1. CREATIVITY AND WORK

2. Amabile's theory of creativity Domain-relevant skills Creativity-relevant mental processes Task motivation

3. Domain-relevant skills The more skills the better, it appears, perhaps because it gives more choices. The ability to imagine situations and play them out mentally is important in many cases.

4. Creativity-relevant processes Breaking perceptual set. That is, being able to change the way you look at or perceive a situation. Breaking cognitive set. That is, being able to change the way you analyze a situation. Understanding complexities. For example, something may be not all good or all bad, but mixed. Keeping response options open as long as possible Perceiving creatively, or at least perceiving things differently from the way most people see them

5. More processes Suspending judgment. Amabile quotes the nineteenth- century German poet Schiller, "In the case of the creative mind, it seems to me, the intellect has withdrawn its watchers from the gates, and the ideas rush in pell-mell, and only then does it review and inspect the multitude. Using "wide" categories. For example, being able to include a lot of different experiences under the heading of "education.“ Remembering accurately. Breaking out of performance "scripts."

6. Knowledge of heuristics (trial-and-error techniques) When all else fails, try something counterintuitive. Make the familiar strange Generate hypotheses by analyzing case studies Use analogies Account for exceptions (i.e. don't ignore them) Investigate paradoxical incidents Play with ideas Use "mental gymnastics"

7. Creativity relevant processes Adopting a work style conducive to creativity (collected from various researchers) o Ability to concentrate efforts for long periods o Use "productive forgetting" when warranted o Persistence in the face of difficulty o High energy level, willingness to work hard, overall high level of productivity o High degree of self-discipline in matters regarding work o An ability to delay gratification

8. More o Perseverance in the face of frustration o Independence of judgment o A tolerance for ambiguity o A high degree of autonomy o An absence of sex-role stereotyping o An internal locus of control o A willingness to take risks [although according to Drucker, not financial risks -- these are not stupid people!] o A high level of self-initiated, task-oriented striving for excellence

9. Task motivation Task motivation is the centerpiece, the most important component, in Amabile's three-component theory. Intrinsic or internal motivation, as opposed to extrinsic motivation that comes from outside sources, is necessary to reach the highest level of creativity.

10. Harvard Business School, Boston, MA, USA. In today's knowledge economy, creativity is more important than ever. But many companies unwittingly employ managerial practices that kill it. How? By crushing their employees' intrinsic motivation--the strong internal desire to do something based on interests and passions. Managers don't kill creativity on purpose. Yet in the pursuit of productivity, efficiency, and control--all worthy business imperatives--they undermine creativity. It doesn't have to be that way, says Teresa Amabile. Business imperatives can comfortably coexist with creativity. But managers will have to change their thinking first.

11. Specifically, managers will need to understand that creativity has three parts: expertise, the ability to think flexibly and imaginatively, and motivation. Managers can influence the first two, but doing so is costly and slow. It would be far more effective to increase employees' intrinsic motivation. To that end, managers have five levers to pull: the amount of challenge they give employees, the degree of freedom they grant around process, the way they design work groups, the level of encouragement they give, and the nature of organizational support.

12. Take challenge as an example. Intrinsic motivation is high when employees feel challenged but not overwhelmed by their work. The task for managers, therefore, becomes matching people to the right assignments. Consider also freedom. Intrinsic motivation--and thus creativity--soars when managers let people decide how to achieve goals, not what goals to achieve. Managers can make a difference when it comes to employee creativity. The result can be truly innovative companies in which creativity doesn't just survive but actually thrives.

13. Work Preference Inventory Department of Psychology, Brandeis University, Waltham, Massachusetts 02254. The Work Preference Inventory (WPI) is designed to assess individual differences in intrinsic and extrinsic motivational orientations. Both the college student and the working adult versions aim to capture the major elements of intrinsic motivation (self- determination, competence, task involvement, curiosity, enjoyment, and interest) and extrinsic motivation (concerns with competition, evaluation, recognition, money or other tangible incentives, and constraint by others). The instrument is scored on two primary scales, each subdivided into 2 secondary scales. The WPI has meaningful factor structures, adequate internal consistency, good short-term test-retest reliability, and good longer term stability. Moreover, WPI scores are related in meaningful ways to other questionnaire and behavioral measures of motivation, as well as personality characteristics, attitudes, and behaviors.