Посты с тэгом: creativity

Don’t Be Fooled When Assessing Creative Work

Published date: April 1, 2013 в 3:00 am

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How we judge a creative idea is affected by how we perceive its inventor. Without realizing it, we may overvalue or undervalue a new concept and make poor choices in the product development process as a result.

Researchers Izabela Lebuda and Maciej Karwowski1 studied how gender of the inventor and the uniqueness of the inventor’s name affect one’s perception of the invention itself. They divided 119 participants into five groups to evaluate creative products in four domains (poetry, science, music, and art). Each group evaluated the same, identical products, but the products were signed by different fictional names – a unique male name, a common male name, a unique female name, and a common female name. The fifth group evaluated the products with no names (control group).

The highest creativity score was earned by a painting signed with a unique female name, while the lowest went to that same painting with a common female name. For the science-related products, works signed by any male name scored much higher than the same products signed by women. In fact, the science product signed by a common female name scored even lower than the anonymous control group. In the area of music, any piece signed by a unique male name was rated highest. Poems, on the other hand, got the best scores when signed by a unique female name and the lowest from a common male name.

For practitioners, this systematic bias caused by gender and other factors can lead us astray. For example, science is still perceived as male-dominated, and we may have a tendency to downgrade new science concepts generated by women.  In other domains, literary and artistic, we may put too much of a premium on works generated by women with unique names.

To avoid this bias, consider the following advice:

  • When creating new concepts, use a facilitated approach that puts
    people into groups of two or three.  Make sure participants don’t give credit for an idea to a particular person.  When an idea emerges from a group (as opposed to one individual), our minds have a difficult time attaching attributes of
    any one person to that idea.
  • Have teams share their ideas outside of the workshop room.  Set up a collaboration tool such as Google Docs where teams can enter
    their ideas in real time.  Make sure the idea collection software does
    not track who entered it.  Use team numbers instead of people’s names.
  • Finally, have all ideas evaluated by a different team than the
    one that generated them.  Use a weighted decision
    model to assess the ideas.  Use scoring criteria that are
    relevant to the issue the team is facing.  Assign a weighting to these
    criteria based on the importance of that criteria.  Be sure to test the
    model not only on past successful ventures, but also on past
    unsuccessful ventures.

No fooling!

1Izabela Lebuda and Maciej Karwowski, “Tell Me Your Name and I’ll Tell You How Creative Your Work Is: Author’s Name and Gender as Factors Influencing Assessment of Products’ Creativity in Four Different Domains,” Creativity Research Journal, Vol. 25, Iss. 1, (2013), 137-142.

Let Me Speak!

Published date: December 27, 2012 в 4:11 pm

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Giving your employees a voice in matters boosts their
creativity.  New research shows that,
over time, procedural fairness (giving people the opportunity to express their
views) has a positive maintaining effect on creativity whereas stifling their views
decreases creativity.

Bernhard
Streicher* and his colleagues assigned twenty three University students randomly to one of two groups: treated fairly (getting a chance to voice their ideas) or treated unfairly (not given a chance to express themselves).  Students were given a different creativity task over four successive weeks.  They were told that a committee would rate their results.  After the completing each of the tasks, the students in the “fair group” were given the opportunity to explain their ideas and that the committee would consider this information in the evaluation.  The “unfair group” was not given this opportunity.  Ideas from both groups were evaluated and scored (blinded) using standard assessment techniques.

Over the four weeks of the study, students in the fair group maintained their creative output while students in the unfair group declined.  Interestingly, there was no difference in creativity between the groups in week one.  Over time, however, the effect of fairness kicked in.

For leaders of innovation teams, letting your employees express themselves helps maintain a culture of innovation.  But the key is to be consistent over time.  Don’t let distractions or a crisis cause you to change the rules. Give them a chance to speak about anything related to the innovation challenges you face: focus, methodology, budget allocation, team formation, and so on.  But most importantly, as the study points out, let them speak about the nature and value of their own ideas.

 
*Berhard Streicher, Eva Jones, Günter W. Maier, Dieter Frey, and Anneliese Spießberger, “Procedural Fairness and Creativity: Does Voice Maintain People’s Creative Vein Over Time?” Creativity Research Journal, 24(4) (2012): 358-363.

Innovation Sighting: The Division Template on Music

Published date: February 21, 2011 в 3:00 am

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The power of the SIT method lies in the fact that inventors, for thousands of years, have embedded five simple patterns into their inventions, usually without knowing it. These patterns are the “DNA” of products that can be extracted and applied to any product or service to create new-to-the-world innovations.  Here is an example of an innovator working diligently to create a new innovation in the field of music – called “Music for Shuffle.”  The inventor, Matthew Irvine Brown, is using the Divison technique to create musical phrases that can be played together in any random order.  The phrases interlock with each other to create a continuous stream of music – a song.  Listen:


Music for Shuffle #01 from Matt Brown on Vimeo.

While this music may not make the Billboard top 50, it may open up a whole new way to think about song generation.  With this innovation, he introduces the idea of taking a song, physically dividing out parts of it, and rearranging it to create a better outcome.  Music exists because of patterns.  Blues music, for example, is a 12 bar I-IV-V progression. The Division technique works by dividing a product or service (or one of its component) either physically or functionally and then rearranging them to form a new product or service.  The technique is particulary useful to help break structural fixedness, the tendency to see objects as a whole.

To extend this idea, imagine taking the most popular phrases out of songs and “repacking” them together to create a new song.  For example, take a phrase from “Stairway to Heaven” by Led Zepplin and a phrase from “Freebrird” by Lynyrd Skynyrd and link them together at natural interlocking point to create a new phrase.  Now imagine taking tens of thousands of phrases from top selling songs and interlocking them randomly to find the most interesting sounding ideas.  These new phrases would create the starting point to make adjustments and improvements for better sounding music.

For some, the use of a template seems to defeat the creative purpose.  But in fact, most creative people used some form of pattern to “bootstrap” their innovations and get to a higher level.  The Beatles, for example, have sold more records in the US than anyone.  How?   They used templates.

Prospective Innovation

Published date: September 20, 2010 в 3:00 am

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People can improve the quality, originality, and elegance of ideas by extensively forecasting the implication of those ideas during the generation phase.  Researchers from The University of Oklahoma studied the effect of forecasting on idea evaluation and implementation planning.  In the experiment, 141 undergraduate students were asked to formulate advertising campaigns for a new product.  These campaigns were evaluated by a panel of judges.  Prior to formulating the campaigns, participants were asked to forecast the implication of their ideas and the forecast the effects of a plan for implementing their best idea.

As part of the experiment, students received a hypothetical email from the “vice president of sales” for this new product.  They received this during the idea generation phase of the project.  In the email, he directed the students as follows:

“I hope all is going well on the IMPACT project.  The deadline is nearing for the release of the ‘IBC IMPACT’, and I am curious to see what you have come up with for the new advertising campaign.  Please send me a preview of your ideas and strategies.”
“To be more specific, I want to know why your chosen campaign strategies will resolve the issues that I outlined in my first email (e.g. target desired demographic, lasting impact with demographic, retain vintage look, etc.).  I am mostly interested in your predicted results if these plans are actually set into motion.  I am fully aware that there may be downsides and potential problems with any strategy used, so include these (if any) in your descriptions.  Tell me how you think your current plan will play out down the road.  Visualize this advertising campaign unfolding into action and describe that scene to me.  I would like to know the consequences of any action that we might take, and other factors that could potentially influence the campaign.”

Students who mentally imagined the “down the road” effect of their ideas most extensively produced the best ideas.

For innovation practitioners, educators, and consultants, the implications are clear.  The use of mental simulation can improve innovation effectiveness.  Mental simulation should be used to cognitively “walk through” the steps of the idea generation process.  It should also be used to cognitively predict the implications of those ideas.  Given that some people are better than others at extensive forecasting, innovation facilitators need to have scripted directions for the work group on how to extend their thought processes about future events as a way to boost originality in ideating.

Byrne, C. L., Shipman, A. S., & Mumford, M. D. (2010). The effects of forecasting in creative problem-solving: An experimental study. Creativity Research Journal, 22, 119-138.

Academic Focus: Harvard Business School

Published date: October 12, 2009 в 9:29 am

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A colleague asked me, “Who is that innovation guru at the Harvard Business School?”

That’s easy:  Dr. Teresa Amabile

Dr. Amabile heads the Entrepreneurial Management Unit at Harvard Business School and is the only tenured professor at a top school to devote her entire research program to the study of creativity.  She is one of the world’s leading voices in business innovation.  From Wikipedia:

“Originally educated and employed as a chemist, Dr. Amabile received her Ph.D. in psychology from Stanford University in 1977. Originally focusing on individual creativity, Dr. Amabile’s research has expanded to encompass team creativity and organizational innovation. This 30-year program of research on how the work environment can influence creativity and motivation has yielded a theory of creativity and innovation; methods for assessing creativity, motivation, and the work environment; and a set of prescriptions for maintaining and stimulating innovation. Her current research program focuses on the psychology of everyday work life: how events in the work environment influence subjective experience and performance. Before joining HBS, Dr. Amabile held several research grants as a professor at Brandeis University, including Creativity and Motivation, from the National Institute of Mental Health, and Downsizing Industrial R&D, from the Center for Innovation Management Studies. She was awarded the E. Paul Torrance Award by the Creativity Division of the National Association for Gifted Children in 1998.

Dr. Amabile has presented her theories, research results, and practical implications to various groups in business, government, and education, including Lucent Technologies, Procter & Gamble, Novartis International AG, and Motorola. In addition to participating in various executive programs, her main teaching assignment at Harvard Business School is an MBA course, Managing for Creativity. Dr. Amabile was the host/instructor of Against All Odds: Inside Statistics, a 26-part instructional series originally produced for broadcast on PBS. She currently serves as a Director of Seaman Corporation.

Dr. Amabile is the author of Creativity in Context and Growing Up Creative, as well as over 100 scholarly papers, chapters, and presentations. She serves on the editorial boards of Creativity Research Journal, Creativity and Innovation Management, and Journal of Creative Behavior.”

TAmabile For innovation practitioners, I recommend reading her articles:

  • Amabile, Teresa M., and Mukti Khaire. “Creativity and the Role of the Leader.” Harvard Business Review 86, no. 10 (October 2008)
  • Amabile, T. M. “Entrepreneurial Creativity Through Motivational Synergy.” Journal of Creative Behavior 31 (1997): 18-26.
  • Amabile, T. M. “Attributions of Creativity: What Are the Consequences?” Creativity Research Journal 8, no. 4 (1995): 423-426.

Teresa Amabile has been shaking up the world of creativity and innovation for over 30 years.  Now THAT’s disruptive!

Sooner, Better, Bolder

Published date: September 14, 2008 в 9:10 am

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Innovation is a team sport, and no one describes this better than Professor Keith Sawyer in his book, Group Genius.  Keith’s blog, Creativity & Innovation, highlights one of the most significant aspects of successful innovation – that groups of people are likely to be more creative than individuals working on their own.  His latest example of Pixar and Disney Animation Studios illustrates this well.

“Creativity involves a large number of people from different disciplines working together to solve a great many problems…A movie contains literally tens of thousands of ideas.”  (Ed Catmull, Pesident of Pixar and Disney Animation Studios)

Why are groups so effective?  What is the optimal group size?  What is the best way to leverage the group dynamic?  As a practitioner and teacher of innovation, I have witnessed group innovation many times in many settings, and I observe three factors that might explain why teams outperform individuals at innovating.

First, people engage and ideate sooner when paired with teammates.  It’s caused by the commitment people feel when associated with a group.  It is switched on automatically by a sense of common purpose.  When given an innovation task, people rise to the occasion to live up to their commitments.  And they do it immediately.  They feel less competition with internal rivals, and they experience a temporary camaraderie to perform.  They “power up” their creative engines knowing a teammate is waiting for ideas to come out.  They expect the same effort in return from the teammate.

Contrast that with working alone.  When alone, people head in a different direction.  They initiate a lot of pre-thought before they get to ideating.  For example, they might frame the problem differently, they consider what they know and don’t know, they consider the risks and rewards of their efforts, they consider what their rivals might be up to, they consider their status in the group and how to maintain or improve it, and they wonder how best to use their time.  Then they ideate.  Not only does this burn up a lot of cognitive capacity and energy, but it also delays the onset of ideation.  It’s wasteful.

Another reason groups excel:  Two people can innovate more “cheaply” than one.  Just as two people can live together more cheaply (per person) than on their own (about 70% vs. alone according to experts), so it is with innovation.  It takes less exertion when innovating with a teammate.  People feel supported when part of a team, and they can perform with a different ratio of mental input to creative output.  This boost in ideation for the same level of effort yields better results than the lone genius.

Finally, people can think creatively with a wider variance knowing they have a partner to reel them back in if they get too crazy.  With a partner, people ideate with less anxiety about getting wild and weird.  They are less fearful of failing.  They can express ideas while counting on their partners to modify the idea to become more viable.  People become bolder when they innovate in groups.

What is the optimal group size?  It depends on the job at hand.  Pixar needs 200 to 250 to produce a movie.  But new product workshops can be as small as 12 to 14.  In all cases, it is essential group members are diverse, cross-functional, gender-balanced, and culturally split.

A much more critical issue is the size of the ideation sub-group.  From my experience, the optimal size is two to three.  Innovation happens in small clusters, not in the larger group setting.  The Sooner, Better, Bolder Effect works best when people move in and out of these small sub-groups in a transient and random way.  Pixar, as Keith reports, tries to leverage this with design of their office space to foster “maximum inadvertent encounters.”

Perhaps Professor Sawyer would forgive me if I suggest Group Genius might be better named Small Group Genius.

Can you make me be more creative?

Published date: December 8, 2007 в 4:28 pm

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Katie Konrath has the right idea when she tackles this question, “Can you make me be more creative?”

Yesterday, I was talking with a couple friends when one asked two of my favorite questions. “What happens when someone can’t think of any ideas? You can’t force them to be more creative, right?”  I rubbed my hands together, thrilled at the challenge that was coming. Actually, I can.

Her approach is to combine ideas and concepts that seem pretty silly at first, but then she mentally forces these constructs to have some sort of value or purpose.  This, in essence, is a systematic approach to innovating that can be trained and repeated.
The key to becoming extremely effective at innovation is to learn all the tools and templates that help create an initial, undefined construct, or what innovation researchers call “the pre-inventive form.”  This ability to apply a template, then find a useful purpose for the for what comes out of that template is what allows one to innovate on demand.  Templates “make” people innovate.
Katie’s also recognizes the value of involving many people in the use of innovation templates.  Innovation is a team sport.  Diverse, cross-functional teams using a facilitated process can overcome the inherent challenges people face when when innovating.

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