By Haziz Haoual, from Alter Domus, second prize winner, ICT Editorial Contest, Luxembourg ICT Awards 2014.

 

Creativity is an essential skill for all organizations in the 21st century. Nowadays, the globalization has increased competition and companies have the same dilemma; how to drive the cost down and the value up, meaning a simultaneous pursuit of differentiation and low cost. Creativity is the process which aims to think out of the box and help companies to evolve.

 

Many theories and literatures connect the concept of leadership to the ability to initiate creativity and manage changes. In fact, leaders are mainly the initiators of creativity in an organization however they must implement strategies and frameworks to encourage it and to retrieve a real outcome.

 

Concept of creativity

What’s the creativity? "Creativity is ability to generate innovative ideas and manifest them from thought into reality". Creativity is not easy to define; it’s a broad concept that can take many meanings. "Many of today’s creativity scholars now define creativity as the ability to produce original ideas that serve some value or solve some problem (Kaufmann, 1988; MacKinnon, 1978; Talbot, 1997). This view counters the misconception that creativity is strictly about imagination, diversity in thought, or simply standing out as different.  Rather, true creativity involves three ingredients, novelty, usefulness and realization" (Sven Hemlin, 2013).

 

So, creativity is achieved only when an idea is original, novel, rare and, in the same time, this idea must serve a value, fulfil a need, solve a problem or achieve a goal.

 

The creativity is based on the 4P’s model (person, process, product and press - context). They were described by Rhodes (1961) as being: understanding the traits, characteristics or attributes of the creative person; describing the operations or stages of thinking used in the creative process; identifying outcomes and qualities of creative products; and examining the nature of situations and its context within the creative press (or environment)(1). A lot of researchers have identified that the environment has an impact on the ability to create. It facilitates or challenges employees to think more creatively. The MPIA methodology (Mapping, Perspectives, Ideas, Actions) is an example of approach which brings a pragmatic model to facilitate the brainstorming and enhance the generation process of new ideas (‘Invitations’ to think differently).

 

The relationship between creativity and leadership

The creativity is a continuous process which involves cognitive, behavioural and affective skills. So, in this context, leadership is mandatory because leaders have the ability to empower people and encourage flexibility and originality of thoughts. Leaders are more sensitive to problems and have a natural ability to elaborate new ideas. Studies at Manchester Business School have established a clear link between effective leaders and their skills at encouraging creative change. In fact, leaders have the ability to put in place benign structures through which teams have the capacity to achieve original ideas.

 

Creativity in an organization

As explained in the introduction, creativity is one of the most important factors which could have an impact on the effectiveness and the competiveness of an organisation.  Dr Mark Batey, Creativity Specialist, Manchester Business School explains that "Organisations are constantly seeking a competitive advantage. The source of this advantage resides in the development of a creative culture, which underlies innovation and growth"(2).

 

To survive the organizations have to continuously evolve and change. The market is tense and the creativity becomes a key differentiator. It means that organizations have to structure, adopt and manage the creative process to move from "creativity by chance" to "creativity on demand". In fact, the creativity aims to generate and implement new useful ideas to better solve internal or customer’s problems. It also helps to improve the organization by looking for more efficiency or by doing things differently. So the capacity to produce quickly new ideas in a structured approach is definitely a competitive advantage.

 

Creative leadership style enhance organization

In May 2010, IBM did a survey about the most important leadership quality for CEOs and Creativity came on top (beating integrity and global thinking). This means that for the coming years, creativity will become a strategic asset and a key differentiator.

 

The Boston Consulting Group’s 2010 strategy survey of 1600 executives found that creativity and innovation had returned to the top of the strategic agenda "a trend that had been evident since 2003. The executives felt that creativity was essential for successful recovery from the downturn"(3).

 

The lubricant, the catalyst of the creativity is creative leadership. In fact, as it was explained by Keith Yamashita, CEO, SYPartners, "What differentiates companies – and enables them to outperform others – is how they look at the problem, finding different ways to go after solving the problem and generating options and ideas that others are not aware of. This is the heart of creative leadership" (Lombardo & Roddy, May 2010)(4).

 

The creative leadership style enhances the effectiveness of an organisation because the creativity is the raw material of the innovation and innovation makes organisation more effective. By the way, leaders have the ability to drive and create the path to new revenues through new product or new service.

 

As it was clearly explained in the report about the role of the leader in creativity, published in the Harvard Business Review, "a Manager’s Guide to Increasing Innovation, if you’re trying to enhance creativity... remember that you are not the sole fount of ideas. Be the appreciative audience. Ask the inspiring questions. Allow ideas to bubble up from the workforce. ...enable collaboration" (M. Amabile & Khaire, 2008)(5).

 

I will close this article with the quote of J.P. Guilford (1968), psychologist and early creativity researcher, who said: "To live is to have problems and to solve problems is to grow creatively".

 

Haziz Haoual

 

 

(1) Rhodes (1961). An analysis of creativity, Phi Beta Kappen, 42, 305-310

(2) http://www.mbs.ac.uk/about-mbs/news/view/?guid=d4b386d0-888f-4e08-b767-b381bd09ef48

(3) http://www.e-metrixx.com/me2-creativity-profit/organisational-creativity/

(4) IBM Institute for Business Value. Capitalizing on Complexity: Insights from the Global Chief Executive Officer Study.” May 2010. www.ibm.com/

(5) Creativity and the Role of the Leader, Teresa M. Amabile and Mukti Khaire – Harvard Business review - 2008