MGT353 Midterm

2. Curiosity and Fear

Curiosity - Begin research for possibly useful information - The psychic state whereby people explore unknown possibilities that motivation makes manifest - When exercised in safe experimentation, transforms the unknown from something potentially dangerous into something manageable - Can arise from pain - search for knowledge and sensemaking; leads to experimentation Fear - The unknown can be frightening - Unmanaged fear can trigger a fight or flight response - Lose capacity for creativity

According to your reading, which of the following skills will not be required for the future of work?

Fixed Minsets

360° Agile way of working by ING (ENG)

Flexible Change leads to new insights Change in environment agile workspaces Couches Colorful Whiteboards

What's needed to create group flow?

1. The Groups Goal - Unclear objectives are a big barrier to effective performance 2. Close Listening - Fully engaged 3. Complete concentration - Attention is centered on the task 4. Being in Control - Participants must feel in control 5. Blending Egos - Each person's idea builds on those contributed just before them 6. Equal Participation - Play an equal role 7. Familiarity - Know your teammates 8. Communication - Constant communication 9. Moving it forward - Extend and build on it 10. The potential for failure - Risk of real, meaningful failure

Response to shortage of skilled labor

1. Training 2. Offshoring 3. De-skilling jobs

Nurture Creative Talent

1. Wall off a creative group from the rest of the corporate culture - Allows freedom to form a climate that differs from organizations prevailing environment 2. Mid Level managers - They can help motivate or demotivated people - They know how to form the right team for each job 3. Allocate time and resources to recharge artistic talent 4. Diversify team with different personalities

powerful purpose statement achieves two objectives:

1. clearly articulating strategic goals 2. motivating your workforce

Extrinsic Motivation

A reaction to - is driven by - external rewards such as money or fame - Tends to diminish the quality of creativity - Can increase creative quality if extrinsic motivation serves a high intrinsic motivation Driven into action

Be aware of the forces that work against creativity

Imitation - Fantastic way to learn - Can become a habit and keep you from breaking new ground Conformity - Can reduce friction, help unify, and foster momentum The need to be right immediately - Important in a time-driven world Acceptance of fixed roles Paralysis from analysis

According to our reading, what are the three areas that lead to systemic creativity?

Individuals, coalitions, and organizations

According to Alexandre Janssen, innovation is hard for companies. Which of the reasons represents one reason why it is hard?

It's about doing something new and orgs don't like new.

Know Yourself

Know who you are as a creative individual Strengths and weaknesses Preferences - Alone vs team

The _________ brain is associated with developing practical, conventional, and logical ideas.

Left

Low vs. High Motivational intensity

Low motivational states facilitate the search for new goals to pursue, high motivational states focus on compelling a specific goal.

1. Motivation

The distance between circumstances and desire creates emotional pressure that activates somebody to do something new

When the vital assets are people, there is no true ownership - all you can do is make people want to stay

The most important IP is the stuff inside employees heads

Curiosity and fear often come hand in hand?

True

ideal moment for insights

Warm showers - Relaxed early morning, right after we wake up - drowsy brain is unwound and disorganized, open to all sorts of unconventional ideas

Strong command-and-control hierarchies

foster the expectation that independent thought is ignored or punishable - Discourages creativity

Long-term climates...

give vivid character to whole companies

Motivational intensity

how strongly you feel compelled to either approach or avoid something - pleasant is a positive emotion with low motivational intensity, desire is a positive emotion with high motivational intensity - sad is a negative emotion with low motivational intensity, disgust is a negative emotion with high motivational intensity

Narrow scope of attention

more conductive to linear thinking

creativity atrophies because:

people a) don't get a lot of practice at creativity and b) don't expect much when they do practice it

Memory

plays a role as a delaying see anchor that keeps climate in equilibrium against day-to-day tides and currents of change

emotional valence

positive vs negative

Organizational Support

resources: money, space, access to information, and a base to work from. - Safety net

Cognitive reappraisal

take something we thought was negative and make it positive

Divergent thinking

the ability to make mental connections between unrelated matters - Indicator of creative capacity - Children score significantly better than adults at this

verbal overshadowing

the act of verbal explanation would naturally shift activity to the left hemisphere, causing people to ignore the more subtle associations coming from the right side of the brain

Psychological safety

the belief that one will not be punished or humiliated for speaking up with ideas, questions, concerns, or mistakes

The industrial economy is giving way to...

the creative economy

A crucial trigger of creativity

the experience of unusual and unexpected events

Affective engagement

the extent to which people are open to the full breadth and depth of their emotions - a better predictor of artistic creativity than IQ

Flow

the mental state of operation in which a person performing an activity is fully immersed in a feeling of energized focus, full involvement, and enjoyment in the process of the activity

The larger the group...

the more powerful and stable the climate around that group.

Creative people have greater connections between two parts of the brain:

the part associated with focus and attentional control and the part associated with imagination and spontaneity - Mindfulness + daydreaming, intuition + rationality, etc - Creative people have messy minds

Emotional ambivalence

the simultaneous experience of negative and positive emotions - Increased sensitivity to unusual associations is another important contributor to creativity

Society, acculturation, and formal education

wean most people from creativity

A creative profile

"Know your enemy, know yourself"

Spotify Engineering Culture

- Agile engineering culture - Rules are a good start, but break them when needed - Servant leaders > process masters - Teams are squads - Autonomy - Motivating - Each one has its own mission - Loosely coupled but tightly aligned - Collaboration - Little standardization - Instead, cross pollination - Mutual respect - Little ego - Community > structure - Trust > control - No politics - No fear - Fear kills innovation - Self-managed team - More autonomy - No chain of command

Relaxation Phase

- Burst of brain activity out of nowhere - Upon reaching insight, there is certainty that the problem was resolved

Large-Scale Climate Change

- Changing the climate of an established company is harder - If a company fully commits to new behavior and expectations, the old ones begin to weaken and break up - Allows new patterns to take hold - Eventually new expectations and behaviors become self-reinforcin

The real asset: Ideas

- Companies are able to generate a lot of revenue off a small base of assets and employees - Companies will exercise power by sharing or withholding crucial IP - Allow power to tilt from the sources of capital toward the sources of ideas

Why Innovation is all about people rather than bright ideas

- Creativity is about finding and fostering the right people - Putting them in the right conditions - Hire people based on their passions, not their skills - Create a safe environment for these people - Give them an "i ****ed up" card - Passionate people don't see obstacles, they see possibilities - They don't work for a salary, they work because they have a purpose

3. Breaking and making connections

- Destruction of a rigid set of assumptions about what can and can't be done in a particular marketplace - People decide what to do based on their patterns of connection - Finding meaningful connections means sorting through many possibilities - Seemingly irrelevant connections often turn out to have the most profound relevance - Good creative connections sometimes seem contradictory

Expectations and Behavior Underpin Climate

- Each person in an environment tends to act in a way that reinforces other people's expectations - Gives a sense of belonging and safety - Increases ability to influence others to behave one way or another - People read all the expectations and behaviors in their environment, form expectations of their own, and respond accordingly

Asks everyone to be a leader

- Everyone can be creative - Everyone is responsible for sparking ideas and shepherding them into useful innovation

According to your reading, which of the following skills will be required for the future of work?

- Human judgment and decision-making - New ways of thinking - High emotional intelligence - Analytical thinking skills

Without diversity of thinking and perspective in its leaders, company is less likely to:

- Identify creative employees - Embrace the conflict inherent in breaking and making connections - Have the range of vision needed to make the best use of whatever creativity it is able to stimulate

Both creativity and innovation need to be nurtured at every level and function of a corporation to become systematically creative

- Individual creativity - Creativity by coalitions - The support that organization give to each

According to Peter Coy, which of the following is behind the growing power of ideas?

- Intellectual property is at the core of growth because of lower costs and higher profit potential. - Business has grown more efficient in producing food and physical goods.

Which of the following is true about organizational climate?

- It represents the common collection of behaviors and expectations among members. - Climates tend toward equilibrium and tend to stay that way until patterns change. - Memory acts as an anchor delaying climate change. - Unique climates can form within different groups in the same company.

Key dynamics that underlie creative thinking

- Motivation - Management of fear - Making connections - Evaluation

4. Evaluation

- New ideas need to be explored, modified, and tailored before anyone can make a decision about their worth - Use concerns arising in evaluation as focus areas for more creative work rather than as reasons to abandon the work - Successful evaluation allows for time, possibility of mistakes, and apparent irrelevance or foolishness

Climates for Creativity

- Nurture the individuality at the core of intrinsic motivation - Provide the safety necessary for curiosity to flourish - Provide support and patience for successful evaluation - Expect newness

A change of the mix of people in the workforce

- Older - More female - More minorities

According to Gary Hamel which of the following drivers of success today can't be commanded or controlled?

- Passion - Creativity - Initiative

Shareholders will likely lose power while entrepreneurs and idea generating employees will gain power

Abundance of capital can be bad for investors because the commodity they supply is no longer scarce. What is scarce are good ideas.

give vivid character to whole companies

Allows people outside the company to form expectations

3 Stage Model of Creativity In Organizations

1. Causes of creative behavior - Creative potential and creative environment 2. Creative behavior - Problem formulation - information gathering - idea generation - idea evaluation 3. Creative Outcomes (innovations) - Novelty and usefulness

Creative Climate based on Principles

1. Collaboration 2. Open Feedback 3. Flexibility

_____ is about breaking down prior assumptions and making new connections while ______ is the generation new sources of value or growth.

Creativity/innovation

10 Vital Skills You Will Need For The Future Of Work

1. Creativity 2. Emotional Intelligence (EQ) 3. Analytical (critical) Thinking 4. Active learning with a growth mindset 5. Judgment and decision making 6. Interpersonal communication skills 7. Leadership Skills 8. Diversity and Cultural Intelligence 9. Technology Skills 10. Embracing Change

Problem solving process

1. Preparatory Phase 2. Search Phase 3. Impasse 4. Insight

According to our HBR reading, which of the following teams is best suited for gathering an organization's best thinking and expertise on a complex topic?

Cross-functional

________ in Maslow's hierarchy refers to the drive to become what we can become.

Self-actualization

Which of the following is not a key dynamic that underlies creative thinking?

Situational dimensions

When each member's contribution is not clearly visible, individuals tend to decrease their effort. This is known as _____________.

Social loafing

Promote Diversity

Brings a breadth in perspective

Which of the following organizational structures are defined by a formal, hierarchical organization and held together by a central administration?

Bureaucracy

Intrinsic Motivation

Comes from a persons or company's natural affinity - Associated with passion and fun and high creative quality Drawn into action

In a "war for talent"

Companies will provide services that would in another era be provided by government agencies or families - Child care, elder care, valet services, etc

Creativity depends on climate

- Sympathetic environment - Support creativity

Autonomy

- The freedom to work as you see fit to achieve company goals Contributes to intrinsic motivation, learning, and self-esteem

Which of the following is a key reason why the rising importance of ideas creates difficulties for corporations?

- Theft of intellectual property jeopardizes innovation. - Creating an environment where employees want to stay and contribute is now the focus, not making things. - Strict enforcement of intellectual property can suppress innovation.

Insight

- a burst of brain activity - A discovery about an underlying need or motivation that creates opportunities for business growth - Convey deep understanding of needs and/or desires experience - Spark emotion - Makes customers want to hear more - neurons in the right hemisphere are collecting information from a larger area of cortical space - a restructuring of information—it's seeing the same old thing in a completely new way

under-performing teams

- a smaller percentage of the group contributing - longer intervals between testing ideas - greater repetition of the same mistakes

Search Phase

- as the brain starts looking for answers in all the relevant places - Almost all of the possibilities your brain comes up with are going to be wrong - it's up to the executive control areas to keep on searching or, if necessary, change strategies and start searching somewhere else.

Impasse

- before there can be a breakthrough, there has to be a mental block - when the brain is about to give up

Preparatory Phase

- brain is devoting its considerable computational power to the problem - various sensory areas go silent as the brain suppresses possible distractions - Focus is all about blocking stuff out - The first areas activated during the problem solving process were those involved with executive control, like the prefrontal cortex and the anterior cingulate cortex.

Ideas are infectious

- can spread to a huge population quickly - Once the idea (ie. a computer program) has been developed, the cost of making copies is close to 0 and the potential profits are enormous

Teams

- formed by companies when they want to tackle problems or search out opportunities - Resources are assigned, reporting procedures established, team members chosen for their strengths and availability - needed when the task can only be accomplished through constant communication and coordination between team members. - Goal is collective performance - Synergy is positive - Accountability is individual and mutual - Skills are complementary - Formed to tackle bigger problems or search out new opportunities.

If you want employees who are more engaged and productive...

- give them a purpose—one concretely tied to your customers and your strategy

Climate

- the common collection of behaviors and expectations - Part of a company's culture - Develops by default as patterns of behavior and expectation continue to reinforce each other over time

groups that performed well

- treated mistakes with curiosity and shared responsibility for the outcomes - people could express themselves, their thoughts and ideas without fear of social retribution - created an environment of psychological safety

Coalitions

- when people voluntarily organize themselves to solve a problem or realize a new idea - Each member brings unique energy, enthusiasm & creativity - May initially lack resources or authority

Building an Organization That Delivers on Your Purpose

1. Be a magnet for the right talent. 2. Connect with intention across boundaries. 3. Invest behind your purpose. 4. Make sure your leaders model your purpose

Climate Stability

Climate tends to stay in equilibrium until expectations or behaviors change

Four critical dynamics:

Motivation Curiosity and fear Breaking of and making of connections Evaluation

According to our HBR reading "The Emotions That Make Us More Creative" _________________ is how strongly you feel compelled to either approach or avoid something, a construct that influences our decision to complete a specific goal.

Motivational Intensity

A structure that is flat, uses cross-hierarchical and cross-functional teams, has low formalization, possesses a comprehensive information network, and relies on participative decision making is a ________ structure.

Organic

Long standing view

Positive emotions are conducive to creativity, negative ones are not because they narrow ones focus - Too simplistic

Which of the following accurately differentiates between work groups and work teams?

Work teams generate a potential for an organization to generate greater outputs with no increase in inputs, while work groups cannot perform this function. Work Groups: - Goal is to share information - Synergy is neutral and sometimes negative - Accountability is individual - Skills are random and varied

Broad scope of attention

associated with free-floating colliding of ideas

Unique climates...

can also form within different functional and professional groups of a company

problem-solving behaviors

collaboration identifying problems applying information maintaining discipline breaking rules inventing new approaches

Concentration

comes with the hidden cost of diminished creativity

right hemisphere

dealt with connotation, everything that gets left out of a dictionary definition, such as the emotional charge in a sentence or a metaphor.

left hemisphere

excelled at denotation—storing the primary meaning of a word