Creativity in an Organization-Some viewpoints

Can creativity be taught?

Raman Roy Chief Executive Officer Quatrro BPO Solutions I think creativity is more of a mind game than something limited to being creative to find a particular solution. It goes right in to basic things like what you eat and how you eat, how you dress and how you live. There are standard exercises that make people find creative solutions to day to day issues.

Tina Seelig Executive Director Stanford Technology Ventures Program I find people are naturally creative, but many lock it up inside themselves. Formal creative exercises can help them loosen up. I start off by giving people creativity tools that will make them hang their head on. Brainstorms, metaphors and mind mapping are effective ways of stretching their creativity. Unlike a workplace, where people are more risk-averse and therefore less creative, an academic course provides a controlled environment where they can experience and experiment being creative without any fear of a downside. We start the course with focus on individual creativity and then extend it to creativity in the organization. We give them something different to do everyday. We do everything from traditional case studies to a lot of experimental work, including projects and field trips. In addition, we make them maintain a creativity portfolio where they record a list of things that trigger creativity in their environment. We also have research assignments that cover creative companies, and we encourage them to make their presentations as innovative as possible.

Preeti Vyas Giannetti Chairperson and Chief Creative Officer Vyas Giannetti Creatives I think it is the thinking and analytical capabilities that I picked up at NID that has brought me this far. I built the foundation of my creative career in National Institute of Design, where I was exposed to different streams of design. More than the skills, I am grateful for the exposure it has given me. Grateful for breaking boundaries. I didn't just see till the next yard, I saw across countries, across continents and deep within my own culture. It was a very intellectual process. It encouraged me to take responsibility for something much larger than doing a little piece of prettification design. I think it is the thinking and analytical capabilities that I picked up at NID that has brought me this far. I learnt the real skill of creativity from Mohammad Khan during my four year internship at Contract Advertising. It is difficult to teach. Creativity is an abstraction. You may find something creative which I may not or he may not. But at some point we all tend to agree that yes, this is sparkling. To be able to teach that is difficult. You can only teach that by osmosis.

R Balakrishnan (Balki) National Creative Director Lowe India I think courses in creativity are good for a fundamental reason. I would treat them as holiday breaks. It helps you to get away from what you are doing. Should teams fight? R Balakrishnan (Balki) National Creative Director Lowe India It is important to be with the right set of people who to a certain extent share the same wavelength and chemistry. The worst thing for an entrepreneur is to surround himself with people who don't have a trip or a vision or anything common with each other. That's a disaster; because half the energy is spent on getting people to take this trip. One person may have the idea, but there has to be at least twenty people with similar wavelengths who can latch on to that idea and take it forward. That's how ideas are created. It is not done by one person. Raman Roy Chief Executive Officer Quatrro BPO Solutions “ If two people agree all the time, one of them is not thinking. ” I encourage difference of opinions by not commenting on it, by staying silent. Because people have to disagree, they have to find their own space and their own solutions. That is creativity. And meeting halfway is a management methodology. You have to allow people to differ as long as the disagreement is on the idea. My biggest struggle is when the disagreement becomes personal. How does one stop it? I'm no genius to say that in my organization we only disagree on ideas and not on people. People tend to fight. Do we have issues? Yes, we do. But getting them to disagree but still find solutions to a business problem is a way to nurture creativity. Does diversity in the team affect creativity too? Tina Seelig Executive Director Stanford Technology Ventures Program Diversity in the team develops creativity. People from different backgrounds and different attitudes bring in different perspective and areas of expertise. This helps in bringing together interesting ideas as opposed to having a mono dimensional point of view. Does creativity die under a deadline? R. Balakrishnan (Balki) National Creative Director Lowe India Sometimes desperation gives you the best ideas like when tomorrow is the meeting and you don't know what to do. Deadlines are a superb way to think of ideas. If you have an infinite timeline you can never get anything done. Give yourself 24 hours, the stuff will flow much faster. Tina Seelig Executive Director Stanford Technology Ventures Program “ Deadlines can help to maximize one's creativity. ” In the long run, it's great to have open periods when you are drifting off to sleep or taking a hike for being creative. The alternative time is when there is an emergency and you rally all your creative juices. Kind of like a mom who can pick up a car when her kids are trapped. That would be an emergency when your creative energy bursts out. Are there moments when there is no creativity coming? How do you get rid of the creative block? Preeti Vyas Giannetti Chairperson and Chief Creative Officer Vyas Giannetti Creatives Yes, there can be creative blocks from time to time. Comfort zones are the most dangerous because these kill creativity. That is when you have to shake and rattle a bit to think differently. The trick for organizations to remain entrepreneurial is not to stay put in the doldrums of a comfort zone. mono dimensional point of view. R Balakrishnan (Balki) National Creative Director Lowe India “ Creativity is a journey, and you work best when you have fun along the way. ” Sometimes you need to know when not to be creative and not think too much; when you would rather be linear than lateral to get what you want.. Idea generation can't be looked upon as a do or die situation. If you have that attitude, you will reach nowhere. I think most of us make the mistake of becoming very desperate for the end. That's when everything stops. You grow creatively when you don't give a damn. You start giving a damn, and nothing comes easily. Do entrepreneurs need to be creative? R Balakrishnan (Balki) National Creative Director Lowe India Of course! Even the paanwala in your neighbourhood needs creativity to figure out how to make more money than the next guy. Maybe one guy just grows a bigger moustache and calls himself a Mucchad paanwala, and he became famous not because of his paan, but his moustache. That's superb creativity. I don't think you can be an entrepreneur if you are not creative. I don't think entrepreneurship is just about getting an idea. It is about creatively building a business upon it. That's entrepreneurship. Tina Seelig Executive Director Stanford Technology Ventures Program Creativity is essential in all phases of a venture - the beginning, middle and end. You have to be creative while coming up with the initial idea; while planning the product; while understanding the opportunities; while building your team; while planning your processes; while dealing with the changing market. Even when your company goes out of business, you have to be creative in figuring out how to shut it down in an appropriate manner. Creative problem solving is key. If you view every problem as an opportunity, that triggers creativity. Preeti Vyas Giannetti Chairperson and Chief Creative Officer Vyas Giannetti Creatives An entrepreneur should ensure that he is creative in all aspects of running an organization. It is too linear a thought process to consider it as a departmental activity. But entrepreneurship requires something else. It requires a passionate belief in what you have decided to do, and the willingness to back it with everything you have. So in that sense the operative word is passion, more than creativity. Because when you start with nothing, like I did, the only thing that kept me going was my belief and my passion. If I hadn't done that, I would have just fallen into some kind of comfort zone and taken up a job somewhere. Can entrepreneurs ever be too creative? Tina Seelig Executive Director Stanford Technology Ventures Program Absolutely. There is no point reinventing the wheel for everything. There are many tried and tested things that work. Maybe I don't want to be creative in setting up my accounting system or payroll structure or customer acquisition software. Entrepreneurs should be willing to outsource and leverage the skills and creativity of others in your organization for these tasks. So it's really important to know what your core areas of expertise are, and be creative in those areas. If you want to be in the realm of creativity in everything, you just won't get anywhere.