CREATIVITY AND INNOVATION How innovative are you? Chapter 16 Lecture 3 Ask students to assess their own levels of creativity/innovation. I use an instrument called: How Innovative are you? Source: J.E. Ettlie and R.D. O’Keefe (1982) Innovative attitudes, values, and intentions in organizations. Journal of Management Studies, 19: 176.

Solve the problem Remove three sticks to leave four

See this figure? Divide the figure below into as many pieces as you can by making four straight cuts with a long knife

2 Dimensions=11 Cuts and pieces

3 dimensions=14 imagine it’s a cake

Another Perspective Fold it after each cut=16

New Challenge A company manufactures glassware. The last step of the process is to wrap glasses individually in used newspapers and then place them in a specially designed box. The box is then sealed. Management notices low productivity with this last step, observing that workers occasionally stop to read the newspapers? What can management do to increase productivity?

Steps to Personal Creativity 1. Accept that you can be creative 2. Question traditional assumptions 3. Expand your problem-solving styles 4. Employ creativity techniques 5. Practice thinking in new ways 6. Learn when your creative thinking is best Adapted in part from Higgins, James M. 1997. Escape From The Maze. New York: New Management Publishing. 1. Everyone can be creative in some ways. 2. Ask “why” something is done the way it is; look for a different way, e.g., why are ketchup and mayonnaise in breakable jars? Put them in squeezable plastic. 3. If you rely heavily on rational thinking, try to develop intuitive skills and vice versa; use both. 4. There are many hundreds of creativity techniques, including brainstorming, dreaming, imagining, etc. 5. If you tend to think in words, try to use pictures. Use analogies or liken things to other things. 6. Although fully awake you might be very rational, when you’re tired or fed up you might be more willing to try new ideas; there may be times of the day when you are more creative.

Relevance to Globalization In a rapidly changing global world, managers must use all their abilities to anticipate opportunities and threats Executives, for example, have to anticipate industry trends, just as you want to anticipate them for your projects. Let’s see how they do this and then practice how we can use creativity and innovation to gain insight into industry trends. Use a video from the Business 2000 series: either: The Automobile Industry which in the first sections shows various industry executives describing their view of the future (call #HD9710/A87/1996) or The Food Industry (call # TP 370/F6/1996) When viewing the video, be looking for visions of the future:

Future Visions of the Auto Industry Fuel injections will require much less gas Need for lean production There will be need for small autos to serve utilitarian mass markets There will be more women drivers in Europe and Asia Emotions will be used to promote products Increased speed limits More roads will be needed We can explore how auto industry executives use creativity techniques to envision the future for their industry and firms, but the same techniques can be used to envision the future for firms and industries you study.

Future Visions of the Food Industry This is a recession-proof industry with very slim profit margins We see segmentation of markets and niche development Many consumers/nations leapfrog to the latest trends rather than following a particular development process The natural environment is increasingly important Computer technology linking suppliers gets food to market at a lower price In Western countries there is a trend toward less cooking in the home These points can be picked up in the first 4–5 minutes of the tape as industry spokespeople review what they think is occurring in the industry; the points they make appear above. Other points the students may make on recent trends: Increasing pressures on food biotechnology like cloning, disease resistance, etc. A tendency for food borrowing from nation to nation.

Envisioning Techniques Linear step-by-step; scenario planning, etc. Intuitive imagery; brainstorming; analogy Linear techniques like scenario building; attribute listing, design tree, matrix analysis; step-by-step. Intuitive techniques often produce whole new solutions to challenges: for example, Post-it Notes resulted from a weak glue that a church choir member used to mark church songbooks that would stay in place but not mar the pages—the rest, as they say, is history. Imagery—relax body and mind; ask your subconscious for images; accept and record images that come to mind; look for strong emotions and many senses (smell, sound, taste, feel)—look for qualities represented, links and ideas rather than literal meanings. Analogy Personal—if you were an auto, what kind would you be? Direct—if your auto were a religion, which one would it be? (Make up index cards with imagery ideas, if your university were a food, a flower, a hotel, an animal, a bird, what kind would it be?) Fantasy—undersea or space images—science fiction. Also possible: brainstorming; dreaming; drawing; meditation.

Stimulants to Work Creativity* 1) FREEDOM in deciding work to do or how to do it 2) CHALLENGE to work hard on important projects 3) RESOURCES needed to do the work 4) ENCOURAGEMENT from a supervisor who is a good work model, sets appropriate goals, supports and has confidence in the work group 5) WORK GROUP SUPPORTS such as diverse skills, people who communicate well, are open to new ideas, constructively challenge one another’s work, trust and help each other, and feel committed to their work 6) ORGANIZATIONAL ENCOURAGEMENT in a culture that supports creativity and communicates a shared vision of organization Source material: KEYS: Assessing the Climate for Creativity developed by the Center for Creative Leadership from the work of Teresa Amabile and Stan Gryskiewicz; for additional information see publication of the Center for Creative Leadership: New survey measures creativity in the workplace. (1995) Issues and Observations, 15 (3: 2, 9).

Obstacles to Work Creativity 1) ORGANIZATIONAL IMPEDIMENTS such as internal political problems, harsh criticism of new ideas, destructive internal competition, avoidance of risk and overemphasis on the status quo 2) WORKLOAD PRESSURES such as extreme time pressure, unrealistic expectations, or distractions

Weigh the Odds You have 50 coins of which one is slightly heavier than all others. This weight difference can be detected on a balance scale What is the least number of weighings required to find the heaviest coin? Four weighings, maximum. You could get lucky and do it in three. If you divide the coins into three groups for each weighing (instead of two as one would "naturally" think) you can identify which of the three groups the heavier coin is in each time you weigh. That is, either the scale will balance—the heavier coin is in the group not being weighed—or the scale will be out of balance -- the heavier coin is in the heaviest group. Do this two more times and you are down to the heaviest group with two coins in it. One more weighing and you've found the heaviest coin!

New Challenge A A B C C A B