Creativity Management

Creativity Management Sandy Cormack [email_address]

Creative Style Defined
Creative Style = Thinking Style
Theory explores the way people solve problems
All people need to manage change successfully
All people solve problems and are creative, but not in the same manner

Adaptors and Innovators
Characteristics of the INNOVATIVE creative style:
Need for less structure
Solves problems by breaking, modifying, eliminating, replacing the current paradigms
Prefer radical, transformational change
‘ Do Things Differently’
Characteristics of the ADAPTIVE creative style:
Need for more structure
Solves problems by refining, extending, improving the current accepted paradigm
Prefer incremental, predictable change
‘ Do Things Better’

Descriptive Summary
Willing to stand alone, forge ahead without consensus
Seeking to achieve consensus, maintain continuity and stability
Decision-making
Thinking tangentially, approaching tasks from unsuspecting angles, often undisciplined/inefficient
Challenging the problem’s basic assumptions, manipulates problems
Precise, reliable, master of detail, conforming, methodical, prudent
Seeking solutions to problems in tried and understood ways
Methodology
Irrelevant, unsound, undisciplined, abrasive, reckless
Stodgy, narrow, pedestrian, conforming, over-cautious
Common Pejoratives
Solves problems despite rule, radical, abrasive, creating dissonance
Being a mold-breaker, often challenging rules, customs and consensual views, but taking too many unnecessary risks
Solves problems by use of rule, maintaining continuity, stability and group cohesion
Being an improver, rarely challenging rules, ‘too wedded’ to the current system
Management of Structure
Producing many ideas that are exciting, “blue-sky,” and of high promise, but also too many seen as impractical, unsound
Producing a few, relevant, sound safe ideas for prompt implementation, respectful of precedent
Ideation
Looks for threats from without (competition, new technology, etc)
Looking for threats from within (personnel, process, etc)
Problem Definition High INNOVATOR seen as: High ADAPTOR seen as:

The KAI
KAI developed in the mid-80s after 20 years of creative style research
Inventory of 33 questions
Yields a score between 32 and 160 (general population range is 45-145)
Places individuals on a continuum from ‘Highly Adaptive’ to ‘Highly Innovative’

National KAI Distribution Mean = 95, Standard Deviation ~ 20 Very High ~ 140 or more Very High ~ 49 or less High ~ 124-139 High ~ 64-50 Medium ~ 111-123 Medium ~ 79-65 Mild ~ 96-110 Mild ~ 95-80 Innovators Adaptors

Creative Style is NEVER a Pejorative
All people problem-solve and are creative
Adaptors and innovators can be equally good or bad at problem solving – they just do so differently
It takes a wide range of styles to solve all problems
Do not tolerate creative style differences – welcome them
ME YOU

Style is Relative
An individual may be more innovative or more adaptive, relative to others in the group
More adaptive than… More innovative than… ME

Problem A - Problem B
When I solve a problem by myself, I am faced only with the problem at hand (Problem A)
When I ask for your help at solving a problem, I am now faced with two problems:
The problem at hand (Problem A)
The problem that lies between us because we have different creative styles (Problem B)
A A B

Managing Creative Diversity
Managing diversity is the key to managing change
To be effective, we have to
MANAGE Problem B, so that we can
FOCUS MAXIMUM ENERGY on Problem A
B

Narrow Diversity
A group with narrow creative styles tends to communicate, work together and trust one another well (i.e. naturally minimize Problem B)….
BUT…
… prefer Problem A to fall within their ‘narrow range’
Problem A Range Problem B

Wide Diversity
A group with widely dispersed creative styles can solve a wider range of problems
BUT…
… have more trouble managing Problem B
Problem B Problem A Range

Group Training
Diversity Audit – Perform KAI on a group and
Ask members how diversity can be immediately used
Ask members what can be used in the future and how
Train them to accept and welcome creative diversity
Ask members to consider the costs of failing to accommodate diversity
Explore with them the relationship between managing diversity and managing change
Train them techniques to simulate different creative styles

Creativity Management

by Sandy Cormack

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