Task 1 Flashcards
What does a work style that uses “incubation” (Entwicklungszeit) ?
The ability to set aside difficult problems temporarily, work on something else and then return later with a fresh perspective
What are the natural resources of a creative individual?
expertise and creative thinking
What determines what people will actually do?
motivation
What happens if you do not have motivation to do a particular job?
You simply won’t do it.
Your expertise and creative thinking will either go untapped or be applied to something else
Which 2 types of motivation are there?
extrinsic motivation and intrinsic motivation
Where does Extrinsic motivation come from?
comes from outside a person
What effect does extrinsic motivation has on workplaces?
Extrinsic motivation makes people do their jobs in order to get something desirable or to avoid something painful
What is the most common extrinsic motivator managers uses?
money
What do you know about the influence of money to creativity?
Money doesn’t necessarily stop people from being creative but in many situations, it dose not not help.
Money does not make employees passionate about their jobs.
What is intrinsic motivation all about?
passion and interest
= a internal desire to do something
What do people do if they are intrinsically motivated?
they engage in their work for the challenge and enjoyment of it
The work itself is motivating
Define the Intrinsic Motivation Principle of Creativity
People will be most creative when they feel motivated primarily by the interstate’s, satisfaction and challenge of the work itself; and not by external pressure
What managerial practices affect creativity? Name 6 general categories
- challenge
- freedom
- resources
- work-group features
- supervisory encouragement
- organizational support
What defines a creative idea?
Name 4 characteristics
original, appropriate, useful and actionable
can be used in any area
Explain the term expertise
Expertise = Fachkenntnis
Expertise is knowledge (technical, procedural, intellectual), everything a person knows, in the domain of his/ her work and other personal knowledge
What is meant by “network of possible wanderings” ?
intellectual space that is used to explore and solve problems ( the larger the space the better)
Which ability do people with creative-thinking skills have?
People with Creative-Thinking skills are able to put existing ideas together in a new combination
What do creative-thinking skills influence?
How people work, how they think and how they solve problems
What are people with good creative-thinking skills do?
name 4 things
They feel comfortable to disagree with others, they try out solutions which differ from the status quo
They improve their creativity by starting to turn problems upside down and combine knowledge from seemingly different fields
Creativity is a function of three components within every individual
Which are this three components?
- Expertise
- Creative thinking
- Motivation
What is the most efficacious way for a manager to stimulate creativity?
Challenge
- the simple task of matching people with the right assignments
- Managers can match people with jobs that play their expertise and their skills in creative thinking and ignite intrinsic motivation
Perfect matches stretch employees abilities. How should the amount of stretch be?
not so little that the employe feels bored but not so much that he fells overwhelmed and threatened by a loss of control
What requires a good match?
That mangers have rich and detailed information about their employees and the available assignments
(BUT its tricky and time consuming)
What is one of the most common ways managers kill creativity?
One of the most common ways managers kill creativity is by not trying to obtain the information necessary to make good connections between people and jobs
Explain the meaning of the sentence “kill creativity by shotgun wedding”
In this situation the most eligible (free & capable) employee is wed to the most eligible (most urgent & open) assignment
Results are unsatisfying for all
What is the key to creativity by granting freedom?
When it comes to granting freedom the key to creativity is giving people autonomy concerting the means
People will be more creative if you give them freedom to decide how to climb a particular mountain . You need to let them choose which mountain to climb
By giving people the freedom of autonomy around the process you ..
name 2 advantages
increase their intrinsic motivation and sense of ownership
if they have problems they will solve them in ways that make the most of their expertise and their creative-thinking skills
How do executives mismanage freedom? Name 2 common ways
- managers tend to change goals frequently or fail to define them clearly
- managers granting autonomy in name only; it seems as the employees would have the freedom to decide as they would have power but for real the process is proscribed
Name 2 resources which need to be assigned carefully
time and money
Which impact does time pressure have on creativity?
Time pressure can height creativity if the importance of the work increases the sense of challenge and need for rush
How can time management kill creativity?
By setting impossible deadlines (burnout) or fake deadlines (distrust) managers can kill creativity
What happens if manager not allowing time for exploration?
They kill creativity
What do managers have to do while thinking about the resources of a project?
They have to compromise between how many resources a project needs and how much the company cab afford
What happens with creativity if managers adding resources (money) above threshold of sufficiency?
More money does not increase creativity
What is the problem of keeping resources tight?
Creativity gets killed because creativity then channelled into finding more resources rather than the actual task
Work-Group Features
How should teams which should come up with creative ideas look like?
Teams that come up with creative ideas must be create out of mutually supportive groups with a diversity of perspectives and backgrounds which bring different expects and creative thinking styles
Work-Group Features
Which 3 characteristics should a creative team have?
Team members must ..
- Team members must share excitement over goal
- Team members must be willing to help teammates
- Team members must recognize the unique knowledge & perspective others bring to the table
Work-Group Features
What is required of a manger to build up a creative team?
Building a creative team requires managers to have a deep understanding of their employees.
They must be informed about the knowledge, the attitude to fellow team members and collaborative process, for their problem-solving styles and for their motivational hot buttons
Work-Group Features
What happens if you have a homogeneous team?
An homogenous team kills creativity; it reaches “solutions” more quickly, because their won’t be a huge discussion with people who have the same mind set; but that also means that expertise and creative-thinking skills won’t get enhanced
Supervisory encouragement
What is the role of the manager?
Managers must recognize creative work and meet new ideas with an open mind
What is important to sustain intrinsic passion?
to sustain intrinsic passion, people need to feel that their work matters
How should your attitude towards exploring new ideas ideally be?
Name a problem of many people
You should look for reasons to explore an idea further rather than reasons not to use it
Problem: many people belief that they would look smarter if they are more critical
How can manager kill creativity in form of supervisory encouragement?
name 2 options
- Kill creativity by meeting ideas with long, time-consuming evaluations or harsh criticism
- Kill creativity by punishing for failure
Which effect does negative bias of the manager has on the employees?
If the manager often reacts critically to new ideas
- the extrinsic motivation of employees will increase (people focus on external rewards and punishments associated with their outputs)
- it will have a negative effect on the intrinsic motivation of the employees
- creates a climate of fear
Is financial reward an effective organizational support?
Creative-supporting organizations constantly reward creativity, but they avoid using money to pay off people to come up with good ideas
financial reward make people feel as if they are being controlled
Name 2 risks of not fostering creativity
- loss of potent competitive weapon: new ideas
2. loss of energy and commitment of employees
What defines a radical innovation?
Its a completely new technique/ a new idea
can create a new market
- It is essential for long term growth
- has high possible outcome
- but also high risk of failure
What defines an incremental innovation ?
improving a product
maximize the profit of an existing product
new version of existing product (e.g. iPhone 6,7,8,..)
What is creativity?
The idea generation
What is Innovation?
The implementation of ideas towards better procedures and products
In what are you believing by Pro-innovation bias
belief that innovation will always have positive outcome
What is meant by innovation maximization fallacy?
The idea that all creativity and innovation is good; the more the better
Name 4 techniques of systematic management
- articulating goals
- planning major steps
- assigning accountability
- monitoring results over time
Name 3 techniques of efficiency-orientated practices
- Managers establish project goals
- lay out a sequence of stages; each with clearly defined criteria for allowing a project to continue
- regular proof if project is still moving along the normal budgetary process
In which conditions do efficiency orientated practices work and in which not?
It works well in the stable and predictable environments (incremental innovation) but not for radical projects
Name 4 steps of the strongly linear path of gate-focused process
- development
- prototyping
- testing
- commercialization
Name 5 key domains which are involved in product development
- Processes
- Methods and tools
- KPIs (performance indicators) and decision making
- Organisation structure
- Teaming and collaboration
Methods and tools
Expand horizons using option modeling (e.g. morphological box) to get early results on alternate solutions
Quality function deployment link customer preferences to design
TRIZ, thinking in new boxes
Tools helping to find out what the product should look like or do
Avoid unproductive brainstorming
KPIs (performance indicators) and decision making
No tossing of solutions that don’t fit within the existing plan
Where does the project stand relative to its affordable loss?
Used to catch the budged; manager still pay attention to what he can control
Tolerates if Team lacks on progress on some dimensions
Organisation structure
Free of conventional management structures but integrated enough with headquarters to get funding
E.g. separate units for incremental and radical innovations
Organizations encouraging employees to take their time to probe and learn
Teaming and collaboration
Cross-functional teams
=Integration of technical and commercial efforts -> development in one area greatly affects the other
Collaboration with external partners -> external developers and potential customers
= Can give vital information and insights into technology & markets -> reduces uncertainty, additional expertise
= Additional funding
Members tolerant to ambiguity, need empowered leaders to make decisions
Name 6 theoretical perspectives and models about creativity
- Componential theory of organizational creativity and innovation
- Interactionist perspective of organizational creativity
- Model of individual creative action
4.Theory on cultural differences and creativity
5.Four factor theory of team climate for innovation
6.Ambidexterity theory
Componential theory of organizational creativity and innovation:
Name 3 major components of creativity for individuals (or small team components)
- expertise
- creative-thinking skills
- intrinsic motivation
Componential theory of organizational creativity and innovation:
Name 3 major components of creativity for Wider work environment components
- organizational motivation to innovate
- resources (finances, time, personnel)
- managerial practices (challenging & supervisory encouragement)
interactionist perspective of organizational creativity and innovation:
Creativity can be a complex interaction between the individual and the work situation act different levels of the organization
On individual level creativity can be a consequence of..
biographical variables cognitive style/ ability of divergent thinking personality ( self-esteem) knowledge motivation social influence (rewards) contextual influence (environment)
interactionist perspective of organizational creativity and innovation:
On team level creativity can be a consequence of..
individual creative behavior interaction between group members group characteristics team processes contextual influences (organizational structure / reward system)
interactionist perspective of organizational creativity and innovation:
On Organizational level creativity can be a consequence of..
individual creativity and team creativity
Model of indiviual creative action
Employees need to decide between working creativity and habitually (following a routine)
Name 3 factors which influence the decision
- Sense-making processes
- Motivation
Motivation determined by goals, beliefs, emotions - knowledge & skills (high = creative path)
=individual creativity action occurs only if ALL of these factors are met
Cultural differences
western vs. eastern cultures
Eastern cultures: fosters creativity as paternalistic control is more accepted
Paternalistic organizational control encourages instinct team motivation
Western: inhibits intrinsic group motivation thus creativity
paternalistic control acts as an inhibitor of intrinsic team motivation
Culture diversity - enhance creativity
Name 4 factors of team climate that enhance innovation when ..
- Vision is understandable, valued and accepted by team members
- Participative safety: Team members perceive they can propose new ideas/solutions without being judged/criticized
- Task orientation: There is a stimulating debate/ discussion of different possible solutions within the team
- Team members perceive support for innovation
What is ambidexterity ?
= ability of a complex and adaptive system to manage and meet conflicting demands by engaging in fundamentally different activities
Ambidexterity represents successful management of both exploration and exploitation.
distinguish between active management on one hand and self-regulatory processes on the other and suggest that both are required for the integration of activities performed by subsys- tems or at different points in time.
Name 11 directions / themes for future research
- Integrate the idea generation and idea implementation
- Need for theorizing and Theory-driven studies
- Organization culture and face-specific climates for creativity and innovation
- Innovation process research
- redress creativity and innovation maximization fallacy
- senior Management team and intervention studies
- leadership style in the creativity-innovation cycle
- dark side approach and studies
- role of costumers in employee creativity
- role of the internet and social media in creativity and innovation
