Mobilising Creativity and Innovation - Essay Example

Introduction

Over the last decade, creativity and innovation have grown to become key pillars of success in developed and developing countries alike. With the emergence of new challenges in the business and professional realms, the need for creative solutions to the emerging problems has become a core tenet for success. Since creativity goes hand in hand with innovation, no substantial milestones can be achieved in innovation in the absence of creativity. Creativity simply relates to the ability, whether individually or collectively, to come up with new, unique ideas. Innovation on the other hand relates to implementation of the creative ideas, often characterised by a new idea, a revolutionising solution, a new product or service, etc. While creativity and innovation increases productivity in an organisation, it also serves to enhance ones posture and influence in life. Consequently, this paper attempts to explore these constructs in two different sections, the first handles a personal development discourse in relation to innovation and creativity. The second evaluates personal qualities that relate to creativity and innovation from an organisation’s perspective (Orpic Company to be precise), much to understanding the different discourses that shape creativity and innovation within the company.

Personal development of creativity and innovation

In a world where professional personal development, the purpose of youth work no longer hinges solely on job provision but also incorporates enhanced and extensive engagement in the accompanying personal and social development activities that aid in the development knowledge, skills and attitudes essential for such development. Among the essential attributes, we have leadership, teamwork spirit, responsiveness, flexibility, and communication. A study by the European Commission (2014) suggests an integrated approach to enhancing creativity and innovation capacities of individuals, especially the youths that hinges on relevance to employability on the contemporary world. Among the target areas highlighted by this approach include increased focus on entrepreneurship, improving partnership working and cross-sector innovation, extending the evidence base through focused research and comprehensive impact analysis, enhancing means through which individuals can translate non-formal learning outcomes into the work world, among others.

Personal development evaluation

Numerous strategies exist that can be applied in the course of enhancing ones creativity and innovation capacities. My preferred approach remains interactional coaching, a choice focused learning that according to Harvey (2013) entails a co-operative process aimed at aiding the individual through a forward movement in the personal professional goals through exploration of new ideas and candid interaction and dialogue with comprehensive systems or strategic thinking persons. The course of interactional coaching is a multi-stage process that begins with the establishment of a focus. The aim of this establishment is to define the targeted accomplishments by effectively classifying aspirations and prevailing realities. With this comes the need to embrace one human nature and discard the classification as a well-oiled machine. Unlike the self and resource dehumanization context of the machine analogy, a visualization of self as part of a community of individuals, based on personal experiences, unleashes a flood of energy and enthusiasm that allows one to be free to engage in new roles (often creative) that benefit the self and the society.

Next is self-discovery through the exploration and development of compelling visions and the removal of barriers with the aim of challenging the beliefs and assumptions. The course for such entails adequate classification of the desired outcomes and strategies alongside measures for success and the identification of points of leverage. Since these are embedded in a fast-changing world that requires one to keep up with the pace of changes, the rush for success must take into consideration then need to balance up and down times. While the need to invest time into hard work may require long hours of input for timely delivery of tasks, I have learnt that in order to award myself and everyone else involved the opportunity to develop, investment in down time is imperative as it refreshes the mind. Furthermore, such down times are excellent avenues for refining and reflecting on the milestones so far managed, another important stage that allows one to have insights and feedback on the supportive systems in use.

The next step involves the establishment of a means with which to sustain the results. Result sustenance requires the identification of structures and strategies capable of supporting new ideas and behaviors in the post-coaching period. Note that since learning and training are integral components of the development of personal and social skills, the post-coaching period in question here only relates to nascent developmental stages where first-hand guidance. I have learnt that personal and professional investment enables one to cope up with lean times and maximize on prosperous times much to the development of such life skills as necessary to confer self-discipline, overcome fear, manage emotions and develop better communication skills, among others. While investing in training in job skills is important, equally important is the investment on personal and social life skills as they are essential and enable one transcend their limitation and pave way for transformation into a new individual capable of initiating creative and innovative ideas in virtually any environment.

The final and ultimate step involves taking an action, which essentially requires the development of a clear and concise action plan, one that encourages reasonable risk-taking and ensures accountability. The level of success realized from such directly relates to the amount of commitment and investment an individual allocates to self. An important aspect of successful persons is that they are incessant learners who constantly seek and utilize new information and perspectives designed specifically to challenge themselves to becoming better persons. Noteworthy is that the source of such personal development milestones is has little to do with hard work and long work hours, but much to do with strategic investment of time, exceptional focus of energy, investment on self and the development of courage to explore and accommodate transformative challenges.

Theoretical and practical accounts of creative and innovative personal development

Creativity and innovation is more of a function of knowledge, curiosity, imagination and evaluation as opposed to sheer happenstance. However, the mere presence of knowledge does not guarantee ones capability to engineer the formation of new patterns. According to Hill, Brandeau, Truelove and Lineback (2014), creative and innovative leadership entails the ability to identify, harvest and redirect individual efforts in a manner that coincides with personal or organizational processes of efficiency. Orpic Company employs a creative and innovative leadership style that aims to mobilize and lead employees toward the creation of ideas, ventures, services and solutions to prevailing or postulated challenges. The inclusive and comprehensive approach entails the creation of proactive thinking and action processes aligned with the company’s policies, leadership mechanisms, and strategies. It thus supports the organization in achieving its mission and vision in a rapidly changing world and at the same time allows employees to grow and develop professionally both within and outside the organization’s context.

Owned by the Oman government and Oman Oil Company, SAOC, Orpic emerges as one of the country and region’s fastest growing business with major refineries in Sohar and Muscat. It supplies fuel, chemicals, plastics and assorted petroleum products to the country and to other regions of the world. The company emerges as one of the region’s most forward-thinking company flowing its impressive integration refinery and plant operation processes inspired by creative and innovative ideas that collectively support its ambitious growth objectives. In addition to supporting the company’s growth plans, Orpic’s existing strategies for handling creativity and innovative discourses within the firm on a personal level receives full managerial and systems support, much to the professional growth of its employees. For this reason, this paper explores the contribution of its leadership to the creativity and innovative growth of an employee in the firm.

Foremost, the company identifies that the basis for creativity and innovation is knowledge. The key to the same, thus, is a continual expansion of one’s knowledge base. To this end, the company encourages employees to explore new realms and engage in formal and informal learning processes from which they can acquire new, adaptive skills. Though encouraging individual creativity, the company constantly discourages the lone mentorship myth by espousing the importance of contributing to an interdependent network. Lone inventor achievements, though traditionally the result of input from a single genius, innovations and inventions in the modern world, as I have learned from in-depth research and observations, are a result of contributions from different people. Noteworthy also is that most of the world’s best innovations involve contexts that bring together myriad contributors often involving networked organizations or non-centralized systems.

Another important aspect to self-development relates to the ability to apply imagery to creative and innovative ideas as it aids in visualizing the concept coming to life. According to Goodman and Dingli (2013), guided imagery initiates the flow of ideas that quickly translate to a build-up in momentum for their creative execution. The individual assesses the idea in light of the intended purpose of the concept, say problem solving, and determines the most appropriate version for adoption once the concept moves to the realization stage. Thus, while creativity is innate to all humans, their translation to substantive discourses and concepts requires the engagement of certain attitudes and a sense of discipline. Consequently, the awakening of an individual’s creative ingenuity necessitates embracing the shadow self that in turn catalyzes the transformation the untapped potential into real life possibilities.

Practically, experience emerges as another core tenet to enhancing an individual’s creative and innovative capacities. For this reason, Orpic Company has a system of human resource management that encourages the retention of persons with exceptional experiences or aiding the transfer of such experiences to younger generations whenever such a person has attained retirement age. Based on this observation, I have been more inclined to engagements that provide exceptional opportunities for hands-on experiences, physical or intellectual, as the same exposes my subconscious mind to a horde of ideas. The downside of this, however, is the risk of being accustomed to being part of a pattern that could as well be cyclic and hence marginally developmental. Thus, while I tend to evaluate and recognize patterns as part of the problem, and despite the fact that the ability to recognize patterns is always useful, I tend to be careful enough not to be consumed into it. As noted by Scisco and Ting (2013), the need to identify patterns emanates from the necessity to determine the personal or organizational shortcomings or blind spots that might be driving the system in a pseudo-normal manner.

Once one establishes the perceived problem, the next step ought to be a complete redefinition of the problem. I learnt this some of months ago when I analyzed installation of big data analytics in a certain firm failed. While the initial analysis revealed that the system’s failure had been associated with program incompatibility with the needs of the business, a further analysis following an appropriate problem redefinition revealed that use, other than adaptability was the problem. The experience opened my eyes to the fact that often, the problem may never be obviously perceived one, but rather an indication to the existence of an underlying one. While the business had initiated a plan to re-engineer the system citing adaptability issues, the proposal of use as an impediment transformed the organization's perception of the problem. Thus, a correct definition of the problem at times can lead to a much cheaper, less involving solution.

Finally, my personal development course to being innovative and creative draws from Orpic’s cultural behavior that encourages individuals to always ‘look where others are not looking and see what others could not be seeing’. The secret to being innovative relies on not only how best we can meet the present needs but also the ability to figure out what the market may need in future. In order to come up with a creative means of satisfying a present need, people tend to explore the existing systems, testing them for potential frailties that may eventually need advancement for enhanced performance. However, real innovators study the probable future needs of the market or the system, evaluates the economic viability of such, embarks on, and embarks on exploring the means with which to achieve better results. The accomplishment of such thus requires looking at where others pay little or no attention to, and discerning what they are actually missing due to their pre-occupation with existing systems.

Stimulating, supporting and sustaining creativity and innovation

The business environment in which firms operate presently that also supports individual personal development is fraught with challenges that call for creativity and innovation, processes that are dynamic enough to support the interaction of the individual with the social and organizational environment and concise determination of emerging issues. However, numerous problems surround such an objective, some of which include the practical meaning of being creative and innovative, the fact that the idea of creativity is not common to among many hence raising issues with sustainability measures. The final challenge relates to the manner on which we can successfully exploit creative ideas for the common good of the society alongside development of the self. To that end, this section explores models of capabilities and talents, theoretical perspectives on experiential learning, challenges to decision-making and the role of creativity on organizational development.

Personal qualities and the impact of experiential learning on workplace dynamics

Numerous studies have attempted to explain the existence of traits that upon possession, one has elevated chances of generating creative ideas. A close association with this claim is that some people are disproportionately more likely to come up with a novel idea irrespective of their educational and/or occupational background. However, while creative people tend to be better placed when it comes to abilities to identifying problems, most do not rank equally high in terms of problem solving capabilities. Nonetheless, creative people are often passionate, sensitive, curious, open-minded and nonconformists. While creativity and innovativeness go hand in hand, a significant difference, namely execution, tends to be the sole factor that separates creative thinkers from innovators. As noted by Seelig (2012), innovation is the ultimate thing that happens to an idea that transforms into something usable, i.e. the creation of utility value out of an idea.

During the course of my interaction with people and self-evaluation of the attributes associated with innovativeness, and to some extent creativity, I have come to categorised much of the determining elements based on well-defined and rational traits. Foremost is the trait of having an opportunistic mindset that aids in the identification of gaps in a given setting. Opportunistic individuals tend to be innately wired for novelty, an aspect that allows them to seek complex experiences in any setting. In relation to the operations of the Orpic Company, I believe have a management comprised of opportunistic leaders contributes to the company’s good run in terms of growth. Proactivity and a high degree of persistence also emerge as one of the traits possessed by creative and innovative persons. Practically, I have received numerous accolades for being proactive and persistent; an aspect I believe gives me an outstanding leverage even as I continue to develop professionally.

A substantial amount of prudence is another element characteristic of innovative persons. Contrary to the prominent belief among people, successful innovators are naturally organisesd, cautious and risk-averse individuals. An explorative study of the profiles of senior employees of Orpic Company reveals that nearly all are prudent. The collective impact of this level of prudence, with some reservations though, could be the driving force behind the company’s forward thinking nature. However, though directly associated with business formation, prudence does not have a direct positive influence on a business, especially in terms of success, an aspect that leads to a new element, social capital. Social capital denotes the ability to rally networks and connections behind a given idea, much to the realization of the necessary capital for idea implementation. For instance, the recent move that saw Orpic set up aromatic and polypropylene plants in the country as part of its expansionary program is attributed to the ability of its management to mobilize resources for the same.

According to Hunter (2013), innovative discourses in an organization, especially those engineered by innovative leaders tend to inspire an organizational culture change that democratizes innovation practices within the organization. Such companies recognize that chaos only present opportunities and harbor a belief that traditional structures are inadequate in the face of charting the way to innovation in the modern world. In line with the same, effective leaders believe that with appropriate leadership and inspiration, effective organizational cultures can nurture creativity in virtually any individual. Thusly, creative and innovative leaders not only trust on themselves, but also on the capability of the people, they work or interact with. In the minds of creative leaders, team members must grow increasingly transparent, learn to trust themselves enough and eventually trust similar levels of trust to the people they work with. Essentially, for companies and individuals to realize success in levels similar to that seen at Orpic, being nimble, creative and possessing the initiative to avail unique solutions to emergent problems is necessary. In fact, with the creation of an environment in which employees and other stakeholders have ties similar to a family bond, the chances that the company will ultimately realise a new workplace culture increases significantly.

Secondly, prudent and opportunistic employees and leaders seem to be more collaborative, more enthusiastic towards discoveries and generally courageous agents of change. Although the level of opportunism may vary from one person to another, once one has been established, such people tend to collaborate and work closely together, taking leaps of faith in the pursuit of the objectives in question. Though naturally risk averse, creative and innovative people, given their prudence, tend to challenge one another and their associates to be more critical of the prevailing situations. The simple fact that critical evaluation of a scenario through a thin lens requires a mindset characteristic of a courageous enabler is of itself the ultimate definition of an innovative and creative individual. In relation with the same, Orpic Company embraces an organizational culture that its leaders and employees alike to be agents of change, which basically entails having an entrepreneurial attitude, the ability to embrace risks as part of the business and discern opportunities virtually in anything.

Decision-making and creativity theories

While numerous creativity theories attempt to explain different discourses of creativity, not all are applicable within the leadership and management context. Furthermore, in a world where innovation is more of a collective effort rather than individual ingenuity, individual inputs necessary to result in a revolutionary product or service do not necessarily encompass facets attributable or that are derivatives of majority of the various creativity theories. For instance, traditionally, the major challenge to effective decision-making relates to information availability and relevance. Today, these do not amount to feasible impediments to decision-making with the increasing availability of big data. The problem, thus, has shifted to retrieval and comprehension of the existing information since the amount available can at times be prohibitive. Additionally, the high volume of information implies that individuals can analyse different sets of information related to a specific tenet but emerge with contradicting conclusions.

The above-mentioned scenario brings into play the psychoanalytical theory or creativity, whose core tenet is that creativity is the result of the need to solve difficult circumstances or repressed emotions. According to the argument presented by Thomas and Chan (2013), individual creativity is more of a function of antecedents, personality factors, cognitive capabilities, social and contextual influences as opposed to being mental illness or drug addiction-induced dynamics. The roots of creativity in this context are the combination of conscious and unconscious discourses whose collective effects result in the production of a creative piece. From a leadership point of view, the quest to for solutions to contemporary problems and the desire to develop products and services from which the manufacturers can realize higher profit margins, either from direct sales or from the resulting efficiency in operations takes center-stage.

Another potent challenge related to decision-making processes is conflict of interests. Lots of debates and negotiations, especially at organizational level, is an inevitable component of management in the contemporary world. Often, decision-makers may differ on alternative courses of action, or may be forced to suggest or adopt strategies that only accomplish specific levels of the problem at hand. In this sense, the humanistic theory of creativity comes into play. The theory champions for self-actualization upon the fulfilment of the needs of the organization and the stakeholders. Noteworthy though is that the theory champions for techniques designed to mitigate defensiveness (technically by defending the best alternative, at least in absolute terms), development of trust, espouses the need for freedom, among others. However, the pursuit of this form of creativity must embrace the fact that reasoning is defeasible, which presents another challenge of itself to decision-making, that the presence of additional information may result in the discovery of an alternative solution better than the existing (Strasser, 2014). Notwithstanding, the perceived difficulty associated with the same, we have to realize that innovation is a continuous process holistically supported by the defeasibility state of reasoning.

Finally, the prominent belief that factual knowledge, though necessary for decision-making, is otherwise not sufficient, presents another impediment to effective decision-making. In light of these, the above creativity theories postulate that value judgement, cognition, decision style, personality type, objectives of the decision-maker, positon of the company in the market, etc. tend to be more critical. Rational decision-making thus involves the selection of an alternative perceived to be potentially beneficial to the goals and objectives of thee business as assessed by the decision-maker. A point to note is that once the decision-making process assesses the benefits of the results to the company, reasoning immediately sets in, a construct with which the stakeholder employ discern alternative means to achieve the said results with a more economical process. Intuition, prudence and opportunism then set in, at which point the line between decision-making and innovation becomes increasingly blurred.

In an organization setting, the likelihood of innovation increases with the presence of individuals from different backgrounds, disciplines, and expertise who share thoughts in a collaborative and supportive manner. Consequently, the need to open the organization to diverse perspectives is an imperative one. Innovations in the modern world due to the complexity of systems involved require diversity. Additionally, diversity enhances creativity. A recent study by Shalley, Hitt and Zhou (2015) revealed that individuals with multiple social identities tend to benefit from certain distinct knowledge sets associated with it that allows them to combine and productively exploit the different knowledge sets. The impact of these findings has jolted manager across the globe, including at Orpic Company, to re-evaluate company practices and values that tend to encourage the suppression of certain parts of the employee identities. Thus, if managers, and to a larger extent companies values can be liberal enough to identity integration, people may actually become more innovative.

Creative managers can also be agents of creativity by enhancing the sourcing of creativity from sources outside the organization. The concept of collaboration should extend beyond the confines of the company as evidenced by the success of open-source development employed by such firms as Wikipedia. However, while open-source development has only been tested and proven effective with software generation, the future of innovation obviously relies in accomplishing the unimaginable, such as successfully extending the concept to other managerial, product and service provision realms. Effective management of the commercialization handoff is another approach through which leaders can consolidate creativity in an organization. For ages, the issues of idea generation and idea commercialization have presented organizations with daunting challenges, hence their separation into two independent functions. By effectively charting the way forward, managers and employees alike ought to embrace the fact that innovation at some point gets to a stage it is best served by the people who can take it to the market.

Role of creativity in organizational development

While anyone can deduce the simple correlation between creativity and organizational success, i.e. that creativity inherently leads to innovation within the firm hence significant success in the long-term, the benefits of creativity far much transcend this simple one-one mapping. For instance, a study by Markeviciute and Jucevicius (2013) revealed that creativity results in value creation to an organization by inspiring the creation of new or enhancement of existing products, stakeholder development, organizational transformation and product realization. The authors further established that in an organizational context, value creation denotes the quality of knowledge available to the system and the organization’s ability to deduce efficient lessons from it environment. The essence of these is that the prevailing creative world environment plays an important connective role between the existing creative competencies and the value creation prospects available to the organization. However, in order to achieve creative competencies in an organization, education, enhancement of individuals and collective creative capacities as well as the establishment of an organizational that supports creativity are imperative.

Conclusion

Creativity and innovation is integral to both individual professional development and organizational success and development. In the case of individual development, personality attributes play a role in determining the extent to which the same influences one’s professional development. More specifically, attributes such as prudence, an opportunistic mindset, the capability to mobilize social capital (high sociability), motivation, etc. are essential to being a creative, and perhaps, innovative individual. An organization, on the other hand, though being a self-sustaining system, is dependent on human actions and hence requires creative human ingenuity to remain sustainable. Creative and innovative organization stakeholders have the capacity to inspire value creation in the management system or products associated with a given organization. Based on these observations, creativity and innovation are primarily the focal points of professional and human systems with an enormous contribution to their success and sustainability.