I recently gave a presentation at Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design on a topic entitled "Is creativity management an oxymoron?"
The essential confusion to people resistant to the idea of "creativity management" was the word "management." Replace it with the word "optimization" and the resistance disappears; all we're really trying to do is optimize the quality of the idea pool and optimize the implementation process.
Then you can suggest that most people already implicitly accept the idea of creativity management: if you ask them to solve a problem or engage in a particular endeavour, one of the things they're likely to do is herd people into a room with a flip chart and conduct some sort of brainstorming session and implicit in that action is the acceptance that certain methods, processes and procedures enhance creative output.
Then you can begin discussing how to improve the enormous amount of creative output people generate, from problem solving in everyday business life right up to the level or art.
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TIP OF THE DAY: THE VALUE OF STRUCTURE
The common belief is that lack of structure and randomness enhances creative output, whereas in truth, creativity is enhanced when it is organised, systematic and based on highly structured processes.
But what do we mean by structure:
a) Structure includes frameworks. Frameworks reduce complex problems to smaller, more manageable parts. The number of ideas generated by examining each smaller part is greater than the number produced by examining the larger, more complex problem as a whole.
b) Structure includes process. If you analyse the behaviour of people in the creative state, they all exhibit the same process. This process includes identifying problems, intensely investigating, seeking stimuli, forcing ideas and encouraging incubation.
c) Structure includes sustained, and even repetitive, activity. Simply being prolific - consistently generating ideas - increases the probability of generating good ideas.
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If you haven't already done so, you can buy the MBA Research Project on Managing Creativity and Innovation, DIY Audit, Good Idea Generator software and the 50 slide Powerpoint Presentation from http://www.managing-creativity.com
Best
http://www.managing-creativity.com
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