How to Kill Creativity By: Roger Harden

Three Components of Creativity

Challenge for Managers Matching people with the right assignments This creates room for creativity To do so managers need detailed information It is important to match employees to jobs in which they have knowledge Many times managers do not effectively match employees to their best suited jobs

Freedom Employees must be given freedom to explore their creativity, yet goals still have to be reached Many times setting goals will increase the use of creativity Managers mess this up in two ways By failing to clearly define goals By granting empowerment only by name and not actually given the employees a chance to exercise the freedom

Resources Managers must allow time and money It is important to balance the amount of resources offered to a particular assignment Creating to short of a deadline will result in lost creativity Lack of money will keep new ideas from being funded

Supervisory Encouragement Management must stand behind employees and offer positive motivation By letting employees know that they matter, managers create motivated workers which result in much better creativity Happy employees will do better work than unhappy employees

Key Points There are three main factors in creativity Expertise Creative Thinking Skills Motivation Creative employees are often matched with jobs that allow them to make use of their knowledge and skills Managers must allow resources to these employees and also offer positive acknowledgement