One misconception around creativity is that creative act is essentially solitary. Most of the world's important inventions resulted not from the work of one lone genius, but from collaboration of a team with complementary skills. Managers should build teams with the ideal mix of traits to form a creative group and then establish the conditions that make creativity much more likely to occur.
Most of us have the misconception that creativity is like a genie that can't be bottled. It is almost impossible to determine who from your team will be involved in a creative act and secondly, you cannot predict what action will end up being creative, or precisely when or how it will occur. Further, the characteristics that are necessary for creative work seem contradictory, and they rarely exist in one person.
Most of the ideas in today’s organizations are actually a result in a cohesive and diverse team. Teams are increasingly important in today's businesses as they ensure a level of creative output that is greater than what individuals working alone are capable of achieving.
In order to achieve creative output from your teams, you have to carefully examine the composition of your group. You need to make sure that your group, as a whole, has all the requisite skills and attributes that help a group produce creative ideas. Recent research has shown that, as a manager, you can create the conditions that make creativity much more likely to occur. That is, you can increase the probability of innovation.
Teams ensure a level of creative output that is greater than what any individual could achieve. The key ingredient here is intellectual diversity. You need people with different areas of expertise and deep knowledge in different disciplines, but you also need people with different thinking styles. To create a creative group one should focus on preferred thinking styles, functional specialties, and the particular skills that influence how a person approaches a problem. An intellectually diverse group thinks more creatively and is more likely to generate innovative solutions. You can't make people adopt a different thinking style, but you can orchestrate thinking styles in such a way that your group's output benefits from the different perspectives.
The preferred thinking style is the unconscious way a person looks at and interacts with the world. When faced with a problem or dilemma, a person will usually approach it by thinking in the way she is most comfortable. And although each style has particular advantages, no one style is better than another.
There are many different ways to describe how people think and make decisions. When different thinking styles rub against each other, creative sparks fly. That's the insight behind the phrase creative abrasion. For the purposes of ensuring that your group has all the characteristics necessary for creative work, given below are some different thinking styles.
Being creative implies always being positive in the world; enabling us to convert any problem into an opportunity. Creativity enables us to engage ourselves to do new and better things and let us take one step closer to attain our full potential. Creative thinking starts with imagination as it brings about something that did not exist or was not known before, so it has to be imagined first. They show the capability to imagine or invent something new. It is not the only quality but also skills that are needed to do a particular task in a productive manner. These people are more comfortable with ideas and concepts, with the "big picture."
The creative imagination must have a purpose, an objective to serve the responsibilities of the business. Conceptual people define the problem by comparing it to a clear vision for the future. They have a novel, transformational ideas and get things started and able to paint a picture. Conceptual people tend to lose energy at implementation. These people prefer logical processes and orderly ways of approaching problems.
They define the problem by developing a clear picture of the current situation and select the solution based on pros/cons analysis and will always emphasize on metrics. They will ensure that the product or result must be something that can be held in great esteem, i.e. having admirable qualities, especially of intrinsic value. These people tend to process information internally first before presenting the results to others. These people like things more open; they tend to be more comfortable with ambiguity and often want to collect still more data before reaching a decision.
They focus on process and procedure and have ideas on improving efficiency and effectiveness while retaining structure. They are generally energized by plans, initiative, and implementation and seek closure to items. These people tend to prefer hard data, concrete facts—information that is closely tied to the five senses. These people tend to prefer closure—they like having all the loose ends tied up.
These folks are good at bringing people together to discuss and define the problem. They are attracted to problems involving interpersonal interaction and look to see what others are doing (best practices). They are the ones who is motivators and encourages group cohesion. These people look to other people as the primary means of processing information. These people are more attuned to emotional cues; they are more likely to make decisions based on the values or relationships involved.
Everyone exhibits all five of these tendencies, but they do it in varying degrees. For example, it's not that a feeling person is incapable of logical thought rather; it's that his or her thinking about a decision tends to be guided by the emotional impact of that decision on key relationships. Start with yourself: how would you characterize your own thinking style? Knowing your own preferences helps you appreciate other thinking styles—you begin to understand how different perspectives can complement or round out your own.
Stress is a product of the busyness of modern life. It has assumed grave dimensions ever since the emergence of industrialism. In fact, stress is a natural, ongoing, dynamic, and interactive process that takes place as people adjust to their environment. Stress can be brought about by positive or negative life events. Distress can cause disease and eustress or positive stress can promote wellbeing and increased productivity. Learn to recognize and be responsible for your stress, and learn the ways to manage stress.
Thinking & Problem Solving Skills
Today's dynamic business world demands that you make decisions that significantly boost productivity and drive competitive advantage. But how do you know whether a decision will benefit the organization? And how do you know that the decisions are based on rational and statistical reasoning? Explore how to become a dynamic problem solver with the skills to make accurate decisions.
In our present Hitech scenario, society is changing very fast. What are the skills that are most relevant for leaders in relation to the changing economic environment? Leaders need to develop skills to drive innovation and change in order to play a more central role in their organizations’ activities. How do managers accept the change and meet business expectations by becoming a key figure in driving change and innovation?
Collaborative leadership is all about collaborative problem-solving and decision-making or can also be defined as the leadership of a collaborative effort. . The term started to appear in the mid-1990s in response to the formation of long term public-private partnerships to rebuild public infrastructure. Learn how you can use principles of collaborative leadership to enhance your leadership skills for being an effective leader.
In its simplest sense, decision-making is the act of choosing between two or more courses of action. Decision making is a key skill in the workplace and is particularly important if you want to be an effective leader. When decisions have to be made, there are several stages that you should go through to reach a practical solution. Understand the meaning and importance of decision making and how to look at it as a process.
At different points in your professional career, it is helpful to identify your core values. Values are the qualities considered to be the most important guiding principles that determine the priorities in your life and greatly influence your career choices. Your career brings happiness when it is in agreement with the beliefs you have about what is important and meaningful to you. Awareness of your values will help you develop a clearer sense of what's most important to you in life.
Creating Highly Effective Teams
How do we create effective teams? What comes to mind when you think about an effective team? High performing teams exhibit accountability, purpose, cohesiveness, and collaboration. It is a team that works seamlessly as a whole. Everyone brings unique talents and strengths and support each other to bring out the best in everyone. How do you create one?
Generating Ideas using Brainstorming
The brainstorming technique was developed by Alex F. Osborn in 1957 and brainstorming means where a team of members generates a large amount of alternative fruitful ideas on a specific problem without any criticism and then evaluates each idea in terms of their pros and cons. Brainstorming techniques fall into four broad categories: visioning, exploring, modifying, and experimenting.
Benefits of Teams in Workplace
The use of formal work teams is commonplace in modern organizations. But why we have teams? What are the benefits or advantages that teams provide for organizations and employees? Do we really need to adopt formal team structures and use team-building approaches in organizations? Read this article to explore and learn the benefits of having formal teams in organizations.
The best career choices are ones that match your values. Each person has several values that are important to him. These values are highly personal and knowing them provides a clearer sense of what's most important to you in your life and career. Career values are the beliefs you consider important from a work standpoint. Values help you understand what you want from a job? Explore a few examples of work values that can influence career path and job satisfaction.
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