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Pradip Khandwala
management is not just a matter of a creative head. In large organizations in the public as well as the privates sector, the organization as a system needs to be designed to be creative and innovative. Nature of Creativity
Let us first get some clarity on creativity. Earlier it was thought that creativity and originality were God given; or that creation took place under the influence of a divine inspiration involving the possession of the creator by some higher entity (Rosamond Harding, 1967). For instance, William Blake, the British mystical poet affirmed that poems were dictated to him by some higher being, and Charles Dickens, the novelist, and Tchaikovsky, the Russian composer of music talked of a benign power guiding their respective creations. The modern view is that creativity is a social-psychological phenomenon. This view gained prominence with the enunciation by J. P. Guilford, an American psychologist, of two modes of thinking that in combination facilitate a creative achievement (Guilford, 1967). Guilford described these two modes as convergent thinking and divergent thinking. Convergent thinking involves such mental operations as defining terms, classification of a phenomenon, analysis, logic, optimization, etc. Divergent thinking involves imaginative thinking, rife with associations, images, metaphors, visions, offbeat ways of looking at problems, and even dreaming.
Creativity has come to be known as novelty that works effectively in relation to a purpose or a context. It walks on two legs: novelty and appropriateness. But there is much more to it. Following the path-breaking work of Guilford, there was a huge amount of research on the personality profile of creative persons, their cognitive processes, their attitudes and values, on the environment that stimulates creativity, and on techniques for finding creative solutions for problems (Khandwalla, 2004). The model of creative achievement that emerges from all this research is shown below (Khandwalla, 1988) : A Model of Sustained Creative Achievement
The above model shows that the stronger the forces that impel the effort at innovation, and the weaker the forces that create resistance to innovation (mostly various kinds of fear and mental blocks), the greater is the probability of sustained creative achivement.
Can creativity be enhanced ? Research evidence indicates that as measured, creativity can be enhanced significantly. Paul Torrance's review of 140 studies of creativity training; and Karen Westberg's 100 studies of creativity training both indicate that creativity can be enhanced (Torrance, 1987; Westberg, 1996). Even without formal training, using the model depicted above, it should be possible for individuals to raise their creativity.
Let me now turn to management, and the issue of how to make management more innovative.
