Individual and Organizational Creativity and Change

Introduction

The ability to adapt to new trends, emerging opportunities, or potentially harmful exposures can ultimately determine the success or failure of an organization. As such, it is critical for organizations to completely understand the dynamics of how to instill change and foster an environment where creativity and innovation are not merely encouraged, but rather it should be a primary area of focus that initiates with each employee and permeates throughout the organizational culture.

The Problem

How does an institution reconcile organizational goals with the need to empower individual employees to anticipate and embrace change which is inevitable? In an effort to identify and develop viable solutions for human resource training and development, several studies that explore the impact of creativity and change, both from an organizational and individual perspective were examined.

Garavan (1995), citing the work of several researchers, contended that it is vital to completely alter attitudes towards change in order to successfully adapt to the surroundings given that change is constant and irregular. Garavan explained that in today's normal culture, individuals will resist change because progress is measured only through familiarity. The prescription is a widespread commitment within the organization to the rational development of creative resources, as successful management of discontinuous change requires planned creative action. Creativity is therefore identified as a core competency for change management. So what exactly is creativity? Is there a set of identifiable competences that one can use to systematically evaluate creativity? Fittingly, the article explored the dimensions of the creative process and then discussed the systematic development of creativity within the organization.

What is creativity?

Nolan (1987), suggested that creativity cannot be learned or taught and therefore successful management hinges upon a revolutionary shift in attitude. Nolan offered a five step approach for managing creative resources:

(1) To view creativity as a resource to be managed, not an accidental phenomenon.

(2) To stop thinking in terms of "creative" and "non-creative" people, and see everybody as a potential creative source.

(3) To make the creative resource visible.

(4) To direct the creativity at the needs of the business.

(5) To create and maintain a culture which fosters creativity.

Nolan's five step approach seemed logical; however, it lacked the prerequisites needed for in-depth scientific analysis which can be utilized universally to assist in better understanding creative development. Boden (1992) achieved this objective through the use of computer simulation to understand human thinking and learning as a systematic process. According to the article, Boden asserted that computers and human beings reason in the same way in that both make discoveries, "but are limited within a system of generative rules" (p.). Computers are programmed using logic/algorithm (if, and/or, unless) while humans reason in much the same way applying exceptions and special cases to a given set of rules. How can this argument hold true given that computers are machines which require programming and human input in order to function? In fact, if one defines creativity as an action where something is created out of nothing, then the above statement would prove to be flawed since computers require specific instructions (inputs) in order to function effectively.

It is true that humans reason by logic and exceptions but humans also have the capacity to apply analogy and to create something out of nothing. Garavan argued that the distinguishing factor between machines and humans is that for humans, "these rules and goals need not be explicit, stable or predetermined" (p.). In order to provide more clarity, Boden compared thinking to using a map for moving through "conceptual space".

He explaind that creative development should be aligned with the competence to "make, explore, and evaluate these mental maps. As such, the ability to create maps of our own mental process is a core feature of learning and therefore creativity as well. "The essence of creating, then, is the discovery or invention of something that lies outside the rules of an existing generative system -- scientific theory, artistic style, mathematical notion -- but is valuable because it allows for the development of a new system, with new criteria for what is thinkable." (p.)

Through the use of artificial intelligence, Boden successfully demonstrated that creativity can be understood as a special competence, and more importantly can be taught and developed. This is seen as a ground-breaking development as it is now clear that everyone is capable of being creative because it is something we can learn to do. It is a "heuristic competence" so to speak, which can be located within Boden's model of creativity and acts as a tool to provide clarity to the concept of reframing the state of mind. The mapping principals of creativity imply that the systematic development of ones creative instincts initiates with the installation of a form of "super-heuristic", where reality is constantly framed in a self made window.

In their article, Woerkum and Aarts( 2007) main focus was to reflect on the relationship with creativity and a variety of planning perspectives. The authors made a distinction between means-end planning and emerging, alternative approaches to planning. They argue that in means-end planning, creativity is primarily a problem solving activity: used when one seeks to find an ideal mix of instruments to meet a stated goal. They go on to illustrate how creativity can play a much greater role in alternative planning perspectives. They seek a broadened concept of creativity and point to strategic devices that promote and facilitate creativity in an organization.

"TRADITIONAL" PLANNING: LIMITATIONS

The authors sow planning as a vital activity for organizations as they set goals and find means to achieve these goals. However, they argue that traditional means-end planning overrates predictability and therefore diminishes creativity. The authors brought several examples from management literature that demonstrate the pitfalls and limitations of means-end planning. They argue that means-end planning often ignores the inherently dynamic and