organising creativity
TRANSCRIPT
Organising Creativity
Adam Jorlen Feb 2012adamjorlen.com
”The biggest issue at stake in this emerging age is the ongoing tension between creativity and organization.”
Richard Florida, Rise of the Creative Class
Background
The tension between individual and collaborative creativity
Staff engagement Humans are happiest when they’re
exercising their ingenuity.
Innovation Creativity + Action = Innovation
Why is creativity important in organisations?
Interdisciplinary research
1950s-70s – Personality of the creator
1980s: Social & Cultural Dimensions of creativity. Csikszentmihalyi’s systems approach
90s-00s: Collaboration and Group Dynamics, Collaborative emergence
Creativity research
Sawyer2009
Increased collaboration
Pre-70s 90s 00s80s
Everyone in the org
Several disciplines
and functions
One group – The R&D
team
One person – ”Lone Genius”
Google 20%
Innovation labs
Crowd-sourcing
The R&D team
Outside the org (customers,
suppliers etc)
”Skunk works”
Semco
”Collaborative webs”
Open innovation
Fisher- Price
10s
Successful initiatives in the past/present?
Who benefits from the creative work?
A critical view on the creators
What’s gained/lost along the way from ”lone genius” to ”wisdom of the crowd”?
The dark side of creativity
D H Cropley, A J Cropley, Kaufman & Runco 2010
1. How can managers organise creativity to benefit both their organisation and the eco-system of which it is a part?
2. What were/are the conditions in some successful initiatives of organising creativity in the past/present ?
3. How can managers ensure that the ”dark side” of creativity is avoided, i.e. that what emerges from the creative initiative benefits the eco-system of which the organisation is part?
Questions
”Lone Genius” Isolated group Innovation Lab Collaborative Organization Open innovation network
Phases…
Method Four-quadrant mapping of the conditions for creativity
Wilber, 2000
Intentional
•Psychology of the individual•Intrinsic/extrinsic motivation •Introversion / extroversion
Behaviour
•Skills•Behaviours
Culture
•Collaboration•Group dynamics•Groupthink•Brainstorming•Improvisation
Social system
-Officical strategies organisations undertake-Environment-Location (the core vs the edge)-Architecture
Method Four-quadrant mapping
A layered methodTo understand the depth of the creativity which emerges...
Inayatullah 1998
Type ”Lone Genius”
Isolated group
Innovation Lab
Collaborative Organization
Open innovation network
Creative initiative:
Edison’s lab Xerox PARC Mattel’s Project Platypus
Semco Open IDEO
Litany "Genius is one percent inspiration, and ninety-nine percent perspiration."
"The best way to predict the future is to invent it."
” If we do not let people do things the way they do, we will never know what they are really capable of”
“Where people design better, together”
Systemic Causes
What are the socio-economic, technical, political, environmental etc drivers and trends which impacts on the initiative and organisation?
Worldview What are the worldviews of these initiatives and the organisations they are part of?
Myth/ metaphor
What are the underlying myths and metaphors?
A layered method