management of creativity

Very few people are directly against creativity. There are many who believe that creativity just happens and so you wait for it to happen.

There are many who believe that some people have the 'talent' of creativity, and that to get creativity you just have to employ and nurture creative people.

There are some who believe that anything that can be achieved by creativity can equally be achieved by logic.

There are many who believe that creativity can distract from solid and proven operations. There are many who believe that creativity is risky and expensive, and that it is best to let others take the risk.

All these are common and reasonable points of view. For example, every valuable creative idea is always logical in hindsight: so those who do not understand patterning systems assume that what is logical in hindsight must be equally logical in foresight.

Because most organisations do very little about creativity, it is obvious that creativity in such organisations must come from those who are naturally motivated to be creative.

OPPOSING BELIEFS
What are the opposing beliefs?

1. That creativity is becoming an essential ingredient in business, because competence, information and technology are becoming commodities available to everyone. Value creation is becoming central, and that demands creativity.

2. That creativity is a mental skill that can be learned and developed by everyone. Some people will be better at this skill than others.

3. That creative techniques are based on an understanding of the human brain as a self-organising information system with a need for 'lateral thinking'.

4. That traditional brainstorming and 'liberation' creativity provide a very weak and inadequate approach to the generation of new ideas.

5. That being different for the sake of being different (crazitivity) is not the same as creativity.

Because creativity is seen as a 'good thing' and because everyone is involved, very little actually gets done. What is everyone's business very quickly becomes no one's business. Talking about creativity and claiming to be creative are not difficult. Acknowledging the occasional idea is also not difficult. Organising creativity as a powerful resource, however, is very much harder.

There is a need to move from the attitude 'creativity just happens' to 'creativity can be made to happen'. When Carole Ferguson (one of my certified trainers) set up 130 workshops one afternoon for ISCOR (steel) in South Africa, 21,000 ideas were made to happen. Sitting and waiting for 21,000 ideas might have taken rather a long time.

TWO STEPS
The following steps may seem to be in the reverse order, but there is a reason for this.

1. Dealing with new ideas and creative ideas that have arisen.

2. Making new ideas happen.

The reason for this reverse order is that even those organisations which still believe that creativity 'just happens' need some way of getting the maximum value out of the ideas that just happen. If creativity is an important resource, then it needs important attention.

WHOSE BUSINESS IS IT?
Whose business is it to look after creativity?

The chief executive and senior management need to lead the culture and to show that creativity is an 'expectation'. This is because, if creativity is not an expectation, then it is a risk and no one will do it.

The research department, the marketing department and corporate strategy are all users of creativity and concept development for their own purposes.

Everyone uses finance, too, but that makes it even more necessary to have a central finance department which controls and consolidates what is going on. Because everyone is, or should be, using creativity, that does not mean that enough is being done. On the contrary, It means that there is a need to have some nominated champion who takes on the responsibility of looking after creative effort.

I am not particularly in favour of setting up a creative department as such. Such a department would be valuable, but there would always be the risk that everyone else would consider 'creativity' to be the business of that department and therefore would not bother to be creative themselves.

'PRODUCT CHAMPIONS'
Consumer product corporations often have 'product champions'. This is a nominated person who puts energy into that product, who fights for resources, who makes connections and liaisons and who directly looks after that product.

What creativity in an organisation requires is a 'Process Champion' who will do for creativity what a product champion does for a product. So there is a need to define this new role, this nominated champion.

The proposed position is that of CICO: Chief Innovation and Creativity Officer.

THE ROLE OF THE CICO
The first duty of the CICO is to exist and to exist visibly. Everyone should know that there is such an 'officer'.

The second duty of the CICO is to establish and foster connections and communication channels. These may be formal and informal. The CICO must be able to communicate at all levels from shop-floor to boardroom. People skills and communication skills are more important than creative skills.

The third duty of the CICO is to act as liaison between those who have ideas and those who can do something (even just the next step) about them.

The fourth duty of the CICO is to have energy and time. Many people who would otherwise be well qualified by motivation and skill to be CICOs would simply not be able to give it the time needed.

The fifth duty of the CICO is to organise formal training in lateral thinking methods (this can be arranged through the APTT organisation). There can be training of in-house trainers and also training of facilitators.

The sixth duty of the CICO is to set up structures and channels for the production, management and implementation of new ideas. This would need to be done in cooperation with research, marketing, production and other relevant departments in the organisation.

The seventh duty of the CICO is to report from time to time on the existence and utilisation of the 'creative resource' within an organisation.

The eighth duty of the CICO is to encourage 'creative champions' in all areas.

The ninth duty of the CICO is to organise 'creative hit-lists' of areas that need new thinking.

The tenth duty of the CICO is to refine and improve the effectiveness of the role of CICO.

THE CHARACTERISTICS OF THE CICO
What characteristics should the CICO have? I shall deal with these more fully in the next article. In general, the person must have high energy and high stamina, and should be a good organiser and improviser. There is a great need for people and communication skills.

The CICO does not have to be highly creative and should not be the most creative person in an organisation. Creative people are too busy being creative and are sometimes critical of the creativity of others.

REGISTER
As the role of CICO becomes better defined and implemented, I hope to establish a register of CICOs so that they can communicate with each other and share experiences. For example, CICOs would have their own conference room on my web site.

WEBSITE
The address of the web site is http://www.edwdebono.com/