Report 103

Your newsletter on applied creativity, imagination, ideas and innovation in business.

Wednesday, 4 August 2010
Issue 169

Hello and welcome to another issue of Report 103, your monthly newsletter on creativity, imagination, ideas and innovation in business.

As always, if you have news about creativity, imagination, ideas, or innovation please feel free to forward it to me for potential inclusion in Report103. Your comments and feedback are also always welcome.

Information on unsubscribing, archives, reprinting articles, etc can be found at the end of this newsletter.

GUEST AUTHOR

I am delighted to introduce to you Dr.Amantha Imber who has contributed the a thought-provoking article based on the findings of a research project she oversaw.

Incidentally, if you would like to contribute an article to Report 103, please get in touch with me (jeffreyb@jpb.com). Readers like you appreciate expertise from sources other than me and I appreciate getting to know other experts in the field, as well as reacquainting myself with people I've corresponded with in the past. In addition, you will reach the over 6000 people from around the world who subscribe to this eJournal as well as the many 1000s of people who peruse the archives on the web every month.

PREDICTING THE UNPREDICTABLE
By Dr Amantha Imber

About 12 months ago, we set out to see if it was possible to do what was previously thought to be impossible - accurately predicting whether a person would be an effective creative thinker at work. To our knowledge, there was not a single scientifically validated process to do this. We found that in the majority of cases, most companies were not using any method for assessing creativity, despite claiming it to be a critical competency for staff to possess.

There were a couple of exceptions. In “creative industries”, such as advertising and design, recruiters would typically look at a job applicant’s portfolio of past work to see how creative they were. Of course, we all know people’s tendencies to stretch the truth. I used to work at the advertising agency that came up with the idea for Earth Hour. And despite the fact that only one person came up with the idea, I heard about many people from the agency claiming that they were the one who gave birth to this idea and had put it in their portfolio.

In other industries, creative thinking is sometimes assessed by giving people a difficult problem to solve and observing how they answer the problem. For example, Microsoft famously ask job applicants how they would move Mount Fuji, and use people’s answers as a test as to how creative they are. However, this process has never been scientifically validated and is only testing a small component of workplace creativity.

So 12 months after we set ourselves the challenge of measuring the unmeasurable. We tested over 1300 people, across industries as diverse as advertising to engineering, through to insurance. And we have found out that yes, we could indeed predict a person’s ability to think creatively and work. Moreover, we could do so extremely accurately. It was all a matter of identifying the right variables to measure.

There are several components to creative thinking that we found that our test could predict. These included a person’s ability to:

generate new and effective solutions.
collaborate well with others.
sell and communicate ideas to others.
think creatively under stressful situations.

Our test incorporated over 25 “predictors” - things that we knew were predictive of creative performance as shown by leading researchers in the field. Here are some of the variables that came out as the top predictors of creative performance in the workplace that you can use to help your own predictive powers.

1. Openness to Experience

There are hundreds of different personality traits, but we found that there was one trait in particular that was most predictive of creative performance. This trait, called ‘Openness to Experience’ is all about our inclination to seek out and appreciate new experiences. People who score high on this trait tend to enjoy having a lot of variety in their life, have a high level of curiosity, and use their imagination a lot. As a result, they perform significantly more creatively at work.

If you want to try to foster this trait in yourself or in others, start by becoming consciously aware of routines that you have in your life - it might be reading the same types of magazines, gravitating towards the same types of movies or restaurants - and actively encourage yourself to try something different. Being open to experiencing new activities, and following through on this, will help improve your openness to experience and thus significantly boost your creative performance.

2. Creative Self-Efficacy

Creative self-efficacy relates to a person’s confidence in their ability to think creatively. A person’s creative confidence is important because it directly influences the motivation and ability of a person to get stuck into creative problem-solving tasks. People who are high on this dimension have a strong belief in their ability to generate creative ideas, will immerse themselves in tasks that require creativity, and will seek to get the best ideas out of themselves. Simply having this self belief has been shown to significantly increase a person’s actual ability to think creatively.

If you currently do not see yourself as being an effective creative thinker, it is important to recognise that this is merely a negative frame of mind that can be changed using positive reinforcement. Research has consistently shown that creativity is malleable and our creative potential can be manipulated using a variety of strategies. So next time you do something creative, like solving a problem or participating in a brainstorm, make sure you acknowledge this creativity, give yourself a pat on the back and nurture your creative confidence. By reinforcing your creative triumphs, no matter how small, you will increase your awareness and confidence of your creative potential.

3. Resilience

Resilience is all about a person’s psychological ability to deal with stressful situations. People who are high in resilience bounce back easily from disappointments and failures, and can remain optimistic when things are not going their way. We found that people who showed high levels of resilience were significantly more creative at work. This is because creativity often involves experiencing failure, such as having ideas rejected and having implemented ideas perform poorly. Being able to bounce back from rejections is critical to maintaining creativity and enthusiasm.
Starting to see failure as going hand in hand with creativity can help with setting more realistic expectations which will help boost resilience. In addition, reminding yourself that rejections and failures are not personal should also help build up a level of resilience.

4. Confidence in Intuition

Intuition is an effortless, quick, and automatic form of thinking (our “gut feel”) that we rely on frequently to guide our actions. This is in contrast to analytical thinking which is deliberate, unhurried and detail-oriented. People who have a lot of confidence in their intuitive side tend to prefer this way of thinking over more analytical thinking and their confidence in the accuracy of these intuitive decisions. Having this confidence in one’s intuition can help immensely with creativity, as creative thought often involves tapping into intuitive, “gut” thinking.

Confidence in intuition can be developed by gradually using and testing your intuitive judgements in low risk circumstances, then using any successful intuition-based decisions as encouragement for more important tasks. The next time you have an opportunity to make a low-risk decision using your “gut feel” (when trying to answer a question on a game show or when you’re asked a question you’re not too sure of, for example), ensure you make the decision instantly then check to confirm the correct answer. More often than not, you will find that your instinctive answers are correct. The next step is to start deploying these automatic judgements at work when trying to solve problems or when brainstorming, and to consciously acknowledge the benefits of your instinctive judgements when they pay off. This gradual approach will ease you into a pattern of trusting your intuition and will help to develop your creative aptitude.

5. Tolerance of Ambiguity

Tolerance of Ambiguity relates to how people react to problem solving tasks where the information provided is vague, incomplete or inconsistent, and where the solution and path to get to the solution are not immediately clear. People who are very tolerant of ambiguities are not bothered by problems that are perceived as open-ended or ambiguous as they tend to be highly flexible and dynamic, and they enjoy the autonomy and creativity ill-defined tasks require. Being open to ambiguity and feeling comfortable with these types of problems is key to creative performance, as a large part of creative thinking involves being able to sit comfortably with problems that have no obvious solution.

Changing the way you perceive unclear objectives is one way of becoming more comfortable with ambiguity. Initially, you must challenge your automatic tendency to view vague instructions negatively; instead, try to be neutral and open to ambiguities. The next step is to realise that the more ambiguous your directives, the more scope you have to impose your personal touch and talent on the brief. That is, ambiguous briefs give you much more opportunity to work outside organisational constraints and norms, and to do things the way you think they should be done. If you consistently approach ambiguous directives in this way - openly, positively and confidently – your habit of perceiving ambiguity negatively will be replaced by a tendency to view ambiguity as an opportunity for you to shine.

6. Cross Application of Experiences

Cross-application of experiences occurs when a person draws on experiences from seemingly unrelated parts of their life in order to solve problems at work. People who demonstrate this behaviour frequently apply knowledge and concepts from outside of the work environment to solve work-related problems.

The obvious solution to improve upon this area is to start deliberately applying knowledge and experiences from outside of work to tasks requiring creative problem solving at work. A common and effective strategy is to use analogy, that is, try to identify similarities in the problem you are working on and a problem you’ve solved previously outside of work. Once similarities have been extracted try to see if your previous solutions would also work in the problem you are attempting to solve. You can also draw analogies using your knowledge of seemingly irrelevant topics, such as history, politics or popular culture. The more similarities you can identify between projects at work and your knowledge and experiences, the better you will understand the problem you are faced with and the more likely you are to be able to solve it.

So What Now?

The six points outlined above are some of the main findings to come out of our research, which should hopefully give you and your team some direction for enhancing your own creativity. There were also several other variables that were linked to creative performance in the workplace, however, the above variables were some of the main ones.

You might also start to think about how you could incorporate these things into your recruitment process when you are looking for new staff who will be great creative thinkers, or alternatively, you might seek out a formal way of measuring these traits as they can be tricky to assess.

About the Author

Dr Amantha Imber is the Founder of Inventium and the inventor of the Inventium Creative Aptitude Tool, the world’s first psychometric tool designed to measure and predict creativity at work. Amantha can be contacted at to www.inventium.com.au

ADMINISTERING AN IDEATION INITIATIVE

Unless you have been hiding in a cave the past couple of months, you will know that BP experienced a disastrous explosion on an off-shore drilling platform set in the Gulf of Mexico which lead to an oil leak which lasted almost three months and spewed countless millions of litres of crude oil into the gulf. The consequences to the environment are enormous and still not entirely clear.

The explosion was bad enough as it resulted in the deaths of 11 people. But it left an open oil well gushing crude oil into the Gulf. Worse, because the oil well being drilled at the time was beneath 1500 meters (about 4900 feet or just short of one mile) of water, capping the leak proved extremely challenging.

Until the leak was finally capped in mid July, proponents of crowdsourcing were clamouring for BP to set up a crowdsourcing initiative so that the public could contribute ideas for solving the problem. BP declined the offers of several idea management firms offering their software products to support the initiative. And while the company made a lot of very bad decisions which cumulatively led to the disaster as well as many bad decisions afterwards, I must say I agree that crowdsourcing would not have been a good approach under the circumstances.

Crowds and Diversity

Crowdsourcing proponents argued that involving the public would have resulted in a diversity of ideas. They further argued that a diversity of ideas tends to lead to innovative solutions. This, of course, is correct. But it is important to bear in mind that a large number of people does not automatically lead to diversity. Moreover, you do not need huge numbers of people in order to create diversity. Small teams comprising people of different backgrounds, areas of expertise and experience are diverse. If the team includes members are from both sexes and different cultures, all the better. Moreover, managing small focused teams is less demanding from an administrative perspective.

Indeed, in our experience, when you are dealing with a complex problem, you do better to bring together a small but diverse team comprising members who are capable of understanding the problem. And give members of the team freedom to collaborate with others whom they know and trust as needed. Collaborators may be inside or outside the organisation.

Such teams should have the expertise and networks necessary for tackling the problem creatively. Moreover, if you are dealing with complex problems in highly specialised fields, the number of people with relevant expertise is surprisingly limited. As a result, teams must of necessity be small and their members cumulatively will probably know just about every expert on the planet.

Of course expertise is not everything and even in the most specialised areas, it is possible that a member of the public, perhaps an amateur scientist, might come up with an innovative solution that solves a complex and sophisticated problem. Moreover, this kind of thing is the stuff that headlines are made of. Getting back to the Gulf Oil spill, imagine a newspaper headline reading: “12 year old physics wiz solves BP leak!”

As wonderful as this story might be, it is not enough to warrant launching a massive crowdsourcing initiative in hopes that it will find a such a storybook solution.

Administering a Crowded Idea Space

So let us imagine that BP had decided to set up a crowdsourcing tool to capture ideas from the public. Let us further imagine that it is really successful and attracts 1000s of ideas. That would be great, wouldn't it? After all, amid those 1000s of ideas, surely one of them would solve the BP problem.

But which idea? Although it seems likely one idea would solve the problem, we cannot be sure of that. Perhaps there are no solutions. Perhaps a combination of several separate ideas might solve the problem. Surely, that would be a great thing, would it not?

Only the Experts Can Be Sure

The BP oil leak is a complex problem. It involves oil bursting out of a hole in the ground. That is difficult enough. But in this case, the hole is 1.5 kilometres (almost a mile) beneath the ocean surface. The pressure there is 150 times greater than it is on the surface of the planet. A scuba diver attempting to go there would be crushed to death before she got that far. Meanwhile, the oil is at a lower pressure level than the surrounding water, sending it to the surface. Oh, and if you want to send anything 1.5 km down to cap the well, you need to deal with buoyancy issues.

Owing to the complexity of the situation, there are a limited number of people in the world who can really grasp the complexity of the problem and who would have the requisite knowledge to evaluate potential solutions or parts of solutions. A number of them were employed or hired temporarily by BP to solve the problem. These people, in turn, knew many other experts upon whom they could call for advice or answers to questions.

If these experts' limited time was to be diverted to evaluating 1000s of ideas, most of which would be useless (remember, most people simply do not grasp the complex issues at stake), the result would be that they would have less time to focus on solving the problem among themselves.

Assume, for instance, that 2000 ideas are submitted and since most ideas are irrelevant, they require just five minutes each for an initial review. That comes to 10,000 minutes. Further, let's imagine that 5% of the ideas merit more detailed consideration which takes 15 minutes each. That's another 1500 minutes. All together, 190 hours or 4.8 working weeks (at America's 40 hour standard) would need to be devoted simply to reviewing the ideas in order to identify which, if any, might actually solve the problem. And frankly, that is not a sensible use of resources.

Of course many crowdsourcing platforms offer idea voting, in which participants can vote on their favourite ideas. However, as the vast majority of the crowd would not understand the complex issues involved in capping the leak, voting would be pointless. (Actually, as I wrote last month, voting in suggestion schemes is not an effective method of identifying potentially innovative ideas even in the best of circumstances.)

Open Innovation: Yes; Crowdsourcing: not this Time

If I was put in charge of solving BP's oil spill disaster, I would not opt for a crowdsourcing attempt at solving the problem either. I would stick with a small team of experts. But I would also expect them to make ample use of their networks in terms of seeking advice, asking questions and even soliciting ideas. This, to my mind, would be time more effectively spent for innovative problem solving. Moreover, note that I would use open innovation (involving outside experts in innovative problem solving). I simply would not use crowdsourcing (involving the vast public to submit and vote on ideas). It is important to bear in mind that they are very different things.

Making It Personal

Let's look at crowdsourcing in another and more personal way. Imagine you learn from your doctor that you have an obscure viral infection that is destroying your nervous system. Yours is the first case of this infection and you have 6-8 months to live unless a cure can be found. Very few doctors in the world are familiar with this specialised area of virology and only a three laboratories have the facilities necessary to run tests.

Fortunately, a team of doctors is enthusiastic to help you, not only for compassionate reasons, but also out of professional curiosity. However, because it is your health, they give you two options.

Option 1
The first option is that they would set up a dedicated team to work on your illness. They would tap into their extensive network of connections and book space at one of the labs to test ideas.

Option 2
The second option would be to set up a crowdsourcing platform, promote it aggressively and open it to the public so that anyone could submit an idea on how to cure your infection. The doctors would give you the further choice of taking whichever cure was voted as best on the crowdsourcing platform or, they would dedicate a week of their time, as a team, in order to evaluate the ideas generated on the platform.

Which option would you choose?

Nothing Wrong with Crowdsourcing

This is not to say that crowdsourcing is a flawed approach to capturing ideas. It is simply important to bear in mind that administering a crowdsourcing initiative requires substantial resources and time. Moreover, if the crowdsourcing initiative is focusing on a specific challenge (which it should do, crowdsourcing sites that simply request ideas collect a lot of rubbish as well as ideas), the challenge should be one that does not require specialised knowledge. If it does, the chances are that a lot of people who lack the knowledge will contribute non-viable ideas. Meanwhile, the people who have the knowledge will have to spend time going through all these non-viable ideas in order to find ones that might have potential.

If specialised knowledge is needed and time is not in short supply, an open challenge inviting people to submit solutions (rather than ideas) can, on the other hand, be effective. The threat of having to prepare a detailed paper citing evidence; or of having to build a working prototype, will frighten off the non-experts.

But Consider the Back Office

The lesson here is if you launch any kind of suggestion scheme, idea management software or crowdsourcing initiative, the biggest expense and drain on resources will be the administrative side: particularly the evaluation of ideas necessary to identify those ideas which have the potential to become innovations. Ultimately, that means comparing ideas against business criteria. That takes time, expertise and knowledge of your business.

Many web based (and other) suggestion schemes get bogged down because the people who organise the system fail to consider the amount of time necessary to review ideas, particularly if the supporting software lacks the structure and tools necessary to streamline an effective evaluation process. From what we have heard, most such tools indeed lack this functionality. (But not ours! See the advert below.)

This does not mean that you should avoid initiatives to capture ideas from the public, or even employees in your firm. Indeed if you have been reading Report 103 for any length of time, you will know that I am a firm believer in idea management and the value it can deliver. However, when planning any initiative, it is critical that you think not just of the ideas you will capture, but also that you consider the process you will use to capture the ideas, the means of evaluating the ideas and the resources necessary for the latter. A good idea management process can streamline everything so that idea generation is in line with business needs, ensuring a high number of relevant suggestions, and enable efficient evaluation. A well planned ideation initiative can put some challenges to expert teams and other challenges to much larger groups, such as your employees, your customers or the public in general.

DECLINE OF CREATIVITY IN AMERICA?

According to Newsweek magazine, American children have been growing less creative over the past 20 years. For decades, the magazine informs us, standardised creativity tests have been applied to children in schools in America. For most of that time, scores steadily improved. But in 1990, they reversed and since then have been slowly declining. The article blames the usual culprits of too much TV and computer games.

According to Newsweek, while much of the rest of the developed world is altering its education system to foster creativity, often following American trends of decades ago, America is now going in the opposite direction, focusing on “standardized curriculum, rote memorization, and nationalized testing.”

Nevertheless, some more innovative schools are exploring new ways of learning, most interesting is the National Inventors Hall of Fame School in Akron, Ohio, which puts students in teams in order to solve problems that require knowledge gathering, idea development and idea testing in order to find solutions. Along the way, the children learn many of the things they would usually be expect to learn by reading text books and taking tests. The results, apparently, have been impressive.

Since the creativity of the next generation is critical for any country's future, this article is worth reading whether you are in America or not. You can read it at http://www.newsweek.com/2010/07/10/the-creativity-crisis.html

FOCUSED IDEATION WITH JENNI INNOVATION PROCESS MANAGEMENT

As noted in the article above, idea generation activities only succeed if their management can be streamlined in order to minimise administrative costs. That's because capturing ideas is easy. The challenge is in focusing ideas on business needs and evaluating ideas to find the winners.

We've understood this since 2004, when we launched Jenni innovation process management software. Unlike suggestion schemes, Jenni focuses idea generation on actual business needs. Moreover, Jenni delivers key benefits to your firm:

Ideas campaigns focus idea generation on innovation challenges, so you get ideas you need when you need them.

Team management allows you to send challenges to teams, divisions, locations, the entire company or even the outside world. You can even launch multiple ideas campaigns with different challenges being sent to different groups.

Jenni's evaluation suite is the best in the industry. It makes it easy for your experts to evaluate ideas and enables your managers to make intelligent business decisions about which ideas to implement.

For more information, visit the Jenni pages at http://www.creativejeffrey.com/jenni/ or contact us directly to start a discussion about how Jenni could help your firm follow a proven innovation process.

JEFFREY'S PERSONAL AND UNGODLY CREATIVE ACTIVITY SPACE

If you have been reading Report 103 for a while and have begun to wonder what sort of chap I am in real life, you can visit my newly created personal web site at http://www.ungodly.com. It contains some artwork I have created recently (I am hoping to digitise older work soon) and a rather unusual blog.