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: Creative productivity as a job
It is often the case that individuals "wait for inspiration" before they embark on their creative and innovative endeavours. However, this misses the mark for a number of reasons:
a) Engagement in the task gets the mind working on the task at various cognitive levels – problems are identified and subconsciously the mind searches for solutions. When ideas then arrive, they are labelled as insight or inspiration. Insight or inspiration is increased in frequency and duration when the creator or innovator dives into the task.
b) The key to quality is prolific output. By treating the endeavour as a job, small goals and incremental deadlines increase output to a far greater degree than a "do your best" approach or a "I'll do it when I'm ready" approach.
c) There are a significant number of blocks working on the mind at any one time. Together this is called "resistance." Unless a conscious and sustained effort is made to counter them, they remain obstacles.
d) Climbing the experience curve requires energy expenditure. By treating the endeavour as a job, the experience curve is attacked and overcome much more rapidly.
e) All of the above do not detract from the requirement of motivation, which includes aspects such as: joy for the endeavour, competency expansion, feasibility, self-determination etc.
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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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