HOW TO BE CREATIVE?

Jonathan Livingston Seagull:
“Don’t worry about creativity. Just learn to fly real well and when you do, the magic will happen. You’ll go beyond the barrier without realizing it.”

Creative employees are valuable assets for company which possesses innovation as the main core of its business. However, the external environment such as competition among competitors sometimes make employee less creative to enhance their idea without supporting from top management. The internal condition might be the other reasons that caused stress while working at the office. Creative is for everyone and anyone, so it’s better to create “cozy” environment in the work place by supplying well office furniture design that attempt to eliminate stress and small frustrations from the daily routine. I believe that it will encourage employees to design their own offices and be creative as a part of corporate culture which concentrates on being imaginative and creative.

According to the lecture about Organizational creativity, I think “freedom” as the key point to create a conducive creativity, while top management has trust the workers not to monitor all of the task and not to control what should they do every time. Encourage employee motivation in organizational activity has positive impact on employee morale and motivation. I believe it will support the creation all employees no matter where they stand in the organization chart are able to participate in problem solving process. It is true that innovative company will be one step further than their competitors if they can achieve high level of innovation, however the company must first convert their culture into more participative. Thus, maintaining a productive creative thinking environment and satisfying is needed for the employee also the growth of company continuously.

Creative teamwork is not only good for the bottom line; it can also be an intensely rewarding experience (Leigh Thomson, 2003). I agree that the more heterogeneous a team will generate more arguments, apply a greater number of strategies, and detect more novels solutions. Thus, they will more engage in divergent thinking and learn from failure to address the problem. The threats that they should avoid are social loafing, conformity, production blocking, and downward norm setting that can kill creativity (Leigh Thomson, 2003). For instance brainstorming and brainwriting are good ways to help employee enhance their idea. Furthermore, brainwriting keeping their identity anonymously and writing ideas instead of speaking that eliminate the problem of production blocking. Hopefully, it reduces conformity since the written format eliminates the need for public speaking rather than oral brainstorming.

Finally, creativity is a tool and windows opportunity opens for only a short time. The role of employees in organization is trying to keep their idea fresh, using the opportunity to create fabulous innovation as valuable resources that the company has. It is important to put creativity as part of the company culture, so the employees feel that they were part of organization and they have self confidence and creative perspective to create something new or making anything possible.

Sources:

Banfe, Charles (1991). Enterpreneur From Zero To Hero. New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold.

Thompson, Leigh (2003). Improving the creativity of organizational work groups. Academy of Mangement Executive 17(1),96-109

Gustavsson, Veronica (2008). Lecture August 29th: Innovation and Business Creation. Retrieved 2008-8-29, from from Jönköping International Business School’s Website: http://jibsnet.hj.se.