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elmer palacio, Philippines
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63 Ways to Stimulate Employee Creativity and Innovativeness
Apart from a #0. Bottom-up approach,
I. In what other ways can an organization stimulate creativity and innovation in its employees?
II. What conditions and strategies are needed to support these approaches?
Thanks for your ideas...
Editor: we'll add numbers to all ideas for reference purposes and we'll remove double ones (as much as possible) to avoid this page becomes too cluttered and complex.
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Dr zahra gheidar
HR Consultant, Iran
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#1. Training in Creativity Methods More than 7 years experience in creativity classes, showed me that in order to maintain and nurture creativity, several issues must be considered. Although elements of creativity are in human nature, they are during life destroyed by training methods.
Creativity can manifest in the conscious and non-conscious. With non-conscience I mean things like children 's creativity or adults when they do something without awareness of related concepts and processes.
One of the most important ways to stimulate creativity and innovation is "training about creativity concepts and methods, because it will open up a new space for discovering creativity.
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Mandy Kendall, Canada
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#2. Appoint a Humble, Central Facilitator
#3. ASK them how THEY believe C and I could be Stimulated  A key prerequisite to the success of stimulating creativity and innovation in employees is to have a central facilitator operating in an enabling environment. The enabling environment is that of communication, clear limits and acceptance of diversity.
Management has to be transparent as to the overall goals and as to the available resources of the company.
The potential innovations are stimulated through the key skilled facilitator humbly asking for employees' help in determining the most appropriate communication processes to stimulate creativity and innovation in employees within the available corporate resources and to achieve the stated goals.
There is a lot more detail to this plan that I have outlined in a few sentences above, However, the approach is tried and tested by myself a number of times. I have successfully implemented a performance management process in companies whereby the process allows for the stimulation of creativity and innovation in the lower levels of employees.
Humility and transparency are critical components for this approach to work.
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Tom Wilson
HR Consultant, United States
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#4. Implement Lateral Thinking @Mandy Kendall: I agree with your central facilitator. In conjunction with the Points of Light Program, which I have outlined on my profile page, I have proposed a Chief Performance Officer which sounds very similar to your central facilitator. Although this function rests at the top of HR management chain of command, it is a HR DEVELOPMENT function. My experience with HR is summed up in my remarks about Rosabeth Moss Kantor and they are not what you are talking about.
Thanks to Andrew Blaine, I have become enamored with lateral thinking as an element of a community process around creativity such as the Points of Light Program (which was originally conceived to merge a Soviet and US aero-space populations). I have already incorporated in the process. But talk more of your own experience. You are on the right track.
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DANNY SUSIKWANA
Accountant, Zambia
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#5. Grant Freedom to Employees
#6. Provide Support by Managers My experience both in business and in teaching shows that creativity is in all humanity and lies inert in most of humanity. In order to bring out that creativity there is need to create suitable conditions. Employees should be allowed to venture into finding solutions to problems without any threat from their supervisors. Creativity thrives when freedom is granted and the fear of failure is removed.
Supervisors should play a supportive role giving impetus to the efforts workers are pursuing to solve corporate problems. Once workers feel and know that they have the freedom and full support of managers and supervisors there will be no limits to their creativity.
Managers should support and celebrate the efforts of their workers and not restrict and micromanage it. Managers and supervisors role is to believe and support the workers. Managers must also be seen by their workers as supportive and inspiring.
Once workers have faith in the goodwill of managers, creativity will be released.
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Herman, South Africa
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#7. Create an Environment of Inquisitiveness In reading the responses to the question, it seems to me an expensive process of appointing facilitators, and others to come and do the stimulating or to have creativity presented as training while it is, according to me, an inherent natural process for us.
Would it not be better to train line supervisors and managers to create an environment of inquisitiveness (Editor: ~curiosity) in the work of their employees.
This can be done in the workplace and if it is done as part of the everyday monitoring/supervision or normal communication between the supervisor/manager and employee is should be seen as a natural process and I believe that creativity, directly linked to inquisitiveness, will be the result. I have tried it and it works!
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Ceferino Dulay, Jr.
Philippines
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#8. Organize Assistance to help Incubation Throughout my career I have been involved with creativity/innovation when I started out in R&D management and later, in operations/business management and technical services. As Herman mentioned, it starts with creating an environment of inquisitiveness where people are encouraged to make improvements in their own work and other systems in the organization.
For example, problem-solving can be developed as a competency where one finds creative solutions to a problem.
To be able to do this, I make sure that people understand the technical and other perspectives of, say, a process procedure so that when they want to change things, they are always guided. This is where training comes in and some form a an incubator. Where research, development & engineering comes in. Productivity and quality programs come in. And just letting people find a way of making life easier for them in the workplace. Of course, the superiors would like to see how the innovative idea is supposed to work to ensure that there are no unwanted effects on desired short- and long-term end results.
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Md Sufyan
Manager, India
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#9. Train Only Talented People The best person for the assigned job should be the "mantra".
Creativity is related to think out of the box / lateral thinking, so an open work environment and positive thinking are helpful.
And by t...
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pawan jain, India
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#10. Create a Safe, Fearless and Risk Taking Environment To stimulate employee creativity, provide a fearless, safe and risk taking environment to the employees which will help them to have an independent thought of any issue pertaining to their work....
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Martin
Manager
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#11. Do Away with a Blame Culture
#12. Institute Organisational Learning
#13. Reward System - First and foremost one should do away with a blame culture and encourage a learning environment. This is only achieved when actions of the organisation are such that employees are encouraged and wi...
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Michael Nestor
Management Consultant, United States
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#14. Establish a Culture of Playing and Fun I agree with so many of the points stated. In the end it is a function of culture. Encourage employees to have fun, to play with ideas, allow for calculated failures.
By the time most employees are i...
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Andrew Blaine
Business Consultant, South Africa
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On #3: Ask them @Mandy Kendall: The big plus that your method (of asking the employees how THEY believe it can be achieved) lies in the simple fact that you receive what the employee/worker wants to offer, not what t...
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Roberta Rizzo
Project Manager, Ireland
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#15. Inititate Special Creativity Events, Competitions, Exhibitions, Projects I reckon creativity is a question of character and behavior: creative people probably have been stimulated since their childhood, but, in certain case, their creativity is hidden in the maturity.
I u...
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Satya Narayan
Strategy Consultant, India
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#16. Organize the C&I Effort We need to also organize this entire effort. The Malcolm Baldrige Criteria for Performance Excellence give a concise description of innovation:
“Making meaningful change to improve product, services,...
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GJ Tahash, United States
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On #2 (Humble Facilitator): You are Right But Humility and Transparency are Rare @Mandy Kendall: Kendall, any effort where "humility and transparency" are the starting point will probably work, but these necessary conditions are rare. The condition cannot be behaviourally-scienced...
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Alan Kennedy, Canada
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#17. Create Trusted Expectations that we're Serious about C and I I agree with @Martin and @Michael Nestor. We have to create the right environment to stimulate employee contributions to innovation. There is no way it is going to happen until employees see that they...
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Albert Anthony D. Gavino, Philippines
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#18. Empower Employees
#19. Appoint an Innovation Committee for Best Ideas By empowering employees, you give them chances to come with new ideas. Give these chances to new recruits, new hires, and then test them out.
Appoint an innovation committee that recognize best ideas...
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harish ramakrishnan
Management Consultant
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#20. Avoid Rules, Regulations and Restrictions Avoid restriction and demoralization in an organization. Take daily or weekly feedback from employees regarding their level of innovativity in their work.
Too much rules and regulation destroy the cr...
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Jean-Marc Guillemette, Canada
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#21. Listen Actively
#22. Provide Non-judgemental Feedback
#23. Stop Immediate Filtering As expressed by others, make it clear that contributing ideas is important and welcome.
LISTEN actively to your employees and provide non-judgemental feedback that reinforces efforts and helps them u...
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Alexander N. Raikov
Director, Russian Federation
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#24. Collectively Create an Innovation Strategy For the purpose of stimulating creativity and innovative behavior of the employees the organisation's corresponding strategy should be developed BY the employees.
Each worker must see his place in th...
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Marcel Rietmaeker
Belgium
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#25. Visualize the GAP between Current (IST) and Desired (SOLL) Situation A good start is to visualize (using a process flow chart, Ishikawa diagram) the gap where you are (current) and where you need to be in the future (desired).
Then create in the group alternative solu...
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Susanne Kanter, Germany
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#26. Determine the Focus Areas to Raise the Corporate Creativity Competence @Marcel Rietmaeker: I agree that to raise corporate creativity it might be useful to:
1. Analyze the current problem, as well as the desired future goal
2. Then determine, what creative resources ar...
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Anand Brambha
Consultant, South Africa
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#27. Use External People for (Extra) Creativity The type of leaders within the organization often sets the tone of what the culture will be. As a business process and turnaround consultant, my observation is that creativity, innovation and problem ...
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Julio Hennings
Professor, Peru
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On #7: Inquisitiveness is not Enough for a Creative Solution, but is the First Step @Herman: I believe that inquisitiveness is NOT enough to get creativity. Because we need a method that can support us to think over a new solution in all aspects.
But maybe inquisitiveness is the fir...
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Erico Ebeling
Consultant, Brazil
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#28. Top Management Must Recognize the Relevance of C&I My understanding is that first of all, the decision makers in the organization should understand and recognise the relevance of the creativity and innovativeness for the future of the company.
Follow...
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Ching Quek
New Zealand
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On #5 and #20: Just Like you Encourage Children... Just like the way you encourage your children... A paper and pencil, and let them wander with minimum interference and expectations....
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Zaynabfaps adeleke
CEO, Nigeria
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#29. Delegate Tasks as Much as Possible Employees of any organisation should be constantly trained. Also delegate duties to them as much as possible to allow them to use their initiative and intuition....
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Rodel Carandang
Manager, Philippines
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#30. Give Employees Time to Think and Work on own Projects Give employees time to think.
Google give their employees 20% of their time think and work on projects that would be beneficial to the organization or to their clients. 3M has a similar program but t...
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kvssiyer
Consultant, India
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#31: Find and Match the Right Employees
#32. Provide Talent Career Development Employees are creative and innovative by nature. If they are not in practice it is traceable to the degree and level of mismatch of the jobs they are in with the inherent talent and interest or inclin...
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Ceferino Dulay, Jr.
Philippines
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#33. Look for a Freewheeling, Creative Thinking Mindset I can understand a process of identifying problems and finding solutions which is commonly used in quality management processes. Such environments require a mindset that is logical.
Unlike other envi...
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N.Prabha, India
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#34. Challenge Employees According to my point of view - giving challenging work to them makes employees think more about it, in addition to appraising and rewarding them for extraordinary performance....
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Paramathmuni srinivas Kumar
India
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#35. Unlearn Past Experiences and Impressions
#36. Welcome and Encourage Diversity of Ideas What holds back in creating a qualitative creative work are our past experiences etched as impressions in the subconscious mind. In order to enable qualitative creative work I think as a first step th...
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Feyzal Peeroo, Mauritius
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#37. Look for Inspiration Outside the Own Company Borders It is not easy to be creative, unless the end justify the means. In enterprises with a lot of routine work, the hectic atmosphere is not prone for someone to think of creativity.
Outdoor activities a...
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Harp Minhas, United Kingdom
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#38. Encourage All Staff to Do Things Slightly Differently Everyone is creative, it is not limited to the intelligent or academics, in fact it has been shown that those with less formalised training (hence thinking) have a greater capacity for creativity. Wha...
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Martijnse
Management Consultant, Netherlands
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#39. See this Change as an Investment and as a Strategy A condition and strategy you might think of is to consider the investment you must be willing to make in the process of establishing a creative and innovative company.
Creativity goes hand in hand wi...
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PEDRO PAULO COSTALLAT BRUNO
Project Manager, Brazil
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#40: Try to Focus the Creativity on CLIENT Requirements Creativity depends on the requirements. The difficulty is to know these requirements. Seen this way, a critical question to aks is: what products and services are your clients looking for? Really?...
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Bernhard Keim
Business Consultant, Germany
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#41. Become a Problem-solving Organization The creative mind tries to solve problems for the company, the consumer, the partner etc.. Creatives do not take anything for granted. They challenge common views.
A manager who does not even listen ...
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Arif ur Rehman
Professor, Pakistan
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#42: Listen to Internal Customers too
#43. Establish Informal and Transparent Communication
#44. Establish a Flexi Budget for R&D Dear all, for creativity to bloom remember:
#42: Nothing coming from any level of internal customers – howsoever insignificant – is ever unimportant / irrelevant.
#43. Communication must be informal...
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Tom Wilson
HR Consultant, United States
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If Creativity = Problem Solving, How do You Make it Happen? @Bernhard Keim: I agree with what is desired. The issue is. How to achieve that in the organizational culture?
The hope is that leadership will supply the example and nurture those qualities. But hop...
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Nelisa Koti, South Africa
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#45. Create a Bottom-up Communication Platform Bottom up is important. So a firm may establish some kind of communication platform aimed at listening to what the employees think about the company or ideas they have for it, or various other types o...
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Arif ur Rehman
Professor, Pakistan
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Creativity - the Recipe Dear all, the barriers – often blinding us completely – to develop a culture supportive of creativity usually are: environmental, intellectual, language (the tone and the approach) emotional and perce...
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Essentia
Coach, United States
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#46. Create an Innovation Club and give Parties Innovation is at the heart of an individual's personality. Others may think the same way if an organization creates a competitive and meaningful rewarding environment. To keep it simple, to stimulate ...
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Dr zahra gheidar
HR Consultant, Iran
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#47. Make Innovators Rediscover the Creativity in Their Inner Self Building on my suggestion for @Creativity Training: In fact, we are born with creativity capacity. During our development this capacity is limited by external factors.
But it exists within us. We sho...
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WAFULA BENJAMIN
CEO, Kenya
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#48. Reengineering I' d like to reinforce the reengineering concept to stimulating the mind to pick on better options rather than best options... A freedom to try new ways/or approach to problems that option that maximi...
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Ceferino Dulay, Jr.
Philippines
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On #39. See Innovation as a Strategic Effort rather than as Fixing Problems Although problems present opportunities for innovation, the bigger challenge would be innovations to drive business competitiveness. Because then innovation becomes a conscious effort rather than a re...
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GHESSASSI, Morocco
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#49: Prize for Innovation
#50: Avoid Routine Environment
#51: Encourage Visiting Creative Events
#52. Ask for Feedback on Events
#53: Coffee Breaks
#54. Plants in the Office I suggest to also consider the following measures for creativity and innovation:
#49: Establish a prize for innovation (see also: @Essentia)
On #13: Offering a good salary and motivating its employe...
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Alan Kennedy, Canada
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#55. Do not Mandate Creativity; Nurture It Wow! What a great set of responses to Professor Palacio's seemingly innocent question on how to stimulate creativity and innovation within the organization! Clearly, the professor has touched on an im...
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Tom Wilson
HR Consultant, United States
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The Skunk Works as Important Metaphor @Alan Kennedy: Your example of the Skunk Works is right on the target, especially within the context of Leadership. This organization was put together on a very selective basis (a strategy promoted ab...
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Arif ur Rehman
Professor, Pakistan
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On #30: Creativity and the Ampersand Dear all, creativity needs an environment that caters to experimentation wherein this ‘area of self-expression’ is supported and rewarded if the mission is a success. And if it falls short of expectat...
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Ofori Cassandra
Teacher, Ghana
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#56: Creative and Innovate Efforts Should Not Be Discouraged @Arif ur Rehman: I am a teacher in a public school where the rules, regulations and restrictions are clearly spelt out.
Creativity is damaged as any effort is seen as working to undermine the leaders...
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Andrew Blaine
Business Consultant, South Africa
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On #56: Creativity, Innovation and Discipline Any innovation that does not start from management is some form of a challenge to authority. How this is managed, is dependent on the maturity and quality of management - which innovators need to unde...
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Bernhard Keim
Business Consultant, Germany
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#57. Creativity is not an Exercise. It's an Attitude Creativity depends on culture of an organization. Creativity means that people are driven for change. Observing organizations I have to say that too many became self referential and autistic to others...
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Arif ur Rehman
Professor, Pakistan
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On #56: Creativity, Democracy, Leadership @Ofori Cassandra: A ‘true leader’ by definition is in line with his associates. It is only when ‘democracy’ thus comes into his thinking that supporting creativity becomes his second nature – for he k...
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Tom Wilson
HR Consultant, United States
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Transparency and Democracy are not Synonymous Except in Retrospect @Arif ur Rehman: I would say that a true leader defines the trajectory of his associates, moving forward. In this respect, democracy can be something of a covert process, especially when the leadershi...
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Arif ur Rehman
Professor, Pakistan
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The Leader's Trajectory @Tom Wilson: Entirely true, Tom. Obviously the trajectory has to be chartered by the leader wherein the lead is based on the entrepreneurial spirit given to authenticity clearly articulated, in a demo...
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Tom Wilson
HR Consultant, United States
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Management as a Performance Art @Arif ur Rehman: Relative to your perfectly framed comment about loving chaos, management is a process of dealing with one damned thing after another....
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Anneke Zwart
Student (University), Netherlands
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#58. Establish Employee-led Innovation It has been recognized that innovation is not only a result of top-down investments in R&D. Rather, it is a process involving many people across the organization, including employees, to see new oppor...
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Andrew Blaine
Business Consultant, South Africa
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On #19. Innovation Committees and their Decisions @Albert Anthony D. Gavino: The only problem with your committees is that they have been described as "a group of people who make decisions together that they are not prepared to make on their own". I...
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Ceferino Dulay, Jr.
Philippines
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#61. Ask Many Challenging Questions Creativity is not something that you plan for and do at any given time. It is spontaneous. A spark in a moment of inspiration.
I used to ask my staff a lot of questions, away from the usual way of do...
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Samoletov
Coach, Russian Federation
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#62. Give Innovators a Status they can be Proud Of @Essentia: I arrange small celebrations of innovation success for all employeed (pizza party on the floor). It could be good to create a situation in which the innovator is given an exclusive status. ...
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Prabhavathi A
Coach, India
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#63. Create an Idea-driven Organization In India and many other places, people work just to earn money. They never actually own the process. They do what is said and they try to perfect themselves. This does not mean that they are sheep. Th...
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Jaap de Jonge
Editor, Netherlands
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#64. Boredom Boredom can also be a driver to make an individual more creative. See the research by Park, Lim and Oh (2019): "Boredom Could be a Driver for Creativity and Performance"....
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