Creativity and Problem Solving x

1. Creativity and Problem Solving

Within the last 50 years, however, researchers have largely rejected this idea. Instead, they have identified many other factors that can influence creativity. They have found that creativity is much closer to American inventor Thomas Edison’s idea. He said (sometimes referring to ‘invention’ and sometimes referring to ‘genius’):

What it boils down to is one per cent inspiration and ninety-nine per cent perspiration’.

In a historical sequence, the various factors that can influence creativity can be summarised as:

Muse – being inspired

Serendipity – being lucky

Association – the insight based on linking ideas

Personality – being a creative person

Skill – having the mental flexibility to see new possibilities

Experience – being able to recognise new possibilities

Motivation – being persistent enough to find new possibilities

Culture – being encouraged to investigate new possibilities

Emergence – interacting with others to create new ideas

Brought up in the centre of England, he was able to understand the wide range of words used in different regions and so was uniquely able to display a richness of language in his plays.He was born after the enormous developments of the High Renaissance.He lived at a time in which there was enormous change and innovation in the arts, politics and religion.The ideal of a ‘Renaissance man’, knowledgeable about many aspects of life, encouraged the artist to share ideas with people from many different walks of life.Following a period of writing mainly comedies and histories, the great tragedies (Hamlet, Othello, King Lear and Macbeth) were written in the last quarter of his career.His experience as an actor was crucial in developing his understanding of what created dramatic effectiveness

Many of the most common ways of analysing personality (for example the Myers Briggs Inventory) are based on the work Carl Jung. He identified four functions, which can each be related to problem solving.Two relate to the method of processing the information:

• Sensation – liking to solve problems in standard ways
• Intuition – using hunches, spontaneity and openness to redefine the problem until it is solved

Two relate to the manner of the processing:

• Thinking – considering all the options in an unemotional and intellectual way
• Feeling – being sympathetic and relating well to others, believing in harmonious and pleasant working relationships

Adaptor or innovator?

Kirton suggested an alternative classification, which categorises people on a continuum between innovator and adaptor. The main categorising features are:

• Adaptors tend to wait for a problem to be presented; innovators look for new problems
• Adaptors tend to solve problems by modifying existing systems; innovators enjoy the challenge of seeking completely new, perhaps unexpected, solutions
• Adaptors implement decisions using precise, methodical and disciplined approaches; innovators may appear undisciplined and have a low tolerance for routine work
• The personal image of adaptors is one of being safe, dependable and conformist; innovators are seen as mavericks, full of self-confidence and not always practical

Note that there is some potential for confusion by the use of the term ‘innovator’ here. This use is based on how the person approaches a problem. Innovation in its usual sense may be based on both adapting existing products and thinking up completely new ideas.Note also that many writers on team processes (for example Belbin) have highlighted that an effective team needs people with a range of skills and attributes. If we think of innovation as a continuous process that involves both major breakthroughs and incremental changes, then an innovative team needs to have both adaptors and innovators in it.

Neuro-linguistic categories

Now consider our third and last way of categorising people’s approach to creativity.Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) is based on research into what gifted people do well. In relation to creativity, we will focus on just one component, the identification of three sensory types. These are:

• Auditory, some people take in and understand information primarily in terms of the words that have been used
• Visual, others work primarily with pictures and charts
• Kinaesthetic, based on handling materials and objects

Research suggests each person has a bias towards one of the types, and that all three are equally common. In other words, about one-third of any group working together on a problem will feel most comfortable using words, one third using pictures, and one third working with real objects.In a typical meeting in which a team discuss a topic, the focus will be mainly on the first of those sensory types. This effectively reduces the effectiveness of two-thirds of the members. The use of visual and spoken methods (for example displaying and discussing a chart) expands the audience, but still ignores the needs of the kinaesthetic-based person. If, for example, your team was meeting to think about ways of improving the design of a component, it would be very important to have an example of the component available so that the kinaesthetic-based person could actually handle it and perhaps try taking it apart to encourage his or her creativity.

Think of a problem-solving session that you have been involved in.

1. Which approach (auditory, visual or kinaesthetic) did you find most useful?
2. What about other people? Which approaches did they seem to use?

Feedback

As with both the preceding activities, you probably found that different people work in different ways.If, in the future, you are managing a team looking at some problem in a creative way, it will be worthwhile remembering those three activities. To summarise all three activities, when trying to solve a problem people may:

• Use different methods of processing the information: sensation and intuition
• Use different manners when processing the information: thinking and feeling
• Fall in different places along a continuum between adaptor and innovator
• Be one of three sensory types: auditory, visual, or kinaesthetic

Encouraging creativity in individuals

A number of writers have suggested ways of encouraging the individual to become more creative. One list (suggested by Dubrin, and described in Henry) is as follows

• Don’t worry if many attempts to be creative fail
• Approach problems with a sense of humour
• Develop self-confidence, courage and persistence
• Use hobbies to encourage a creative growth of body and mind
• Build your knowledge of your own specialist area
• Read widely to identify links with other areas of knowledge
• Be open and alert to others and to new ideas
• Record flashes of insight
• Identify at what times of day you are most creative
• Pose new questions every day

An alternative summary by Henry is:

• Positivity (opportunity-seeking and tolerance)
• Playfulness (mental flexibility and risk-taking)
• Passion (motivation and commitment)
• Persistence (experience and sensitivity to the problems likely to occur)
• Building an environment that encourages creativity

Encouraging creativity in teams

When managing a team, the team leader will not necessarily have to be particularly creative. The overall aim is to create a team and situation where creativity can flourish. Ekvall suggests a list of ‘dimensions’ that categorise a creative environment:

• Challenging, enjoyable and energetic
• Free, independent and allowing initiative
• Lively and excitedly busy
• Open, trusting and accepting of failure
• Allowing of idea-time and off-task play
• Happy and humorous
• Encouraging debate and allowing constructive conflict
• Offering helpful support
• Risk -taking, allowing fast decisions and new ideas

Rewards, motivation and creativity

As you have seen above, the working environment is likely to be a major influence on the motivation of all creative workers. Tampoe identified that the rewards and expectations of one particular group (the ‘knowledge workers’ developing new products in the IT industry) can be summarised as a mixture of:

• Personal growth, particularly self-development (rather than growing managerial skills)
• Autonomy, having freedom to work within the rules (rather than defining their own rules)
• Creative achievement, aiming for intellectually stimulating targets, or commercial targets, that clearly link to the overall aims of the organisation
• Financial rewards, particularly salary plus bonus on personal effort (rather than group effort)

It is useful to compare Ekvall and Tampoe’s analysis of a creative environment with the earlier lists of the factors that encourage individual creativity.

Assessing the research on creativity

The preceding summaries of research and of ways of encouraging creativity are intended to give a ‘flavour’ of the various approaches and methods. Creativity is a highly individual activity and it is not generally possible to predict which of the various approaches will suit each individual.Our two aims are:

• To help you to find the methods that work best for you (you may then need to study the relevant books in greater detail)
• To emphasise that each member of your own team may benefit from very different approaches

You have been appointed manager of a team that needs to be able to think creatively when making decisions and solving problems.Using up to 100 words, write a Guide to Being Creative that you will give to each of your team members.

Feedback

The points that you make will, to some extent, depend on the team you are thinking about and the type of work that you carry out.Ekvall summarised the topic by referring to the following aspects of the organisational climate:

• Freedom: employees need to have confidence that they can take decisions and seek information
• Trust: there should be open relationships and support for new ideas
• Commitment: creativity requires a group of motivated employees
• Diversity: people need to have a range of experiences and skills

2. Organisational Culture

You are very likely to have heard comments such as the following about different places of work:

• “Everyone was very friendly, and we regularly met outside work for social evenings.”
• “It was like prison. You sat at a machine all day, never talked to colleagues and just did the work the boss gave you.”
• “Everyone always thinks of finding better ways to do things. The boss’s aim is to ‘create creative workers’.”
• “It was all just like a social club. Nobody did much work except when a supervisor walked past.”

Hearing any one of those comments gives a very quick picture of what it was like to work in each workplace. You get an instant idea of “the way we do things around here” – one of the most commonly used definitions of organisational culture.Studying those comments, it is clear that the culture depends on many factors. Some of these are formal aspects of the organisation (i.e. the managers, supervisors and organisational structure), whilst 0thers are related to interactions between people (i.e. the informal organisation). We’ll start by looking at those two aspects of the organisation.

The formal and informal components of the organisation

Think for a moment about the last few times when changes were made in your department or team. How did you first find out?You may have heard through an e-mail from your manager or a newsletter sent to all employees; perhaps you were told by a speaker in a meeting. All of these methods are typical of the formal organisation that exists. To co-ordinate every employee’s work, organisations define their aims, set up formal structures, define each person’s job role. In this way they hope to ensure that everyone’s work contributes to the organisation’s missions, vision and goals.On the other hand, you may have heard about the changes to your department informally – perhaps while chatting at the coffee machine, from a colleague at an adjacent work position, or when chatting during your lunch break. Unlike the formal organisation, the informal organisation is unstructured, being made up of a number of flexible groups with ever-changing memberships and boundaries.

Analyse your own position in the formal organisation, thinking in relation to:

• The organisation’s mission
• The organisational chart, which shows the various levels of management and their areas of responsibility
• Your job description
• Ways of measuring how well you are contributing to organisational goals.

Identify the various informal groups that you are in. For each group, analyse:a) How effective it is as a source of informationb) To what degree it affects your job satisfactionc) To what degree it affects your motivationd) To what degree it gives you a feeling of stability and security

Feedback

Analysing your own position in the formal organisation is usually a fairly easy task. You can probably answer most of the questions by assessing where you and your line manager fit into the organisational structure, by reading your job description, and so on. You can also refer to your personal targets and the targets that have been set for your team and department.Analysing the informal organisation is more difficult. You’ll probably find that everything is more fluid, and that friendships and contacts tend to vary. Despite that, many people find that the social aspects of their work are important factors (both positive and negative) in their motivation and job satisfaction. During difficult economic times, your personal relationships at work may feel more stable than the formal organisation itself.

Informal organisation and culture

The effectiveness of the informal organisation is often shown by the existence of an organisational culture.McLean and Marshall defined organisational culture as:‘…the collection of traditions, values, policies, beliefs, and attitudes that constitute a pervasive context for everything we do and think in an organisation.’Put more simply, the organisational culture defines‘How we do things around here.’Edgar Schein describes a model of culture in terms of three levels. Study the following descriptions of the three levels and assess how they relate to your own experiences in the workplace.

Schein’s levels of culture

• Artefacts, or surface manifestations - this is the ‘observable culture’, including the visible things that a culture produces. It’s everything that ‘sends a message’ to an organisation’s employees, suppliers and customers. Examples include the tools people use and the clothing they wear at work; the ceremonial events, such as parties and awards ceremonies; the ways that new members are introduced into the organisation, the stories that people tell and the heroes they describe, and so on.
• Values - a culture is based to some extent on someone’s original values. It feels different if you move from an IKEA store to a Body Shop store and then to a supermarket. In any organisation, employees will typically use similar solutions when dealing with a new problem. The approach to problems is based on the original founder’s values and beliefs. These become part of the ways that employees justify their actions and behaviour.
• Basic underlying assumptions - if similar solutions to a series of problems work, they come to be taken for granted. These unconscious responses are used as the culture’s basic assumptions. They are implicit assumptions that actually guide behaviour and determine how group members perceive, think and feel about things.

Show Me Since the international banking crisis of 2008, there has been a series of disclosures and court cases relating to investment banks. A number of them have been banks that lent money rashly, sold insurance illegally, manipulated the London Interbank Offer Rate (Libor), and have even been accused of money laundering.In many cases, senior management has blamed individual ‘rogue traders’, but it has gradually become clear that at least some of the banks had a culture of seeking a quick profit, even if this meant acting illegally or unethically.Study the following article:

• What's gone wrong with the banks?: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-18915060#

It ends with the following words:Short-term gainsSo in participants' minds, doing "what is right" was replaced by doing what is OK by the lawyers and the compliance officers: Doing what you can get away with, you might call it.Now, it would be foolish to mourn too much the vanishing of the old City of London.It was snobby and introverted and uncompetitive and full of restrictive practices, and as such very unhealthy.But it has been replaced by something even more disquieting: a system where short-term gains are king, and anything else is relegated to a sideshow.

Which of Handy’s types probably applies to the following organisations?a) An investment bankb) A small firm of buildersc) Your local tax officed) Your local dentiste) The organisation you work in or have observed in the past.

Feedback

a) The investment bank is likely to be a Task culture. People with specific areas of expertise will be expected to work independently and will have considerable power, provided they continue to make a profit.b) A small firm of builders. This is likely to be a Power culture, based around the owner of the company.c) Your local tax office will be a Bureaucracy. Every person in the organisation will have a specific role and will be expected to carry out carefully defined tasks.d) A dentist’s surgery will be a Person culture. There may be a number of employees, but the whole focus is around ensuring that the dentist can carry out the work effectively.e) Only you can define the culture in your chosen organisation. Do note that you could link this activity about Handy’s types with the previous activity about Schein’s levels of culture. How do Schein’s levels relate to Handy’s types?

Deal and Kennedy’s categories

An alternative approach, by Deal and Kennedy categorises organisations according to the degree of risk associated with their activities and the speed at which they get feedback on those activities. They also identify four categories of culture:

• Tough-guy, macho - an organisation of individualists taking high risks and getting quick feedback. You could identify examples such as surgeons, police departments, and the entertainment and construction industries. Think of the stand-up comic and the risk of being booed on stage.
• Work-hard/play-hard - employees take few risks and get quick feedback. Examples here include sales organisations and estate agents.
• Bet-your-company - involves high risk but slow feedback. An oil company, for example, might spend years investigating a new oilfield and eventually find that it is unprofitable. An architectural firm is another example of this type of culture.
• Process - involves low-risk and slow feedback. Typical examples include retail banks, insurance companies and the civil service. Since people get little feedback, they typically focus on how they do things rather than what they do.

Involve Me Which of Deal and Kennedy’s types probably applies to the organisations you considered in the preceding activity?a) An investment bankb) A small firm of buildersc) Your local tax officed) Your local dentiste) The organisation you work in or have observed in the past.

Feedback

a) An investment bank is Tough-guy, macho. It will become clear very quickly if a particular trade was a success or failure, and the stakes are high.b) A small firm of builders is generally Bet-your-company. If they decide to build a group of houses, it will take some time before they know whether they will sell them at a profit. There is a significant risk that the costs will exceed the selling price.c) Your local tax office is a Process culture. Everyone follows the rules.d) Your local dentist is more difficult to categorise. You could consider dentistry as being fairly low risk, in which case the best category is probably Work-hard play hard. On the other hand, you might consider the risk of being sued if an operation goes wrong: this might make the job high risk, and so suggest that the best category is Tough-guy, macho.e) As before, only you can define the culture in your chosen organisation. Do note that you could link this activity back to the earlier ones about Handy’s and Schein’s levels of culture. How do Schein’s levels relate to Deal and Kennedy’s categories?

Organisational socialization

We now need to look at how the people within the organisation maintain its existing culture. How has Ingvar Kamprad ensured that IKEA, which he originally founded as a 17-year old in 1943, kept much of its original culture while growing to become the world's largest furniture retailer?The strength of a company’s culture depends to a great extent on having employees with relatively similar values and making the same basic assumptions. It helps, therefore, to ensure that employees stay with the organisation for a lengthy period. It is also necessary for new recruits to learn about the company’s culture: this is done through a process known as organisational socialization.Organisational socialization is a process of influencing new recruits’ behaviour, values, attitudes and motives. The aim is to ensure that they fit with the existing culture.

What happens when new recruits join your organisation?How do they learn about the organisational culture (“The way we do things around here”)?

Feedback

To think further about your answers to these questions, study the following description of the organisational socialization process. Note that this is also called ‘onboarding’ – the process that a new recruit to an organisation passes through when they ‘come on board’ the organisation.Tell Me

The organisational socialization process

There will typically be a number of stages of organisational socialisation, including many or all of the following:

• Information given to potential recruits. People get a picture of an organisation before they even apply for a job. Some people who would not fit into the culture may not even make an application.
• Selection of new recruits. Potential recruits will gain further understanding during the selection process. Perhaps they will have a guided tour and will see how employees and managers interact; perhaps they will be told about some of the rituals or the ways of working; they will see some of the equipment and work environment; and so on.
• Initial training. This will generally have two overall aims. First, to ensure that new recruits can carry out their various work tasks. Second, to prepare the recruit for the organisational culture. This second aim might include things like expected codes of dress, how managers and employees interact, texplain some of the rituals and ceremonies; and so on.
• Initiation. While few organisation have such violent informal initiations ceremonies as some army groups or American colleges, new recruits will certainly have some form of initial meeting with their colleagues. This initial meeting will often give useful information about how people work together in the particular culture.
• Reinforcement. Within a very short time in the new workplace, a recruit will have experienced many examples of positive and negative reinforcement. This reinforcement may be given by colleagues or managers, but will aim to ensure that the recruit ‘fits in’ with the new culture.

What happened when you joined your current organisation? Think about how you found out about its organisational culture through each of the following stages:a) Information given to potential recruitsb) Selection of new recruitsc) Initial trainingd) InitiationWhat examples can you identify where you have experienced:a) positive reinforcement that encouraged you when you did something that fitted with the culture, andb) negative reinforcement that showed which of your behaviours or attitudes did not ‘fit’.

Feedback

As you work through this activity, the key question is “How effectively did the various elements of the organisational socialisation process give you an accurate and complete picture of the organisation’s culture?”You may also have identified an important question relating to socialisation. To what extent is the recruit given management’s picture of the culture, and to what extent does the recruit gradually develop a picture of the culture based on the informal organisation? More crucially, how different are the two cultures?For more ideas about organisational socialisation, which you can then use to assess your own organisation’s practices, study the sources on the next page.Show Me For a useful guide to organisational socialisation, study the following guide for managers:

• Best Practices for Onboarding: Ensuring Successful Assimilation: http://your.kingcounty.gov/employees/HRD/CareerOrgServices/toolkit/docs/OnboardingBestPracticesHCI.pdf

Note that this is a fairly lengthy document, with 14 pages. You will probably find it most useful to skim read it initially, and then to focus of the particular sections that relate to organisational culture.Based on the suggestions here, what changes would you make if you were planning the arrival of a new recruit to your own organisation?Then watch the following seven minute video, which the American Environmental Protection Agency shows to new recruits. As you study it, assess to what extent it gives a clear picture of the organisation’s culture.

• U.S. EP New Employee Onboarding Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tzb8LGSN7O4&feature=related

Feedback

Inevitably, the video gives the ‘official’ picture of the organisation, but it does give that picture very clearly. For example, it explains how the organisation has developed, what its main aims are, how the various parts of the organisation work together, and so on.You might then have wondered how someone could make a video that shows the informal culture. You would get some hints from the video, for example about dress codes and the types of work that people were doing.However, it would be very difficult to give much more information about the overall organisational culture in such a large organisation. Is there a single culture? You would probably find differences between the different departments and offices around the country, especially as they would be working on different aspects of environmental protection.

Why does culture matter?

Culture is claimed to have benefits both for the organisation and for the people who work in it.From a manager’s perspective, a strong culture is seen as a powerful lever in guiding behaviour. As a result, some companies cultivate their cultures, thinking that this gives them an edge over their competitors in terms of productivity. It is sometimes argued that the impact of a strong culture on productivity is powerful and it makes employees feel better about what they do, so they are more likely to work harder.Peters and Austin echo this theme by reporting that "shared company values affect individual performance because shared values set a framework whereby employees can flexibly and speedily respond to new day-to-day situations, whereas rules and procedures can be a strait-jacket”. In turn, this means that leaders can spend more time coaching in these values rather than fixing employee errors.Schein highlights the value of culture from an individual’s viewpoint. He says that it ‘reduces the anxiety that humans experience when they are faced with uncertainty or overload’.It is important to remember, however, that culture can also bind people together outside the work environment. People belong to ethnic groups, religious or social organisations, local communities, and so on. We do not leave these cultures behind at the factory gate or office door.Ann Cunliffe describes organisational culture and claims that it is important for the following reasons:

• It shapes the public’s image of the organisation
• It influences organisational effectiveness
• It provides direction for the organisation
• It helps to attract, retain and motivate staff

As examples, consider the culture in two retail stores. One might be a top of the range store, perhaps Harrods inLondon. Another might be a local “stack ‘em high and sell ‘em cheap” supermarket like Lidl or Aldi. Thinking about the two types of store:

• The public will have a very clear image of each organisation.
• As a result, both stores will gains effectiveness: Harrods will know that they need to employ knowledgeable staff who can guide customers to suitable purchases; in contrast staff at Aldi and Lidl will focus on stacking the shelves and working the checkout tills. (Note that this is not to belittle training at both Alid and Lidl stores to encourage good relationships with customers: it is purely a question of focus. After all, the profit margins at Harrods can justify having many more staff available to interact with customers.)
• Management and staff in both types of store will gain direction. Harrods managers will focus on buying top-of-the range goods and expect to sell relatively few but at a high mark-up price. Lidl and Aldi managers and staff will focus on trying to keep costs as low as possible so that they can sell at rock-bottom prices but still make a profit.
• People looking for work will apply for the type of store that they think most suitable. The well-groomed, well-spoken shop assistant might be more likely to apply to Harrods; the person looking for a part-time job near their home might be more likely to apply to Aldi or Lidl.

Involve Me Think of your own organisation and its culture. To what degree do Ann Cunliffe’s comments relate to your organisation?It shapes the public’s image of the organisation It influences organisational effectiveness It provides direction for the organisation It helps to attract, retain and motivate staff

Feedback

Your comments will relate to the specific organisation, so we cannot give specific feedback.However, completing this activity may have highlighted that your organisation is not benefiting in all four of Cunliffe’s ways. Perhaps, for example, the culture is not acting to attract, retain and motivate staff. Perhaps new recruits are made to feel unwelcome, and so never learn enough about how to carry out their role. If that’s true, then management needs to take action to try to change the culture.

National culture

You saw earlier that people belong to ethnic groups, religious or social organisations, local communities and so on. We do not leave these cultures behind at the factory gate or office door, so they will affect us, our colleagues and the organisational culture where we work.Gert Hofstede studied the effect of national cultures in IBM, a multinational organisation that had workplaces in countries throughout the world. That research (and further research over the following 40 years) identified the following measures of difference:

• Power Distance (PDI) – the extent to which the less powerful members of organisations accept that power is distributed unequally.
• Individualism (IDV) – the degree to which individuals feel free to work independently (high IDV) or are integrated into groups.
• Masculinity (MAS) – the distribution of roles between the genders, with high MAS associated with aggressive masculinity.
• Uncertainty Avoidance (UAI) – a person’s need to avoid uncertainty and ambiguity.
• Time Orientation (LTO) – a person’s outlook on time in work and life, typically comparing short term and long term views.

In recent years, researchers have also identified Indulgence Restraint. Indulgence occurs when a society allows relatively free gratification of drives related to enjoying life and having fun, whilst Restraint stands for a society that suppresses gratification of needs and regulates it by means of strict social norms. However, figures for this index are not yet available on the Hofstede website.

An example of Hofstede’s ideas in practice

You saw above that Hofstede’s term ‘power distance’ refers to the extent to which the less powerful members of organisations accept that power is distributed unequally. Within an organisation the level of inequality relates to questions of management style, the willingness of employees to disagree with managers, and the levels of education and status linked to particular roles.Hofstede suggested that it is more likely that autocratic styles of leadership (e.g. ‘Tell’ and ‘Sell’) would be found in countries with high levels of power distance, such asFrance,Spain, Hong Kong andIran.In contrast, participative styles of leadership were more likely to be found in countries with low levels of power distance –UK,Italy,Holland, Scandinavia andUSA.

Many of us work and live in increasingly multi-cultural environments. Managers and other leaders must take into consideration the needs and traditions of these cultures when leading teams.To compare the culture of your own country with another that you know, work through the following activity.1) Go to the Geert Hofstede website: www.geert-hofstede.com.2) In the left hand menu select National Culture > Countries.3) Select your own country and you will be given figures and a chart for that country.4) Select your comparison country and you will see a chart that shows the results for both countries.5) Remind yourself what each of the dimensions shows.6) Make your own notes about how the two countries compare for each of the dimensions.7) To what extent do those results correspond to your own experience of people from the two countries?

Feedback

Comparing the findings for theUnited Kingdom and Singapore we find that:

• Singapore scores much more highly on PDI and LTO. In other words Singaporeans are more accepting of inequality and view events from a longer time scale.
• British scores are higher for IDV, MAS and UAI. In other words, when compared with Singaporeans, Britons have a greater need to be individual and to avoid uncertainty, and higher levels of aggressive masculinity.