Managing Creativity MBA dissertation

FORWARD

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: CREATIVITY CAN BE DEVELOPED

We get better at generating good ideas with time. Evidence includes,

a) The experience curve shows us that in the early stages, relative lack of experience, knowledge and refined methodology limits performance to sub-optimal levels. With time these factors improve and productivity increases exponentially.

b) Subliminal and subconscious learning – when we are motivated by an endeavour we will become good at it by working at it on various cognitive levels.

c) Subliminal and subconscious perception – many skills and actions are initially learnt with much conscious effort, then, with practice, they come easily and smoothly. After complete automisation, paying attention may actually be detrimental.

However there are peaks and troughs of motivation and path dependency that one must be aware of - we also get better at editing out those ideas that are least likely to be successful.

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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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