Developing a creative climate in teams

Dr. K. Kuhathasan, CEO: Cenlead

Every team leader is responsible for the type of environment that he or she creates. Just how does the leader go about developing a creative environment? First and foremost, leaders must demonstrate that they value creativity.

All too often, leaders pay lip service to creativity while rejecting suggestions for doing things differently. Members judge leaders by what they do, not by what they say.

Almost everyone has at one time or another approached the leader with a new idea only to be flatly rejected or ignored.

This may have happened many times before members "get the picture" and quit coming up with new ideas.

On the other hand, the leaders who reinforce creativity continue to get new ideas from members.

Team decision making is one method of encouraging creativity among members.

Brainstorming

Brainstorming is an approach that involves presenting a problem to a group of people and then allowing the group to develop ideas for solutions.

The basis approach is to encourage all participants to suggest any and all ideas that come to mind.

The ideas may be wild and seemingly impractical, but they may lead to a creative solution.

To encourage the free flow of ideas, no criticisms of suggested solutions are allowed at first. Only after all idea have been presented and recorded does the group begin to evaluate them.

Other techniques have been found to be helpful in generating success in brainstorming. Ideally, a session should last from 45 minutes to an hour.

The problem should not be discussed before the session.

A small room and conference table should be used to encourage free communication. Brainstorming is most applicable to simple decision problems requiring creative ideas.

Naming a new product or service, coming up with a new use for a product, and identifying new ways to reduce wasted time are examples of situations where brainstorming might be effective.

Brain-writing

Under this approach, Team members are presented with a problem-situation and then asked to jot down their ideas on paper without any discussion. The papers are not signed. The Team members then exchange the papers with others, who build on the ideas and pass the papers on again until all have had an opportunity to participate.

Input-Output Scheme

The first step under this method is to describe the desired output; the next step is to list all possible combinations of inputs that could lead to the desired output. After the list of possible inputs has been exhausted, the team discusses and prioritizes the desirability of the different possibilities.

This process continues until eventually one input emerges as the preferred approach.

To improve creative powers team leaders must understand the theoretical creative process. Psychologist break the creative process into five steps.

Saturation

Becoming thoroughly familiar with a problem with its setting and more broadly, with activities and ideas akin to the problem. Before the mind can start working on an idea, it must be saturated with knowledge about the problem. This includes obtaining the facts, as well as acquiring the area involved.

Deliberation

Mulling over these ideas, analyze them, arrange them and view them from several viewpoints. All the facts and data should be sorted out in the mind. They are arranged in some form of system, rearranged and again rearranged until the pattern begins to shape. The mind is constantly sorting aspects of the facts and comparing them with other facts that have been fed to it, and with a vast memory in the subconscious mind through past experiences. It is like a computer which compares new input with material already programmed into it. The mind is far more complex and has much wider resources that any man-made computer.

Incubation

Relaxing, turning off the conscious and purposeful search, forgetting the frustration of unproductive labour, letting the subconscious mind work. Often, however, the mind is so cluttered with facts and concept that we find ourselves completely confused. Time is needed for the mind to get it altogether. Most people have experienced this type of situation, and know that if they turn to other pursuits, the mind will relax and the ideas will begin to incubate in the subconscious.

Many ideas incubate while we sleep or are relaxing. It is good to allow this to happen. When you or your staff feel frustrated in solving some problem, keep in mind that the frustration is only a step in the creative process and should not be a cause of worry but id rather a sign that it is time to put the problem aside for a while and let it incubate.

Illumination

A bright idea strikes, a bit crazy, perhaps, but its new and fresh and full of promise. You sense that it might be the answer. Cartoonists often show their characters getting a new idea by drawing a flashing build in their heads. Frequently the mind is just that way. After one has been saturated with the data, has analyzed the facts and deliberated on the relationship among them, after one has incubated the material for a period of time, a solution suddenly becomes evident. Remember not to accept illumination unless all the previous steps have been taken.

To sit back and wait for inspiration to sole one's problem will never work. It will be useful to remember Edison's formula here - "Genius is 99 percent perspiration and only 1 percent inspiration.

Accommodation

Clarifying the idea, seeing whether it feeds the requirement of the problem as it did on first thought, reframing and adopting it putting it on paper and getting other people's reaction to it. Once the idea has germinated, it has to be tested and adopted to the specific situation.Adjustments have to be made to accommodate the requirements of different aspects of the work.

The different view-points of participants and all other factors that develop when the idea appears to be viable when it is presented, it still must be tested and checked to ensure it will really work. A very common danger in almost all the leaders is to fall in love with one's own ideas and become defensive of them when changes are suggested instead of adapting to the suggestions.

Improving personal creativity

Unfortunately, most creativity is suppressed in the growing-up precess. The key to improving personal creativity is unlocking the untapped creative potential that most people possess.

One aid to being creative is to concentrate. Think of only one problem or subject at a time, and strive to get as many different ideas as you can. Forget about whether they are practical or not. The initial step is to get a number of ideas. The evaluation of each idea takes place later. It is important that you use your subconscious brain. To do this, rest your conscious mind when you feel tired. The subconscious brain then takes over and reviews and related thoughts that the conscious mind produced.

This is commonly called "sleeping over the problem." In addition, be persistent, keep trying. Useful ideas seldom result from the first attempts. You may have to go over many ideas before you discover the one best suited to the situation. Finally, implement the idea.

This can be a difficult step. It has been said that the most difficult task in the world is to drive an idea though the skull of a human being.

Never ridicule an idea

There is really only one way to handle one problem. A leader must attempt to develop a variety of alternatives before picking the "one best way." Most leaders depend on past experiences in solving problems. If the past experience has been successful, it may very well provide the answers to the current problem.

On the other hand, before a decision is made other possible solutions should always be explored. In developing alternatives the leader should use creative thinking abilities of his people.

Everybody has creativity. Psychologists and behavioral scientists have shown this great faculty within all of us is often suppressed or inhibited.

It is the responsibility of the leader, to unleash the creative ability in each person. Many people do not really believe that they have creative abilities.

All of their lives they have been made to believe that creativity was a special gift of artistes, writer and similar genius. Often their suggestions and ideas have in the past been ridiculed or rejected by parents, teachers and supervisors.

Why do people fear being creative? It is mainly because they are perhaps afraid that their ideas will be criticised and that they will be made to appear foolish or stupid if their ideas are not accepted. The leader has to overcome this fear by encouraging people to initiate or recommend improvements, to contribute ideas and to participate in planning. A leader should be careful, never to ridicule an idea, no matter how unrealistic it may be.

At the meetings raise the following issues to stimulate create thinking among members:

* Save money for your company?

* Cut costs of operations without impairing efficiency and productivity?

* Step up morale of men and increase interests in their work?

* Achieve prescribed goals more effectively?

* Attain grater prosperity for the company?

* Maintain the kind of employer-employee relations to cause employees to be proud and happy to work toward peak effectiveness?

* Utilize staff services most efficiently?

* Maintain most effective performance control?

* Profitably subcontract certain phases of our work?

* Improve present procedures most effectively?

* Help employees improve their job skills most effectively?

* Streamline and accelerate the flow of work?

* Make more practical use of available space?

* Eliminate duplication of activity.

* Schedule work more efficiently?

* Utilize staff services to increase production?

* Motivate men so that they will be strongly "company-minded?"

* Generate enthusiastic teamwork in the department?