: How to unlock your mind for innovation.
New York: Warner Books.
Williams, S. D. (2001).
Increasing employees' creativity by training their managers. Industrial
and Commercial Training, 33(2): 63-68.
About the Photo
Inventor Bao-Shen
demonstrates his 3D-Yoropen at the 30th International Inventions Show in
Geneva, Switzerland, on May 1, 2002. The pen allows the writer to
see what is being written from any angle, prevents fingers from pointing
down, and writes from different positions. The photo was e-mailed
to me from Yahoo! News (news.yahoo.com) on May 11, 2002.
About the Newsletter
and Subscriptions
The LeaderLetter
is written by Dr. Scott Williams, Department of Management, Raj
Soin College of Business, Wright State University, Dayton, Ohio.
It is a supplement to my MBA 751 - Managing People in Organizations class.
It is intended to reinforce the course concepts and maintain communication
among my former MBA 751 students, but anyone is welcome to subscribe.
In addition, subscribers are welcome to forward this newsletter to anyone
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E-mail Your Comments
Whether you are one of my
former students or not, I invite you to share any insights or concerns
you have regarding the topic of this newsletter or any other topic relating
to management skills. Please e-mail
them to me. Our interactions have been invaluable. Let's keep
the conversation going.
Good, Clean
Joke (or, at least a clean one)
A major research institution
has recently announced the discovery of the heaviest element yet known
to science. This new element has been tentatively named "Managerium"
(Latin for Manager). Managerium has 1 neutron, 12 assistant
neutrons, 75 deputy neutrons, and 111 assistant deputy neutrons, giving
it an atomic mass of 312. These 312 particles are held together by a force
called morons, which are surrounded by vast quantities of lepton-like particles
called peons.
Since Managerium has no
electrons, it is inert. However, it can be detected as it impedes
every reaction with which it comes into contact. A minute amount of Managerium
causes one reaction to take over 4 days to complete when it would normally
take less than a second. Managerium has a normal half-life of 3 years;
it does not decay but instead undergoes a reorganization in which a portion
of the assistant neutrons and deputy neutrons exchange places. In
fact, Managerium's mass will actually increase over time, since each reorganization
causes some morons to become neutrons, forming isodopes. This characteristic
of moron-promotion leads some scientists to speculate that Managerium is
formed whenever a large quantity of morons become densely concentrated
which seems to create a Managerium. Initially, this hypothetical
quantity is referred to as "Critical Morass." You will know it when
you see it.