Building the creative organization

Although “creativity” may be difficult to define, a close look at how companies like DuPont, The Body Shop, and Airco operate gives the word

a very tangible-and profitable-meaning.

Building the Creative Organization

LISA K. GUNDRY

CHARLES

C onsider this scenario: You are a member of a lean and competent organization,

but your future is uncertain. Your competi- tors are just as lean and competent as you, and your cost-effectiveness is no longer a unique advantage. Moreover, your company is demanding that you think about organizational problems and business issues in new ways. Management is constantly asking you, “What new products and services can we design? How can we position our products and services? How can we provide added value? What new markets and market segments might there be?”

This situation is not unusual. In fact, as companies look for strategies to confront the increasingly competitive global environment, they are demanding a new set of competencies and behaviors from employees. Along with up-to-date technical prowess, individuals must demonstrate skills in teamwork, innovation, and cross-disciplinary communication. Under- lying these skills is the ability to apply creativity to organizational problems and situations.

To respond effectively to turbulent external forces, companies need employees ca- pable of generating new ideas. Further, for a company to be on the technological “cutting edge,” employees need to invent new ways

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JILL R. KICKIJL

w. PRATHER

of developing and producing goods, services, and information. Thus, the competen- ties and behaviors that are becoming essen- tial to organizational competitiveness and effectiveness center on the creative process: how to break with tradition and look at (and eventually do) things in a different way.

NAILING JELL0 TO THE WALL: MULTIPLE PERSPECTIVES ON CREATIVITY

The term cre&ivity, used in a workplace context, has many definitions and interpretations. Researchers, instructors, and consultants often explain it by referring to one or more of a variety of factors, including attributes, conceptual skills, behaviors, abilities, technologies, empowerment, the process of experience, or external influences. This lack of consensus is really not surprising; perhaps attempts to reach consensus are at odds with the very no- tion of creativity. However, if organizations want to encourage creativity, they must ex- plore the range of identifying factors. This will permit managers to focus on the manifesta- tions of creativity they believe are appropriate to their specific problems or situations.

We examine creativity here by grouping the various multiple interpretations into four categories: attributes, conceptual skills, behaviors, and processes. Exhibit 1, page 27, supplements this discussion by providing a typology of the four perspectives.

The Attribute Theory The attribute theory of creativity holds that specific characteristics and traits predispose an individual to be perceived as “creative.” Proponents of this theory believe that most creative people have common attributes, such as openness, independence, autonomy, intu- itiveness, and spontaneity. Michael Ray maintains that creativity is more dependent on the individual than on the organization and its conditions, arguing that individual creativity must exist before a company can hope to be creative. Consider that at the DuPont Com- pany, some employees participate in creativity training sessions and become internal consultants, using their talents and skills to help business units other than the one to which they are assigned. This strategy assumes that certain individuals are motivated to learn, then share and apply this learning to work.

One caveat regarding the attribute theory of creativity: As Mark Patton of Bell South Ser- vice Corporation notes, organizations evaluating managerial candidates typically test logical, analytical, and organizational skills, among others, which rely on left-brain competencies. Creative people, however, tend to be right-brain dominant, which makes them skilled in intuition and imagination. Thus, organizations that value creativity need to ex- pand their traditional recruitment and assess- ment inventories to measure right-brain skills.

The Conceptual-Skills Theory Writers and researchers who describe creativity as a set of conceptual skills often focus on cognition, and, as Larry Boone and A. Thomas Hollingsworth have stated, on the ways that individuals reassemble old learning to examine assumptions and form new paradigms. To these researchers, solving problems through

unconventional modes of thinking, as well as visualizing thoughts or whole models and then modifying them, are among the compo- nents of creative thought. David M. Campbell, a painter and professor of art who now conducts executive development seminars, argues that by combining the factual, scientific findings of our senses with a more intuitive, visual perspective, we are more likely to see intangible relationships and patterns.

At DuPont, the encouragement of creativity takes many forms, ranging from con- versations to formal training programs. The simplest form is comments or short discussions made during meetings called for another purpose. For these discussions to be effec- tive, at least one group member must be skilled in creative thinking techniques, and the group’s leader or leaders must value, support, and encourage the application of creative thinking.

A more structured form is the “brown bag lunch,” in which trained facilitators discuss and practice creative thinking techniques while enjoying lunch with volunteer participants. And to build more powerful skills among interested employees, management also sponsors formal programs lasting from one to five days. During these sessions, participants build sufficient skill to lead their peers and others whenever there’s a need to think unconventionally. Their mental “tool boxes” are enhanced and their conceptual skills improved.

The Behavioral Theory The behavioral view of creativity centers on the actions and activities that bring something new into being. Teresa Amabile, in her semi- nal book The Social Psychology of Creativity, suggests that a product or outcome is creative to the extent that it signifies a novel and useful behavioral response to a problem or situation. Amabile believes that creative tasks are heuristic in nature, rather than algorithmic, meaning that there is typically no clear way to solve the given problem, so the problem-solver must learn a new path that will lead to a solution. She further contends that most creative behaviors are based on problem discovery.

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Lisa Gundry is assistant professor of management in the Charles H. Kellstadt Graduate School of Business at DePaul University, where she teaches courses in entrepreneurship, organization theory, and creativity in organizations. Prior to joining DePaul, she was a research analyst for a private sector research institute and a health care organization. Her research interests include organizational culture, entrepreneurial management, growth of women-oriented enterprises, and creativity and innovation in organizations. She has written for such journals as Human Relations and IEEE Transactions on Engi- neering Management, and she consults with public and private organizations on issues such as small business development and managing change. She received her doctor- ate from Northwestern University in organization theory.

The behavioral perspective is probably the most familiar to managers, since behaviors are more easily observable and recognizable than the characteristics of creativity cited in the other theories. In addition, the behavioral view implies the need to reinforce desired creative actions. Managers can use expectations and rewards to let employees know which behaviors are desirable and to communicate the company’s underlying views on creativity.

The Process Theory The process theory holds that creativity is a highly complex, multifaceted phenomenon that relies on individual talents, skills, and actions, as well as organizational conditions. The combination of these factors, according to this theory, will allow something new to be brought into existence. John Kao offers the view that creativity is a result of the interplay among the person, the task, and the organizational context, and each of these elements can be managed. Managing the person, he says, means understanding his or her unique talent and relationship with the manager; managing the task involves framing or structuring the problem and alternating between flexible and rigid styles of control; and managing the organizational context means engineering the organization’s design, communications, phys- ical environment, and social relations.

Combining these Perspectives Each of these perspectives considers creativity to be dependent on one or more variables of influence. Together, they describe all the possible causes of creative performance. Combining these viewpoints, we can see that an individual who has some creative attributes, along with specific skills, may become predisposed to perform creatively by organizational processes that support such behaviors. In turn, the behaviors and actions themselves may result in the fine- tuning of creativity skills, or even in the mastery of new skills that may eventually produce even higher levels of creative performance.

Consider, for example, an individual with a strong need for independence and autono-

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my, who has honed her innovation and team- building skills. Assume that this person is sup- ported by an organizational structure that per- mits boundary-crossing activities, so that people from different departments, profes- sions, or backgrounds interact. Assume further that the company culture tolerates risk-taking and experimentation. This individual is likely to behave creatively and produce outcomes of value to herself and the organization. If her behaviors are rewarded, she will receive the clear message that the organization values creativity, and she wiIl be likely to repeat her creative behavior in the future.

Exhibit 2 illustrates the interactions between and among the variables that influence creative behavior.

CULTURAL MECHANISMS FOR ENHANCING ORGANIZATIONAL CREATIVITY

For employees of an organization or work team to be creative, they must share and exhibit a set of creativity-enhancing values, norms, and behaviors, and these must be the mainstay of the organization’s culture. Below, we examine three companies with cultures that encourage creativity: The Body Shop, Air- co Industrial Gases, and DuPont.

The Body Shop: Fostering a “Benevolent Anarchy”

Anita Roddick, managing director and founder of The Body Shop, personifies the creative spirit that has driven her organization to extraordinary growth and raised consumer consciousness in an industry dominated by large, powerful corporations. Founded in 1976 in Littlehampton, England, The Body Shop has developed more than 400 personal-care products sold in 600 retail outlets worldwide. Product ingredients are natural, time tested, and produced around the globe; many are manufactured by indigenous groups of people who participate in The Body Shop’s numerous trading projects.

Roddick characterizes her organization’s

Char/es (“Charlie’~ Rather earned his B.S. in chemistry (minor in music) from Belmont Abbey College (NC), his M.S. in organic chemistry, and his Ph.D. in biochemistry from North Carolina State University. He joined DuPont as research chemist in ‘Tyvek” non-woven mate- rials and served some eighteen years in R&D management. His career at DuPont included assignments at Carothers Laboratory (nylon), Pioneering Laboratory (basic research), “Dacron” Research Laboratory, Spruance Re- search Laboratory (“Tyvek”), and Benger Re- search Laboratory (“Lycra”). He was appointed manager of the DuPont Center for Creativity & Innovation upon its formation in January 1991. To support his commitment to helping research organizations become more creative, he sought training from such experts as Ed- ward deBono, Michael Kirton, Scott Isaksen, and Michael Gelb. Subsequently, he authored his own workshop in creativity, which he presented more than sixty times in six foreign countries and in the U.S. while still at DuPont.

Charlie retired from DuPont in 1993 to form his own consulting company, CW Prather Associates. His book on creative problem solving, SuperPfob/ems/Superfrof- if, will be published in 1994.

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Jill R. R&u/ is a graduate student in social and organizational psychology at Northern Illinois University. She received her M.B.A. from the Charles H. Kellstadt Graduate School of Business at DePaul University, with a concentration in human resource management. She is currently an instructor in human resource management at DePaul. She is co-owner of Kickware, an educational soft- ware services and managerial consulting company. Her research interests include in- trapreneurship and innovation, intergroup dynamics, and organizational behavior. She holds a B.B.A. in marketing management from the College of St. Francis.

culture as “benevolent anarchism,” meaning that everyone has been encouraged “to ques- tion what they were doing and how they were doing it in the hope of finding better working methods.” As a leader, she says she always lis- tens to employees’ ideas and suggestions. In her recent book, Body and Soul (Crown, 1991), Roddick claims there is a strong and direct link between the firm’s core values and its success. What are The Body Shop’s values? “To have fun, put love where our labor is, and go in the opposite direction to everyone else.”

Even the facility that houses the corporate headquarters teems with irreverence. Staffers describe it as a little like Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, with its green pagoda, stuffed whimsical sculptures, Seurat paint- ings, and casual surroundings. No wonder Roddick uses a “playground” image to describe her company.

Roddick says her organization cultivates creativity most strongly through education. Franchisees and store managers participate in extensive training at corporate headquarters in England, while managers are taught in training sessions to unleash the passions of their staff. To support this training effort, The Body Shop launches its search for creative staffers during the recruitment process. Applicants are asked such unconventional questions as, “Who is your hero or heroine. 7” “What was the last film you saw? and “Describe your education as it pertains to the ‘University of Life.“’

At a recent week-long training course, Karen Bowman, store manager of a Body Shop franchise in Northbrook, IIl., attended a session entitled “Language and Behavioral Profile,” where trainees learned how language and behavior can help them identify personality and other characteristics of individuals. For example, based on their observation of verbal and nonverbal signals, staffers can determine if people (e.g., employees, customers, or suppli- ers) are motivated by rewards or fear. Bowman further described semi-monthly training meetings at the store level designed to teach the staff about new products and to share ideas. Ideas generated at these meetings go beyond the traditional product and customer discussions and may include, for example, new community

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EXHIBIT 1 TYPOLOGY OF ORGANIZATIONAL CREATIVITY

THEATTRIBUTEPERSPECTIVE novel, useful, and predictable. It is a means of test- “Creative persons are curious, self-confident, opti- ing hidden assumptions and thereby opening one- mistic, flexible, visionary, and have a sense of hu- self or one’s organization to needed changes.“ mor.” -Velthouse, 1990 -Boone and Hollingsworth, 1990

“Personality and psychological preferences.” -Kao, 1991

“Openness to experience, observance, tolerance of ambiguity, independent, needing autonomy, self- reliance, willingness to take calculated risks, and persistence.” -Roe, 1963

“Sensitivity to problems, fluency, flexibility, originality, responsiveness to feelings, motivation, freedom from the fear of failure.” -Raudsepp, 1983

“The ability in a choice situation to modify self-im- posed constraints... to select or produce courses of action or produce outcomes that [an individual] would not otherwise select or produce, and are more efficient or valuable to [that individual] than he would otherwise have chosen.” -Ackoff and Vergara, 1981

“The act of bringing into existence something which did not exist before.” -Boone and Hollingsworth, 1990

THECONCEPTUAL-SKILLSPERSPECTIVE “The act of awakening new thoughts, of rearrang- ing old learning, and of examining assumptions to form new theories, new paradigms, and new aware- ness.” -Boone and Hollingsworth, 1990

“A matter of deciding how to apply discretionary energy to work.” -Miller, 1987

“A set of skills for visualizing the context or the ‘why’ of critical business issues.. .organizing information into patterns that make sense of our world.” -Campbell, 1989

“Activity, innovation, independence, and responsibility. [Creative individuals are] invested, involved, committed, and persistent. They work hard, cope with adversity, and perform- they identify and ex- plore alternatives.” -Velthouse, 1990

“A novel and appropriate, useful, correct, or valuable response to the task at hand, and the task is heuristic rather than algorithmic.” -Amabile, 1983

“Originality of thought and execution.. .in a business context it may be defined operationally as the generation of ideas that result in an increase in effi- ciency or effectiveness.” -Sherman, 1991

“Innovation, invention, and imagination center on a person’s ability to start with a blank sheet of paper and conceive the elements necessary to satisfy the requirements of a given tool, process, or product.” -Floyd, 1989

THEPROCESSPERSPECTIVE “The process of uncovering, selecting, reshuffling, and synthesizing one‘s inventory of facts, ideas, and skills.” - Boone and Hollingsworth, 1990

“. . .manifest through innovation, entrepreneurship, inventive decision-making and original thinking.” -von Gundy, 1984

“The media are capital, people, markets, and ideas. Take these and work with them and reorganize them in new and different ways.. .“ -Galagan, 1989

THEBEHAVIORALPERSPECTIVE “Any form of action that leads to results that are

“The interrelationship of three elements: person, task, and organization.” -Kao, 1991

projects to get involved in. One of The Body Shop’s core values is

corporate responsibility, and store managers take this mandate very seriously. Bowman described a recent project in which one store’s employees collected toys that had been dis-

carded by several toy and department stores in the mall, and donated these to children’s organizations and hospitals. She also described the “Who’s Who” system in her store, which identifies each staffer’s responsibility for different store projects. One employee al-

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ways holds the coveted position of Customer Care Coordinator.

The Body Shop’s employees constantly ask themselves and one another, “How well did we do today?“ and “What else can we do?” If they want to speak to someone at the corporate headquarters, they are welcome to contact the department known as DODGI (Department of Damned Good Ideas). Cre- ativity in The Body Shop is also encouraged through organizational folklore. For example, each store is considered a “waterwell” to which customers come and gather information, much as members of rural and tribal communities travel to a central locale to meet.

Importing Entrepreneurial Creativity Into the Company Culture

Roddick, like many entrepreneurs, has effectively combined work and play in her organization-a good strategy, according to Jo- line Godfrey, founder and former owner of Odysseum, Inc., a spinoff of Polaroid Corpo- ration. In her book Our Wildest Dreams: Worn- en Entvepveneurs Making Money, Having Fun, Doing Good (HarperCollins, 1992), Godfrey argues that play is imperative in business, describing it as “the door to surprise, possi- bility, invention and breakthroughs, team cohesion and energy.”

Godfrey correctly maintains that traditional organizational models view work and play as diametrically opposed, due to the col- lective fear that employee “bursts of spontaneity” will feed into open rebellion against management-that a “little play will turn a well-organized workplace into a state of chaos.” She explains that these fears are typically proven groundless:

The secret to effectively managing work and play and to creating a new work ethic and a healthy work environment is not simplistic opposition; it is balance. All work and no play doesn’t just make Jill and Jack dull, it kills the potential of discovery, mastery, and openness to change and flexibility, and it hinders innovation and invention.

Creativity is often the only unlimited resource for entrepreneurs like Godfrey and Rod- dick, and it is instilled into the culture of many new, growing businesses by a founder who is determined to play and experiment. The desire to fine tune, shape, and exponentially improve an idea through fun is exemplified in entrepreneurial firms in a variety of ways:

With food: Social and cultural anthropol- ogists note that using food as a ritual is one way to transmit traditions and values to group members. Godfrey says she often pro- vided food to lure members of Polaroid to late-night brainstorming sessions when she was launching Odysseum, Inc.

With videos and films: Viewing excerpts from the film “The Dead Poet’s Society” brings a groundswell of reaction from business students in our Entrepreneurship and Organizational Behavior courses, as they discuss what it means to be (or be mentored or influenced by) a creative individual in a sti- fling environment in which initiative is not just devalued, but punished.

Costume and dress: The Body Shop’s staffers wear “uniforms”-T-shirts proclaim- ing messages in support of their store’s community campaigns. One prominent woman entrepreneur, Ida Bialik, always dresses in yellow and black at professional meetings or presentations to symbolize her firm’s product: a regional yellow-pages directory of women-owned businesses.

These aspects of company culture become tangible or intangible symbols of founders’ and managers’ expectations of employees, and must be regularly used and talked about if they are to effectively spur creativity.

Airco Industrial Gases: Technology Allied with Creativity

The British Oxygen Group (BOC) is a leading, successful British corporation whose development of technology and skilled management team have enabled it to compete effectively in a variety of businesses worldwide, ranging from electronics to environmental clean-up; from pharmaceuticals to sophisticated hospital

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EXHIBIT 2 INFLUENCESONCREATIVEBEHAVIORINORGANIZATIONS

INDIVIDUAL ATTRIBUTES

Autonomy, Risk- _ 1

taking, Originality, 7

Openness, Etc. ORGANIZATIONAL PROCESSES

Tolerance for Failure, ientation, Slack: Structure and

BEHAVIOR I,.I”-“,..c-*.

:,_ 2 Actions or outcomes Business results:

:, leading to new work ,, New Products,

methods and Services, Processes, Q... ;hips Revenues

equipment; and from coating for most of the world’s high-performance glass to the distribu- tion of food, clothes, and other consumables.

With such diverse operations, the BOC Group is committed to continuously developing and introducing new products and processes to enhance its competitive advantage. This commitment is reflected in its steadily rising research and development budget, which was 81.2 million British pounds in 1992, an increase of 27 percent over 1991. It employs more than 1,500 scien- tists, engineers, and technicians who have developed and demonstrated new and useful ideas, and who have filed applications for 120 original patents.

One of BOC’s subsidiaries is Airco Indus- trial Gases, a premier supplier of gas products and services headquartered in Lisle, Ill. Al- though the term “creativity” is not explicitly used in Airco’s vision statement, it is apparent in the organization, and results in the company’s high level of teamwork, innovation, and technology leadership. Employees throughout the company develop and process innovative ideas and concepts.

Airco stimulates this creativity through its total quality management program, using such brainstorming techniques as free-wheeling,

round robin, and nominal group procedure. Free-wheeling involves establishing a sponta- neous atmosphere that fosters creative notions for finding or solving a particular problem. Us- ing free-wheeling, participants continually build upon one another’s ideas. The round- robin technique provides each participant with an equal opportunity to express and convey his or her ideas, so that no one person domi- nates the session. Finally, the nominal group procedure calls for each participant to secretly write a list of general problem areas or potential solutions to a problem. Because this approach provides anonymity, it allows sensitive topics to surface. Further, while the other two techniques would prove too unwieldy if large numbers of employees participated, the nominal group procedure can be used with very large groups.

Recently, a group of Airco’s employees gathered in Omaha, Nebraska, to investi- gate new ideas regarding modular freezer equipment. The group consisted of engineering managers, engineers, designers, fabrication managers, and technicians; customers were also represented. The company used the round-robin technique to encourage all ideas and input, and to avoid curtail- ing the creative process. All ideas were writ-

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EXHIBIT 3 THREE ARENAS OF THE CREATIVE ORGANIZATION

ten out, and teams were selected to evaluate the potential benefits of each. Later, the en- tire group reconvened to discuss the ramifi- cations of each new idea and recommend a set of changes, which were subsequently im- plemented. Another round-robin meeting was held some time later so the company could continue to meet its demands and those of its customers.

Also to encourage new ideas, Airco has applied and enlarged the rules of brainstorming (first enunciated by Alex Osborne) in the following ways:

Rule No. 1: Encourage “wild“ ideas: The company believes “there is no bad idea, any idea is a good idea and can be useful to the company.”

Rule No. 2: “Hitchhike” on ideas: The company encourages employees to build upon the ideas of others, thus generating

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more specific methods of handling problems.

Rule No. 3: Do not evaluate ideas: By maintaining that each individual can contribute ideas, the company increases the chance for multiple perspectives.

Rule No. 4: Strive for quantity of ideas: The company believes that the greater the number of ideas there are, the more likely that the organization will identify problem areas and solutions.

Airco uses another method to encourage creativity: the “Ishikawa” (fishbone) dia- gram, also known as the cause and effect di- agram. This method allows organizations to arrange the possible causes of a problem in a logical order, which serves as a guide for subsequent discussion on actions taken and results achieved. Finally, Airco also uses flow chart diagrams, which help the organization (1) visualize which operations in the work

process are independent, (2) identify oppor- tunities for data collection, and (3) more easily observe stratification points, or points in the work process where variation exists in the way that employees are solving a problem or implementing an idea.

All of these creative methods and techniques allow Airco to excel in developing new technologies to update its customers’ processes and equipment. For example, one recently installed cryogenic novelty ice cream freezing system-the largest of its kind in the world- is able to run for more than two weeks without shutdown and cleanup. This system owes much of its success to excellent customer-supplier working relationships developed over the years. Meeting the specific needs of customers and open sharing of ideas were keys to its acceptance.

Airco has developed its own liquid nitro- gen immersion freezer and post-cooling sys- tems, currently regarded as the most efficient in the marketplace as well as the easiest to clean. Used in poultry processing, the system increases production rates by 20 to 30 percent,

spiral to the industry some twenty-five to thirty years ago and continues to lead with technical improvements, such as menu-driven control screens, improved methods of con- struction that result in less heat leakage, and variable internal circulating fan speeds that allow for different product sizes and weights.

Building upon time-proven brainstorming approaches, Airco has achieved impres- sive business results. Using such approaches is an important first step in becoming a creative organization. Other organizations, however, have gone one step beyond, by breaking traditional thinking patterns, or thinking “out of the box.” One such company is DuPont.

The Case of DuPont: Creativity as Organizational Mindset Creativity at DuPont does not mean simply using a certain technique or set of methods to approach problems; rather, it refers to an organizational philosophy that calls for looking at the world of workin a completely new way.

Established in 1802, DuPont’s first prod-

Creativity at DuPont.. . refers to an organiza- tionalphilosophy that calls for looking at the world of work in a completely new way.

giving the processor an exceptionally low sys- tems cost. The high-quality IQF (individual quick frozen) capability is unsurpassed for dairy products and other items where product integrity and texture are sensitive issues.

Airco has continued to develop existing product lines to allow its customers more flexibility for expansion without sinking large amounts of capital into plant freezing capaci- ty expansions. The new Airco C02/‘LN2 modular tunnel has been one of the most successful additions to the cryogenic food business in recent times. Airco introduced the cryogenic

uct was black powder. Without an innovative spirit-an ongoing search for the new and unexpected-the company may well have gone the way of the dinosaur. Today, with 125,000 employees worldwide, DuPont’s manufacture of black powder is ancient history. Rather, the company is known for such innovations as the Kevlar aramid fiber (used in such diverse applications as bullet-proof vests and replace- ment for steel cord in tires) and Nomex, a heat-resistant nylon fiber used in protective clothing for fire fighters and NASA space suits.

Another key example of DuPont’s innova-

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tions is Lycra, a fiber used in women’s hosiery, swimsuits, and exercise wear. By achieving breakthroughs in polymer chemistry, DuPont was able to create a fiber that was both liquid and solid at the same time. Lycra is enjoying enormous popularity because of the stretch and recovery properties it imparts to fabrics, which allows designers a level of freedom and flexibility never possible before.

In January 1991, DuPont demonstrated its commitment to encouraging creativity throughout the organization by establishing the Center for Creativity and Innovation. It was founded by Dr. David Tanner, technical director of DuPont’s Industrial Fibers Re- search & Development Group, who became known for leading his staff to embrace creative thinking. Tanner’s work produced precedent-setting results. In one instance, a problem in scaling up a product had eluded engineers for two years, and they were ready to give up. Dr. Jean Prideaux, one of the technical group managers in Tanner’s organization, set up a seminar for engineers on creative thinking techniques. One day later, the engineers had the solution.

Although the center is staffed by only three full-time employees, it has the support of ten facilitators-creativity-training “volunteers” who hold full-time DuPont jobs outside the center. In this way, DuPont conducts creativity training in-house. This has two important advan- tages: First, the company has fewer security concerns; and second, training costs are lower.

Top management support for the center is visible and continuous. A senior manager sponsors each creative problem-solving workshop and attends as a full participant, not just an observer. The company’s support for creativity training is expressed by Edgar Woolard, chairman: “We intend to provide hero status to those who show us how to get products to the marketplace more promptly and more creatively.”

Nurturing Novel Cognitions And Behaviors

Participants in the DuPont’s creative problem solving workshops absorb cultural norms that

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support the creative process. The Center for Creativity and Innovation has developed rules and guidelines for running workshops in which specific business or technical problems are addressed. These guidelines, which we propose must underlie creativity training in any organizational setting, are presented below:

1. The “client” (the senior manager or department sponsoring the workshop) must control those funds and other resources that will allow things to happen as a result of the workshop. Also, the client must be an active participant in the sessions. All too often, ideas are generated in creativity sessions but no action is taken; DuPont’s approach, however, ensures sponsorship of the workshop’s outcomes.

2. The workshop must include managers and a core group of five to seven employees who are familiar with the technology under discussion and who feel that solving the problem is vitally important. The implication is that if the problem matters to participants, they will be vested in the solution.

3. The workshop must include one or more individuals who are competent but not knowledgeable about the problem under discussion. The company believes that these people, known as “wild cards,” can bring a fresh perspective to the issue. The wild cards are typically employees from outside the business unit attending the workshop. This rule brings to mind the policy of Edwin Land of Polaroid, who hired only liberal arts graduates, believing they would bring the most creative perspective to problems.

Before any workshop takes place, participants attend a planning meeting, during which they select the problem to be solved. Several criteria must be met:

1. The problem must be important. 2. The problem must be auditable, mea-

surable, and quantitative, so progress can be measured and the client will know when SUC-

cess has been achieved. 3. The client must be personally commit-

ted to finding a solution. 4. The problem must have no easy, obvi-

ous, or preconceived “right” answer. During one workshop at DuPont, a

group of laboratory directors took on a problem related to cost reduction, fully convinced that the problem met all four criteria. After spending one-third of the workshop defining the problem, however, the participants instantly thought of several solutions. Since the problem no longer met the fourth criteri- on, the process was stopped. With two- thirds of the allotted time saved, the directors concluded the workshop had been a success: They had found a way to reduce costs in much less time than they expected to spend, simply by taking a disciplined approach to defining their problems.

From Convergence to Divergence

DuPont recognizes that for creative thoughts and behaviors to emerge, employees must abandon traditional, convergent modes of viewing problems. Convergent thinking

ganizations. Such statements are intended to discredit the idea or, perhaps more damag- ing, the idea generator. Paradoxically, it is often the most competent, most technically as- tute individuals who are the first to reject an idea, unaware that they are engaging in convergent thinking or behavior.

However, when divergent thinking- that is, thinking that will result in new ideas- is required, employees must temporarily suspend their knowledge, experience, and expertise. They must learn to ask, “What‘s right about this idea?” rather than hunting for what is wrong with it. The catch: The better an employee is at what he or she does, the harder divergent thinking will be.

In DuPont’s Richmond, Va. plant, a problem arose when a vacuum hose designed to carry away water and air continually collapsed. DuPont engineers, together with the hose manufacturer, tried numerous solutions, but none worked. Finally, one ma- chine operator at the plant, who had recently attended a creative thinking workshop, came up with a new idea. The workshop

When divergent thinking.. . is required, employees must temporarily suspend their knowledge, experience, and expertise. Z5ey must learn to ask, “What’s right about this idea?”

tends to occur when an idea is first presented to the data bank in an individual’s mind. The individual typically responds by asking, “Does it fit?” (That is, is it consistent with the individual’s experiences and other, preconceived ideas?) If it doesn’t fit, the individual will generally label it a “bad idea” and men- tally throw it away.

Convergent thinking leads to such “killer phrases” as “It’ll never work here” or “We tried that before,” which abound in or-

had taught him to pay attention to dreams, and to instruct his subconscious mind to work on problems (since ideas tend to form during the time that individuals move from sleep to waking). One morning he awoke thinking of a child’s “Slinky” spring toy. He devised a spring similar to this toy, and placed it in the hose- and the wall stopped collapsing. Subsequently, this spring became part of the standard operat- ing procedure.

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EXHIBIT 4 DIMENSIONS OF THE CREATIVE ORGANIZATION’S ENVIRONMENT

Challenge: The degree to which employees are involved in daily operations, and the degree of “stretch” required.

Freedom: The degree to which individuals are given latitude in defining and executing their own work. Dynamism: The degree to which the organization is active. Employees may describe the pace as “full speed” or “breakneck.”

Trust and Openness: The degree of emotional safety that employees experience in their working relationships. When there is high trust, new ideas surface easily. Idea Time: The amount of time employees use to develop new ideas and new possibilities.

Playfulness and Humor: The degree to which

DIMENSIONS OF THE CREATIVE ORGANIZATION’S ENVIRONMENT

The context in which employees and groups operate greatly influences the degree to which creative thinking and behaviors flourish. Even in a company that devotes significant resources to training employees in creativity and encouraging creative behaviors, innovation is unlikely unless the organization’s environment enables and supports implementation of employee ideas. Exhibit 3 depicts the interre- lationships among (1) education in creative thinking techniques and creative problem solving processes, (2) the application of these techniques and processes, and (3) an organization’s internal environment.

Let’s look at each of these elements more closely. By education, we mean, first, instructing employees in the basics of creative thinking, along with the skills and techniques that help generate new, useful, and unexpected ideas. But education about techniques is not enough; people must also learn to use these techniques-and they learn this by practice, practice, and more practice. Well-designed classes that build creative thinking skills include liberal doses of practice with real problems, with

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there is spontaneity and employees are at ease. Jokes and laughter can be heard.

Conflicts: The degree to which employees en- gage in interpersonal conflicts.This is the only variable that is negatively correlated with the creative environment.

Idea Support: The way in which new ideas are received and treated.

Debates: The degree to which employees feel free to debate the issues actively, and the degree to which minority views are expressed readily and listened to with an open mind.

Risk-Taking: The degree to which employees feel free to make mistakes when trying out a new idea; the degree to which ambiguity is tolerated.

guidance from experienced facilitators. By application, we mean using the princi-

ples and techniques of creative thinking to address specific business problems and produce bottom-line results. Typically the application is performed by an intact work team. The team’s goal is to generate new, useful, and unexpected ideas or alternatives to address an important business problem or issue. In most organizations, the use of creative problem solving will keep the group focused, produce specific recommendations for action, and identify sponsors who agree to make things happen.

By the organization’s internal environment, we mean the organization’s position with regard to ten environmental dimensions. These dimensions, outlined in Exhibit 4, were first described by Goran Ekvall in Sweden, and are currently being validated in major U.S. corporations by Scott Isaksen at the Center for Studies in Creativity at Buffa- lo State College. The Climate for Innovation Questionnaire, a 60-item questionnaire developed by these researchers, can be used to quantify an organization’s performance and compare it with that of “innovative” and “stagnant” companies, so the organization

can determine where it needs improvement. We should add, however, that evaluating an organization’s environment but doing nothing to improve it may make it deteriorate further. Therefore, an organization should first commit to taking appropriate actions based on the questionnaire’s findings before it be- gins the measurement process.

Four Major Creativity Mistakes

When individuals or organizations attempt to think and behave creatively, they typically make one or more of the following mistakes:

1. DEFINING THE PROBLEM INCORRECTLY. If the problem is not defined well, employees will usually end up addressing the wrong issue. At DuPont, for example, one business unit reached a dead end after trying to reduce the costs of manufacturing a product. The employees later discovered, through creative thinking, that the real problem was how to improve profitability. Defining the problem in this way meant they had to find ways of in- creasing income in addition to reducing costs. Creative thinking in this example helped the business unit focus on the real issue.

2. JUDGING IDEAS TOO QUICKLY. Con- vergent thinking, as we discussed earlier, leads people to reject ideas that do not match their mindset. And anxiety at the thought that their ideas will be rejected often makes employees reluctant to offer suggestions in front of their managers. At DuPont, managers and employees learn to recognize “killer phrases” and confront them creatively. One manager was even videotaped as her subordinates good-natured- ly threw paper wads at her. Her “offense”: engaging in convergent thinking when divergence was called for.

3. STOPPING WITH THE FIRST GOOD IDEA. In most organizations, people are under pressure to solve problems quickly-so their first response is often to embrace the first good idea that emerges. However, while the first idea is the easiest to think up, it is not neces- sarily the best. Employees need to ask themselves, “What good ideas did I choose not to work on, since I selected this one?” If they

come up empty-handed, they know they stopped with the first good idea.

4. FAILING TO GET A SPONSOR. Nothing can happen in today’s organizations without support. Therefore, the right sponsor can often mean the difference between success and failure in implementing a new idea. It is much like taking a metaphorical train trip in the Old West: If you want to make the trip safely, bring on board the bandits who would otherwise dynamite the track. Similarly, creative problem solvers must ask themselves who the “bandits” are likely to be, and involve them early on in problem definition, idea generation, and action planning.

CONCLUSION

Think about the effect on an employee whose manager says, “Go ahead and give it a try.. .if it doesn’t work, I’ll take the heat.” This single statement would send a powerful message of support for new ideas. In our experience, employees never abuse this freedom, because they want to continue to work with this kind of leader. They may even become more careful as they try new ways of doing things.

In one notable case several years ago at DuPont, an hourly worker responded to an employee survey by writing, “For some twenty years, you have paid for my hands and you could have had my head for free, but you didn’t ask.” Clearly, at that time the organization had no process for soliciting employees’ input or ideas. This individual evidently felt his ideas would not make a difference-so why bother?

As our earlier model suggests, organizations that encourage employee creativity share certain characteristics: They capitalize on employee attributes, enhance employees’ conceptual skills, and cultivate an organizational culture that fosters experimentation and stimulates creative behavior. One implication of this model is that organizations must focus on processes to develop employees’ conceptual skills. When top management values thinking “out of the box,” organizational processes emerge that reward creative behaviors-and

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these behaviors lead to new work methods and techniques, and business innovations.

As organizations set out to become more creative, they must keep in mind that creativity is a journey, not a destination. It is best com- pared with pushing water uphill--one must always keep after it. This means senior managers must constantly support creativity through such actions as (1) rewarding both employees who come up with good ideas and their managers; (2) making inaction a taboo; (3) making finger-pointing a taboo; (4) rewarding learning even when things don’t work out; and (5) admitting when they make mistakes. In a boxing match, contenders get ahead by

keeping their opponent off-balance; in business, keeping the competition off-balance involves doing the unexpected-and to do the unexpected, organizations must be creative.

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SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY

For a general discussion of creativity and its multiple meanings and interpretations, several sources are helpful, including “Creativity and Empowerment,” by Betty Velthouse, in the Review of Business Journal, December 1990, and The Entrepreneurial Organization, by John Kao (Prentice-Hall, 1990). Further discussion of the attribute perspective is in Essays in Cueativ- ity in the Sciences, by A. Roe (New York Univer- sity Press, 1963), and Michael Ray’s article, “Strategies for Stimulating Personal Creativi- ty,” in Human Resource Planning, Vol. 10,1987. The conceptual-skills perspective is addressed in an excellent article by Larry W. Boone and A. Thomas Hollingsworth, “Creative Thinking in Business Organizations,” in the Review of Business, Fall 1990, which presents several methods for enhancing employees’ creative- thinking abilities. Patricia A. Galagan has com- piled a series that includes an essay by David M. Campbell in “Four By Four,” Training and Development Journal, June 1989. Also useful is William Miller’s The Creative Edge (Addison-

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Wesley, 1987) and Raymond Floyd’s “Innova- tion, Imagination, and Invention: The Three I’s of Creativity,” in Industrial Management, May- June 1989.

For a detailed discussion of the behavioral perspective, see Russell Ackoff and Elsa Ver- gara’s “Creativity in Problem- Solving: A Re- view,” in European Journal of Operations Re- search, and Teresa Amabile’s The Social Psychology of Creativity (Springer-Verlag, 1983). Also, Amabile and Stan Gryskiewicz have published a report, “Creativity in the R&D Labora- tory,” Report #30, The Center for Creative Leadership (Greensboro, N.C., 1987), that is an excellent resource for those wishing to know what factors contribute to and detract from creativity in the R&D laboratory. Data from ac- tual research laboratories are presented and summarized. Marc Hequet’s essay in Training and Development Journal, “Creativity Training Gets Creative” (February 1992), is intriguing as it discusses nonconventional methods for in- stilling creativity into the workplace, including

the use of music. Michael Ray of Stanford Uni- versity has written significant work on creativity, including “Strategies for Stimulating Per- sonal Creativity,” in Human Resource Planning, Vol. 10, No. 4,1987.

We have been inspired by Anita Roddick’s personal account of her launch of The Body Shop and her descriptions of what has made her organization successful. Body and Soul (Crown, 1991) is Roddick’s story, and it con- tains many references to the role of creativity in organizations. For those interested in more entrepreneurial histories, and particularly in how many female entrepreneurs are taking nontraditional routes to business launching and are nurturing creativity in their ventures, see Joline Godfrey’s Our Wildest Dreams: Wom- en Entrepreneurs Making Money, Having Fun, Doing Good (HarperCollins, 1992).

We gratefully acknowledge the help of Jack E. Parks, Jr., regional engineering manager, Airco Industrial Gases, in developing the

case study of his company. Information on transforming an organiza-

tion into a learning organization can be found in Calhoun Wick and Lu Stanton Leon’s The Learning Edge (McGraw-Hill, 1993). This book is a practical guide with specific recommendations, and presents interesting anecdotes from a variety of companies that have succeeded in becoming learning organizations. The section on learning from mistakes is particularly interesting. Charles Prather’s Risks and Rewards,” in Executive Excellence, January 1992, describes what organizations need to do to facilitate innovation by making it “okay“ to fail as new ideas are tried. We are grateful for the insights of James Belohlav, professor of strategy and author of Championship Management (Produc- tivity Press, 1991). Finally, Alex Osborne’s sem- inal work, Applied Imagination (Charles Scribn- er’s Sons, 1953), is one of the earliest books on the subject of creativity and the first to discuss the well-known term “brainstorming.”

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