Group Members

 Kyle Talley
 Randy Oswald
 Shyama Majumdar
 Jing Wu
 Stephanie Hampton
 Mike Healy
 Tracy Bakowski
 General
Introduction
Kyle Talley
 Creativity
 Group exercise
 Out of the Box
 What is creativity
 mental process involving the generation of new ideas or
concepts, or new associations of the creative mind
between existing ideas or concepts
 Why is it important in an organization?
 Growth
 Improvement
 Development
 Creativity
 Ways to promote more creative thinking
 Brain storming /group discussion & activities
 Diversity

 Cross functional training

 Training

 Limiting Creativity at work

 Time
 Organization’s openness
Creativity
Tracy Bakowski
 Robbins and Judge
 What is creativity?
 The textbook defines creativity as the
ability to produce novel and useful
ideas. These ideas must be new and
appropriate for the organization.
 Robbins and Judge
Future of creativity in the
workplace
 It is estimated that the US will add 10
million “creative class” jobs in the
next decade
 What is a “creative class” job?
 Science, technology, entertainment,
design and entrepreneurship
 Robbins and Judge
What do you think are some traits
associated
with creative people?
 Openness to experience
 Intelligence

 Independence

 Self-confidence

 Risk taking

 Low need for structure

Robbins and Judge
Three-Component Model of Creativity

Creativit
y
 Robbins and Judge
 How does this relate to our article?
 Most people have average potential
to be creative
 The difficult part is implementing
that creativity
Today’s Article
Jing Wu
Stephanie Hampton
 No idea? Evaluating the
Effectiveness of Creativity
Training
Kamal S. Birdi
Institute of Work Psychology, University of Sheffield,
Sheffield, UK
 Four Key Outcome
Criteria
gauging the effectiveness of creativity and innovation
in organization
 The entire process of individual creativity
 Incorporate all aspects of organization that
influence innovation
 The major phases in the organization
innovation process
 The influence of organization factors on
individual creativity
( Amabile, T.1998)
 Amabile’s Work
Qualities of environment that promote Creativity
 Freedom
 Good management + Encouragement
 Greatly consistent with Principle 8: Make good
decisions by effectively managing the decision-making
process
 Recognition
 Greatly consistent with Principle 11: Pay for
performance
 Various Organizational Characteristics

(Amabile, T)
 Amabile’s Work
Qualities of Individuals that influence creativity

 Various Personality Traits

 Self-motivation + Risk-orientation
 Greatly consistent with Principle 9: Stimulate creativity by
fueling passion
 Special Cognitive Abilities
 Expertise in the area
 Qualities of the Group

(Amabile, T)
 Design/Approach/Value
for Current Study
 A follow-up questionnaire
 Organizational Contexts
 Cross-sectional survey
 Training programs
 Practical implication
 Framework
 Guideline
 longitudinal approach
 3 Types of Creativity
Training Workshops
 Beyond the Box
 Two-day workshop
 Designed to encourage significant change and innovation in
organizations
 Taught the value of setting radical goals
 Strategies to achieve radical goals

 Lateral Thinking
 Two-day workshop
 Covered well-known techniques
 Random association between concepts
 Breaking problems down into component elements
 Thinking of solutions for each component
 3 Types of Creativity
Training Workshops
 Six Thinking Hats
 Two-day workshop
 Encourage participants to systematically
engage in 6 different modes of thought
 Designed to help with the generation and
evaluation of ideas
 The Study
 Conducted at a UK Civil Service
Organization
 Organization criticized by the Gov’t for not being
innovative enough


Workshops
 Ran for 18 months prior to the study
 Taught aspects of generating and implementing ideas
 Utilized a mixture of presentation of techniques and
concepts
 Discussion and small group exercises
 Methodology
 Questionnaire sent to participants in the
creativity training courses
 153 employees participated
 71 questionnaires returned
 Response rate of 46%
 40 attended Six Thinking Hats
 20 attended Lateral Thinking
 39 attended Beyond the Box

* Some employees attended more than one course

Two Methods of Measure
 Quantitative  Qualitative
 Asked to “what extent their  Respondents asked to
participation in the workshops
describe the main impact of
had led to improvements in
attending each workshop
four types of outcomes”:
 Knowledge of creativity  Responses were
techniques independently rated and
 Attitudes to innovation coded to three categories:
 Workplace idea generation  Attitudinal outcomes
 Workplace idea  Knowledge outcomes
implementation
 Other outcomes
 Rate from 1 “Not at all” to 5 “A
great extent”
 Results
 All 3 workshops were rated as
significantly useful
 Beyond the Box
 Most useful
 Mean = 3.47

 Six Thinking Hats

 Mean = 3.33
 Lateral Thinking
 Mean = 3.00
 Results
Participation Number Knowledge Attitudes Work- Implementatio
of creativity towards related n of ideas at
techniques creativity and idea work
innovation generation

Six Thinking 28 2.51 2.58 2.46 2.05

Hats or
Lateral
Thinking

Beyond the 22 2.35 2.86 2.33 2.35

Box
Both Types 16 2.72 2.90 2.79 2.62
of courses
 Results
 Six Thinking Hats/Lateral
 Greatest impact on knowledge improvements

 Beyond the Box

 Greater implementation of ideas

 Attendance of both types of courses

 Greatest improvement across all outcomes

 Overall analysis
 Work environment significantly influences employee innovation
 Workshop Exercises
Mike Healy
Randy Oswald

Principle 6: Promote job

satisfaction through mental
challenge
Business Beyond the Box
(O’Keefe)
1) Picture Step
 Introduction to Change

“triangular
thinking” 2) Know 3)
 Counter to How Creati
incrementalism ve
Thinki
ng

5) Become whole-brained
4) Act in the action zone

8) Recharge, get on fire

 Based on eight

7) Use hats, maps &

6) Choose powerful
thinking

thinking pads
strategies

mindsets
Example: Setting the Bar
Creative Ways to “Get
Over the Bar”
Business Example: Setting
the Bar
 Background: US brand product sold worldwide, with
varying market share overseas. In the Ireland
operation, sales of X product represented the
following % of market share:
 14% (2005)
 15% (2006)
 16% (2007)
 If you were a member of the Ireland operation’s
management, how do you determine the sales goal
(% market share) for 2008?
De Bono – Six
Hats
White Hat - Facts

Red Hat - Emotions

Black Hat - Negatives

Yellow Hat - Positives

Green Hat -
Alternatives
Blue Hat – Process
Control
 De Bono –
Lateral Thinking
Definition: A way of thinking that seeks a solution to
an intractable problem through unorthodox methods
or elements that would normally be ignored by
logical thinking.

or
You cannot dig a hole in a different place by digging
the same hole deeper.
 Lateral Thinking
Problem
A man lives on the twelfth floor of an
apartment building. Every morning he
takes the elevator down to the lobby
and leaves the building. In the
evening, he gets into the elevator,
and, if there is someone else in the
elevator -- or if it was raining that day
-- he goes back to his floor directly.
Otherwise, he goes to the tenth floor
and walks up two flights of stairs to
 Lateral Thinking
Problem #2

A man and his son are in a car

crash. The man is killed and the
son is taken to hospital gravely
injured. When he gets there, the
surgeon says "I can't operate on
this boy- he is my son!" How is
this possible?
Summary and Discussion
Shyama Majumdar
 Aim of the paper:
To evaluate long term impact of creativity
workshops and contrast influence of training
compared with work environment factors in
influencing employee innovation
Findings
 Participants reported:
 Improvements in creativity knowledge
and attitudes
 Later workplace idea generation and
implementation
 “Principle 10: Motivate
employee performance
through goal-setting”
 Creativity training course should
ensure:
 Acquire relevant knowledge and skills
 Sufficient motivation and confidence
 Environmental Factors of
Management Support

 Creativity training course will not

have any effect if environment is not
favorable
 Discussions with managers before
and after training to discuss
objectives, learning points and
workplace applications
 “Principle 9: Stimulate
creativity by fueling
passion!”
 Openness and diversity are crucial
organizational influence on creativity
(Ryahammer and Smith, 1999)
 Develop a culture in workplace where
innovation is publicly valued, encouraged
(motivation and empowerment)
 Peer support for innovation
 Summary
 Need to provide creativity initiatives
to develop knowledge and motivation
 Environment that fosters creativity
 Synergistic mixture of cultural,
structural as well as training
interventions for sustained and
successful stream of innovation
 Creativity Training
Initiatives
 Opportunity / Problem finding
 Idea generation
 Solution implementation
 Summary
 Need to provide creativity initiatives
to develop knowledge and motivation
 Environment that fosters creativity
 Synergistic mixture of cultural,
structural as well as training
interventions for sustained and
successful stream of innovation
 Looking
Ahead……
inciple 20: Apply the principle
QUESTIONS
 References
Amabile, T. (1988), “A model of creativity and innovation in organizations”, in
Staw, B and Cummings, l (Eds), Research in Organizational Behavior, Vol.
10, JAI Press, Greenwich, CT, pp. 123-67.

De Bono, E. (1977), Lateral Thinking, Pelican, Harmondsworth.

De Bono, E (1985), Six Thinking Hats, Viking, Harmondsworth.

O’Keeffe, J. (1998), Business beyond the Box, Nicholas Brealy Publishing Ltd,
London.
London

Robbins, S. P., & Judge, T. A. (2009). Organizational behavior (13th ed.). Upper
Saddle River, NJ: Pearson/Prentice Hall.

Google. (n.d.). Retrieved September 28, 2008, from Google Jobs:

http://www.google.com/support/jobs/bin/static.py?page=about.html&about=eng

The 3M Experience. (n.d.). Retrieved October 3, 2008, from

http://solutions.3m.com/wps/portal/3M/en_US/us/careers/working/3m-experience
/

"Creativity." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. October 6, 2008, from

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Creativity&oldid=243311904