DQ Discussion - Week 8 Top of Form Discussion: Shared Practice: Harnessing the Creativity of Your Team There may come a time when you have to lead an important effort or initiative in your organization. This week's Discussion puts you in such a place where you are asked to work with a team to develop an innovative customer loyalty program. The challenge is to develop a plan that lays out a process whereby the team has the support necessary to create ideas, evaluate solutions, and implement an innovative program. As you consider the steps you will take to develop your plan, recall the ten fatal flaws that can derail leaders outlined by Zenger and Folkman (2009) and the ways leaders can inhibit creativity discussed by Amabile and Steven (2012). Be sure to keep these in mind as you create your course of action. Imagine that you have been hired recently as a new manager of an auto-dealership that sells new and pre-owned vehicles. You work for Kendrick Auto Group, which own 27 dealerships in the region. The owner has tasked you with experimenting at your dealership to create a new, effective, and unique customer loyalty program. The current loyalty program is merely imitative of other competitor programs and the owners see an opportunity to create a distinctive organizational strategy that will separate their dealerships from those of the competitors. As the manager of the dealership, your staff includes sales consultants who show vehicles to potential commercial and individual buyers, financial staff who assist buyers with payment plans, extended warranties, maintenance plans, and loans, and parts and service technicians who help repair and maintain vehicles on the lot and purchased by customers. With these thoughts in mind: By Day 3 Post an organized plan for how you intend to employ the creativity of your staff to create a new and innovative customer loyalty program. (Note: Your plan should not describe a customer loyalty program such as an extended warranty or a maintenance plan. You do not need to develop the plan for the loyalty program.) The idea is to develop a team with a diversity of creative thinking styles from your staff (ideators, clarifiers, developers, and implementers). Be sure to include: · How you would bring a team together and lead them to start such an initiative. · The tools that you have used in this course (design thinking, creative-thinking styles, etc.) to get your team to leave its comfort zone and begin to generate potential ideas. Explain how the thinking style diversity or lack thereof of your team could potentially help or impede the plan. · The techniques you and the team could use to filter/evaluate potential ideas (divergent/convergent thinking) to create a viable customer loyalty program strategy. Use the resources from this week and from throughout the course to support your plan. Initial Post Template How You Would Bring a Team Together and Lead Them to Start Such an Initiative Course Related Tools to.

1. DQ
Discussion - Week 8
Top of Form
Discussion: Shared Practice: Harnessing the Creativity of Your
Team
There may come a time when you have to lead an important
effort or initiative in your organization. This week's Discussion
puts you in such a place where you are asked to work with a
team to develop an innovative customer loyalty program. The
challenge is to develop a plan that lays out a process whereby
the team has the support necessary to create ideas, evaluate
solutions, and implement an innovative program. As you
consider the steps you will take to develop your plan, recall the
ten fatal flaws that can derail leaders outlined by Zenger and
Folkman (2009) and the ways leaders can inhibit creativity
discussed by Amabile and Steven (2012). Be sure to keep these
in mind as you create your course of action.
Imagine that you have been hired recently as a new manager of
an auto-dealership that sells new and pre-owned vehicles. You
work for Kendrick Auto Group, which own 27 dealerships in the
region. The owner has tasked you with experimenting at your
dealership to create a new, effective, and unique customer
loyalty program. The current loyalty program is merely
imitative of other competitor programs and the owners see an
opportunity to create a distinctive organizational strategy that
will separate their dealerships from those of the competitors.
As the manager of the dealership, your staff includes sales
consultants who show vehicles to potential commercial and
individual buyers, financial staff who assist buyers with
payment plans, extended warranties, maintenance plans, and
loans, and parts and service technicians who help repair and

2. maintain vehicles on the lot and purchased by customers.
With these thoughts in mind:
By Day 3
Post an organized plan for how you intend to employ the
creativity of your staff to create a new and innovative customer
loyalty program. (Note: Your plan should not describe a
customer loyalty program such as an extended warranty or a
maintenance plan. You do not need to develop the plan for the
loyalty program.) The idea is to develop a team with a diversity
of creative thinking styles from your staff (ideators, clarifiers,
developers, and implementers). Be sure to include:
· How you would bring a team together and lead them to start
such an initiative.
· The tools that you have used in this course (design thinking,
creative-thinking styles, etc.) to get your team to leave its
comfort zone and begin to generate potential ideas. Explain how
the thinking style diversity or lack thereof of your team could
potentially help or impede the plan.
· The techniques you and the team could use to filter/evaluate
potential ideas (divergent/convergent thinking) to create a
viable customer loyalty program strategy.
Use the resources from this week and from throughout the
course to support your plan.
Initial Post Template
How You Would Bring a Team Together and Lead Them to Start
Such an Initiative
Course Related Tools to use on Team
Techniques to Filter/Evaluate ideas
APA References

3. Responses to Colleagues Template
Expansion of a Colleagues Plan with Justification
Share a Helpful Professional Experience
Share a Colleague’s Insight That You Would Use in Your
Workplace
APA References
AssignmentAssignment: Individual Reflection: Blueprint for
Professional and Personal Growth
Reflect on the process of creating goals for the BPPG in the
previous courses of this program. Think about how you
employed creativity to create this plan: you had to consider
your currently existing leadership and professional skills,
imagine a future version of yourself who has grown and
developed in exciting ways, and generate innovative plans to
overcome any challenges you might face in the course of your
personal and professional development.
As in previous courses, you will now add to your Blueprint for
Professional and Personal Growth. You should develop your
BPPG from your learning in this course and design it to help
you become a leader who knows how to demonstrate creativity,
support creativity within your team, and use foresight to foster
creativity and innovation.

4. Consider the following as you complete this Individual
Reflection:
· What can you do now to integrate the experiences and insights
you had in this course with your personal and professional
development goals?
· What are the most important things you are taking from this
course that will shape your future and enable you to make a
positive difference?
All components of the Individual Reflection should be turned in
as one document:
1. The Executive Summary: Write an Executive Summary of the
course to date (2–3 paragraphs) that addresses the following
questions:
· Which content and assignments in this course have had the
biggest impact on your ability to foster a culture of innovation
within an organization?
· How have the content and assignments changed the way you
think of the role of innovation within the organization and the
way you will engage in the creative process?
· How can the knowledge you gained in this course enable you
to make a positive difference?
· In what ways do you think innovation and creativity can
influence positive social change within an organization,
community, or more broadly?
· How have the content and assignments continued to shape
your goals?
2. After considering what you have learned in the course, create
a focused and succinct strategy for your personal and
professional life that will enable you to be the innovation leader
you described in your Week 7 Individual Reflection. As part of
your strategy, be sure to include responses to the following:
· List three areas you could focus on for your innovation
strategy relative to your own organization, an organization for

5. which you would aspire to work, or your personal life. Describe
the importance of each of the focus areas chosen and provide
examples with support from the resources.
· Describe how you will measure progress toward your success.
· Describe how being an innovation leader could potentially
enable you to foster positive social change. To what extent do
you think innovation can contribute to positive social change?
Provide an example to support your position.
3. Your action plan: Write a detailed action plan for one new
goal for professional and personal development (you will
continue to build on the list of goals you started in your
previous course). These action plans should include the
following:
· Your specific goal for professional and personal development
with an explanation as to why you selected it. Be sure to
provide concrete and specific examples of why the goal is
important, the extent to which this goal enables you to be an
agent for positive social change, the personal or professional
value you expect from achieving the goal, and how the goal
relates to the resources you reviewed in the course.
· Hint: If you want to expand upon a plan or initiative you have
already proposed in a previous week, feel free to do so.
· At least two objectives for the goal you have identified.
Provide a rationale that explains how your objectives will help
you to achieve your goal.
Blueprint for Professional and Personal Growth (BPPG): A
Potential for Self-Plagiarism
When developing your Blueprint for Professional and Personal
Growth (BPPG) for this course, you may find that you are
utilizing some information that you presented in the discussions
or assignments in this course or information that you have
presented in previous courses, including previous BPPG
submissions. Walden recognizes this situation with the caveat

6. that you may use only small portions of your previously
submitted work as background or foundational material for
additional development in a subsequent assignment or research
project Refer to Section 3 of the Student Handbook,
Academic Integrity section in the Code of Conduct: found
at: http://catalog.waldenu.edu/content.php?catoid=155&navoid=
51011. However, when doing so, you must be careful not to
commit a form of academic integrity known as self-
plagiarism. If you reuse sections of your previously submitted
work without providing the proper citation and reference, you
are committing self-plagiarism. This is a violation of Academic
Integrity as defined in the Student Code of Conduct.
To ensure that you follow the Academic Integrity standards you
must take care to properly cite and reference any reused
sections of previously submitted work. For example, if Johana
Smithe reuses a section of their BPPG from the previous class,
they would cite this section as a quotation: (Smithe, 20xx, p.y)
and provide a reference in the Reference page: Smithe, J.
(20xx). Blue print for professional growth for WMBA60xx.
Unpublished manuscript, Walden University. Please take some
time to review the information at the Writing Center concerning
self-plagiarism and how to properly cite yourself.
Link to the Writing Center on Citing
Yourself https://academicguides.waldenu.edu/writingcenter/apa/
citations/citingyourself. By Day 3
Submit your Assignment.
Guidance on Assignment Length: Your BPPG, including the
Executive Summary (which should be 2–3 paragraphs in length
and no more than one page single spaced or two double-spaced
pages), strategy for your personal and professional life that will
enable you to be an innovation leader, and your action plan
should be 3–6 pages total (1.5–3 pages total if single spaced).

7. Refer to the Week 8 Individual Reflection rubric (BPPG Rubric)
for grading elements and criteria. Your instructor will use the
rubric to assess your work.
Assignment Template
Abstract
Element 1a: Content of Executive Summary: Responding to the
Questions
Element 1b: Content of Executive Summary: Impact of Lessons
Learned In Course
Element 1c: Format of Executive Summary: Beginning
Element 1d: Format of Executive Summary: Middle
Element 1e: Format of Executive Summary: End
Element 2a: Strategy for Professional and Personal Life:
Strategy To Be Innovative Leader
Element 2b: Strategy for Professional and Personal Life: 3
Ways to Focus on Innovative Strategy in Workplace
Element 2c: Strategy for Professional and Personal Life:
Measuring Progress Towards Success
Element 2d: Strategy for Professional and Personal Life:
Fostering Positive Social Change
Element 3: Action Plan
Element 4: Social Change Impact
References
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