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How to kill creativity (Amabile, 1998)

In the pursuit of other valid business objectives (productivity, control, coordination), creativity is often killed. But, it is possible to build organizations which both foster creativity and meet other, more traditional demands too.

What is creativity? It does not belong just in the arts, nor does it belong only in marketing or R&D. EVERY FUNCTION can benefit from creativity (defined as a new and valuable idea).

THREE COMPONENTS OF CREATIVITY

1. Expertise: Knowledge (technical, procedural, intellectual)
2. Creative Thinking Skills: How do people approach problems/tasks? Depends on personality as well as working style (perserverance, incubation).
3. Motivation: Intrinsic motivation leads to more creative outcomes than those driven by external pressures. This intrinsic motivation is the one that can be most easily affected by the work environment.

Extrinsic motivation (either carrot or stick), on the other hand, is often at the root of creativity problems in business. Financial rewards do not neccessarily hinder creativity, but they don’t neccessarily help either. They can make people feel like they are being bribed or controlled. IMPORTANTLY, money can’t act on someone’s heart to make them more interested/emotionally attached.

Intrinsic Motivation Principle of Creativity: People will be most creative when they feel motivated primarily by the interest, satisfaction, and challenge of the work itself-and not by external pressures.

MANAGING CREATIVITY

It is possible to affect all three components but it is, possibly, easier, quicker and cheaper to act on the last one (motivation).

Managerial practices that affect creativity fall into six general categories:

1. Challenge: Matching people with the right assignments. Stretch abilities, but not so much that people feel overwhelmed. For this, managers need to have good information on both their employees and the tasks that need to be done. Such information is rarely easily available, and ’shotgun wedding’ assignments are common.
2. Freedom: Autonomy of means, but not neccessarily ends – “the freedom to decide how to climb a particular mountain”. Rather than inhibiting people, clearly specified goals tend to enhance creativity. As it is hard to hit a moving traget, goals should be clear and stable. Such autonmy enhances intrinsic motivation as individuals have the flexibility to utilize their specific skills and experience to meet challenges.
3. Resources: Most importantly, time and money. Sometimes time pressures can heighten creativity by increasing the challenge and indicating the value and urgency of the task. On the other hand, fake or impossible deadlines demotivate – leading to unfulfillment and burnout. Moreover, creativity takes time – if people can’t explore or incubate, they will be hard pressed to come up with creative ideas. In terms of other resources, beyond a certain threshold adding more does not enhance creativity. Insufficient resources can, though, dampen creative work – people may start to put their energy into finding extra resources than attending to their tasks. Space is also a widely overemphasized dimension. While nice, open offices are desirable, they are often stressed at the expense of other, more effective and easily implemented solutions.
4. Work-group Features: Work groups need to be supportive, and consist of people with diverse backgrounds and perspectives. Combining various expertise often leads to exciting and valuable outputs. Additionally, teams must share a common goal, members must be willing to support their teammates throught tough times, and all members must recognize and value the variety of perspectives that the others possess. While homogenous teams quickly reach solutions with little friction and high morale they often arrive and leave with the same mindset, adding nothing to creativity.
5. Supervisory Encouragement: Supervisors need to remember to praise successful and unsuccessful attempts at creativty. People don’t neccessarily need cheerleaders but in order to sustain their intrinsic motivation over long periods they need to feel that the work they are doing is valuble to someone. How new ideas are reacted to is also important. Often new ideas are buried under time consuming evaluation procedures. A common psychological dynamic is that in order to appear smarter it is neccessary to be critical. A culture of evaluation leads to a focus on external rewards/punishments and a climate of fear. While in the end some ideas have to be successful, it is very difficult to know at the start which ones will be. Further, dead-ends and the process of getting their are often very enlightening (knowing what doesn’t work is often as useful as knowing what does). Managers can also serve as role models – persevering through tough problems, and encouraging communication and collaboration.
6. Organizational Support: At an organizational level, it must be made clear that creative efforts are valued. Rewards but not bribes. Mandate information sharing and collaboration – this acts on all three components of creativity, increasing expertise, exposing people to new work/thought processes, and making work more stimulating and enjoyable. Deal with internal political problems (these hinder collaboration and adversely affect intrinsic motivation).

IT IS POSSIBLE TO MAKE A DIRECTED EFFORT TO CHANGE THE CULTURE OF AN ORGANIZATION TOWARDS CREATIVITY
The risks of not doing so include losing the ability to produce (or being comparatively weaker at producing) new ideas. The energy and commitment of employees may decline.
ELIMINATING CREATIVITY KILLING BEHAVIOR IS NOT ENOUGH, THERE NEEDS TO BE POSITIVE ACTION TOO.

Original Text:
Amabile, T.M. (1998). How to kill creativity. Harvard Business Review, 76(5), 77-87.

Related Books:
Creativity In Context: Update To The Social Psychology Of Creativity

Creativity and the Role of the Leader