Creativity and Entrepreneuring: The Art

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Creativity and Entrepreneuring The Art
Science of Organizing by Talking

• Organizational Behavior
• Fall, 2006
• Cameron M. Ford

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People and Processes that Influence How Creative
Solutions Evolve

• Actors/Organizations
• Stakeholders Collections of actors/
  organizations that constitute a recognized area
  of endeavor
• Domains Classifications, norms, rules, routines
  and "rationalizing myths" that place boundaries
  on "legitimate" behavior (i.e., specifying the
  way things are done) in a recognized area of
  endeavor

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Creativity as Evolution

• Enactment (Variation) An idea is introduced to
  one or more stakeholders
• Selection Stakeholders evaluate the desirability
  of a variation with respect to the values and
  norms of their respective domain(s)
• Retention Positive evaluations lead to a
  variation being retained as new knowledge,
  routines, procedures, technologies, structures,
  etc., or partially retained and revisited as a
  revised variation (and the cycle continues )

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Evolutionary (V-S-R) Dynamics
Stakeholders(People)
Domain (Knowledge Practices)
Selection
Context
Retention (Feedback)
Variation (Communication)

• Actors
• Knowledge/Talent
• - Creative abilities
• Motivation - Goals - Capability beliefs -
  Context beliefs - Emotions

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Implications of an Evolutionary View of
Creativity Balancing Creativity and Legitimacy

• A key challenge is to determine how to create
  value with novel approaches (variations).
• It is also important to understand that novel
  ideas also destroy value (through obsolescence).
  Consequently, novel proposals are likely to have
  natural enemies.
• This requires balancing the degree and character
  of novel, value-enhancing attributes within a
  value network of familiar and legitimate
  attributes
• It is important to note that different
  stakeholders may assess novelty and value along
  different dimensions (e.g., design, reliability,
  price)
• Also, the endorsement (or rejection) of one
  stakeholder group may serve as a signal to other
  stakeholders. This has important implications
  for managing momentum associated with novel
  initiatives

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Organizing Through Communicating Factors
Affecting Knowledge Transmission and Retention

• Concept (Speaker schema)
• Imagistic Representation (Vision)
• Intended Meaning (Variation)
• Media
• Attention (Listener goals expectations)
• Received Meaning (Listener schema -
  Retention)
• Listener response (Repeat process)

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The Necessary Art of Persuasion

• Persuasion an ongoing learning and negotiation
  communication exchange that leads others to adopt
  solutions favored by the persuader
• Ways to alienate potential adopters
• The hard sell
• Refuse to compromise or customize
• Assume solutions merits will sell themselves
• Show little interest in relationship with adopter

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The Necessary Art of Persuasion

• Establish Credibility (Trust)
• Expertise
• Relationships
• Frame for Common Ground (align goals)
• Provide Evocative Evidence (Visualizations)
• Connect Emotionally

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The Pitching Process

• Stakeholders will employ social schema to make
  sense of an idea pitcher
• Pitchers who utilize positive persuasion
  (learning and negotiation exchanges) are
  validating to a catcher, and are likely to be
  characterized positively
• Catchers should be made to feel like feel like
  they have been offered an invitation to
  contribute
• In Hollywood, successful pitcher types include
  the Showrunner, the Artist, and the Neophyte
• Unsuccessful pitching styles are characterized by
  giving up too easily on ideas, pursuing the hard
  sell (i.e., bad persuasion), being
  non-responsive, and begging