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Chapter 11: Creativity and Innovation in Leadership - Coggle Diagram
Chapter 11: Creativity and Innovation in Leadership
Creativity and Innovation
A creative idea becomes an innovation when it is implemented or commercialized.
Creativity is an essential characteristic of leaders, enabling them to bring forth ideas or things that did not exist previously or that existed in a different form.
Innovation: The creation of new ideas and their implementation or commercialization.
Creativity: The production of novel and useful ideas.
Characteristics of Creative People
Cognitive Abilities: Good intellectual skills and intellectual curiosity.
Personality: Positive self-image, tolerance for isolation, nonconformity, and the ability to tolerate ambiguity and chaos.
Knowledge: Extensive knowledge and a broad range of interests.
Passion for the Task & Flow Experience: Intense intrinsic motivation and experiencing flow—a state where the task becomes intrinsically rewarding.
Creating a Climate for Creative Problem Solving
Fostering a culture of originality.
Expecting employees to generate a large number of ideas.
Balancing cohesion and dissent in the organization.
Strategies for Enhancing Creativity
Think outside the box within a defined framework.
Systematically consider fresh ideas by:
Establishing idea quotas.
Using whiteboards throughout the organization.
Granting time to explore and tinker.
Consciously calling for ideas.
Leadership Practices for Enhancing Innovation
Take risks and encourage risk-taking.
Emphasize collaboration and teamwork.
Question traditional beliefs and orthodoxies.
Avoid innovation for its own sake.
Continuously pursue innovation.
Use "loose–tight" leadership to balance control and flexibility.
Emphasize transformational leadership.
Brainstorming and Idea Generation
Participants should prepare by studying the problem beforehand.
Brainstorming can be conducted both in-person and remotely.
Brainstorming is a key idea-generation method, even for advanced technology companies.
Every idea has moral implications, and it’s essential to consider the potential consequences of new ideas or products.
Leadership Practices for Enhancing Creativity
Designing work groups effectively.
Supervisors should encourage and link innovation to performance.
Supplying the right resources.
Providing organizational support for creativity and explaining how innovation improves performance.
Empowering workers and allowing them freedom to choose their own methods.
Having favorable exchanges with creative workers.
Providing intellectual challenges.
Giving financial rewards for innovation.
Hiring creative people from outside and identifying creative individuals from within.
Self-Help Techniques for Creative Problem Solving
Maintaining enthusiasm and being happy.
Getting advice from someone outside your field.
Staying alert to opportunities.
Using a systematic place for recording ideas.
Practicing creativity-enhancing exercises.
Playing the roles of explorer, artist, judge, and lawyer.
Overcoming the self-perception that you are not creative.
Engaging in appropriate physical exercise.
Soliciting feedback on your performance.
Key Terms
Intuition: Experience-based way of knowing or reasoning where evidence is unconsciously weighed and balanced.
Experience of Flow: An engrossing and enjoyable experience where the task is rewarding for its own sake, regardless of external consequences.
Innovation: Implementation or commercialization of new ideas.
Cultural Brokerage: Facilitating communication and understanding between people from different cultural backgrounds.
Creativity: Production of novel and useful ideas.
The Creative Process
Insight: A solution surfaces, often unexpectedly.
Incubation: Letting the idea simmer in the background.
Immersion: Becoming deeply involved and immersed in the idea.
Verification and Application: Implementing and testing the solution.
Opportunity or Problem Recognition: Identifying an issue or opportunity that needs a creative solution.
Managing Creative Workers
Offer flexibility and autonomy.
Turn down ideas gently to maintain motivation.
Provide excellent tools and resources.
Employ creative people to manage and evaluate creative workers.