Professor George Stonehouse

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Building the Creative Business

• Professor George Stonehouse
• Dean, Napier University Business School

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What is creativity?

• The generation of new ideas or new associations
  between existing ideas and turning them into
  reality
• Creativity is the generation of new ideas
  either new ways of looking at existing problems
  or of seeing new opportunities. (Cox, 2005)

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Creativity
Divergent Convergent thinking
Problem Solving
Experience
Knowledge



Creativity
Design
Innovation
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• "Everyone should seek to be creative, even though
  creativity is full of risks and uncertainties."
• Edward de BonoThe Thinking Manager

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The Age of Creativity

• Daniel Pink in A Whole New Mind Daniel Pink (A
  Whole New Mind 2005) says we have developed
  through
• Agricultural age farmers
• Industrial age - factory workers
• Information age knowledge workers to
• Conceptual / Creative age creators and
  empathizers
• Left-brain linear, analytical thinking replaced
  by right-brain creativeness and empathy as most
  important business skills

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Why should business be creative?

• Technological change

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Why should business be creative?

• Globalisation and Competition
• India and China not only challenge to the low
  cost industries but also to high-tech sectors

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Why should business be creative?

• Globalisation - Markets, changing customer wants
  and tastes

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Why should business be creative?

• Most creative companies 2007
• Apple
• Google
• Toyota
• GE
• Microsoft
• Procter Gamble
• 3M
• Walt Disney Co
• IBM
• Sony

• Innovation Index Group there is a very strong
  positive correlation between creativity,
  innovation and stock performance
• Creative Organizations are the most successful

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• Sir John Harvey Jones
• "The essential characteristics of modern
  organisations are creativity, innovation and
  speed. There is no place for turnaround
  strategies or Business Process Reengineering. If
  you need these, then it may already be too late".

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What is creative advantage?

• Creative advantage
• Creating new knowledge and continuously
  innovating to gain competitive advantage through
  added customer value

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Business is creative

• The Creative Industries
• All industries are and must be creative

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What is creativity in business?

• Thinking the unthinkable
• Moving from
• the abstract to the concrete
• the intangible to the tangible
• the impracticable to the practicable
• the useless to the useful
• the drawing board to the customer

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How is business creative?

• Products and services
• Design
• Marketing
• Processes
• Systems
• Relationships
• Management

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Examples of creativity

• Steam engine
• Saxophone
• Discovery of penicillin
• Mobile phone
• YouTube
• StableTable

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How does creativity happen?
Creating Knowledge
Adapting
Planning
The Organisation
Learning
Innovating and implementing
Reviewing Reflecting
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Organising for creativity

• Often tensions between
• Creativity conducting day to day business
• Leadership vs management
• Over emphasis on management and efficiency can
  cause
• Cultural dependency on rules and procedures
• Focus on process rather than customer
• No thinking beyond existing ways of doing
  business
• New ideas, risk taking and experimenting
  discouraged

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Creativity the people

• Creative individuals
• All people can be creative in the right
  circumstances
• Creative teams and organisations
• Teams get ideas to market
• Teams - different people with different ideas
  skills
• Creative tension
• questioning of existing ideas, development
  testing of new ones

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Creative organisations I

• Creative organisations require appropriate social
  architecture
• Leadership management
• Culture
• Structure
• Systems

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Leadership, management and creativity

• Leaders in learning and creative organisations
  must
• Build a shared vision for the future creative
  tension
• Focus creativity on delivering the vision
• Be emotionally intelligent an enabler of
  creativity in others
• Empower people to lead and be creative at all
  levels creative culture
• Build creative teams
• Manage the tension between creativity
  operations

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Building a creative organisational culture

• Leaders and managers play a critical role
• Culture in a creative organisation
• places a high value (rewards) on creativity
• encourages experimentation experiential
  learning
• encourages questioning and creative thinking
• encourages trust, sharing of ideas knowledge

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Structure and infrastructure

• Structure and infrastructure
• Can support or work against creative leadership
  and culture
• Structure for creativity
• Flat
• Project teams cross functional
• Infrastructure
• Communications, storage, sharing

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Changing to a creative culture

• Creativity audit
• Attitude approach of leaders and managers
• Cultural signs and symbols
• Communication, education and training
• Build trust and allay fears
• Incentives
• Encourage participation and neutralise opposition
• Structure and infrastructure

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Summary

• Creativity and creative advantage and knowledge
• Creative Organisations
• Leadership
• Culture
• Structure
• Infrastructure