Do you think creativity really can be managed?

[Russ Schoen]

Do you think creativity can be managed at all? If so, what’s the difference between managing creativity and managing for creativity? Please leave a comment and then check out this month’s Harvard Business Review.

HBD has a brilliant article on just this topic, leading for creativity. Do yourself a favor, take 15-20 min and read this article. Here's the link!

[Paul Levy]

I think the distinction between creativity and creativeness is useful here.

Creativity is the outward manifestation of the creative inner process. It often emerges in the form of creative practices and a focus on problem solving.

Creativeness is an inner quality of the soul, a feeling; one can awaken in the morning feeling it more or less. Some people have an inner creativeness that comes from their earliest days on earth, and in others it can awaken.

Creativity without creativeness is a kind of empty outer husk of creativeness. You'll find in a group that is brainstorming around an idea and there's a strong sense of it all being a bit samey and going through the motions.

I think creativity can be practiced to death with little or no real outcome. It often runs out of steam. Creativeness involves a lot more silence, inner play, and often never manifests as managed technique at all, yet often leads to inspirations that do result in authentic change and innovation.

[Gijs van Bilsen]

Hi Russ,

I'm only just tipping my toe in the water that is creativity in management, but I'll add my two cents.

I absolutely agree with the article that a manager has to manage FOR creativity and take a facilitating role. He should give room for creativity and stimulate it through adding diversity to his team, getting outside collaborationand so on, but I think a manager can do more.

A manager cannot only facilitate creativity, but actually make people more creative. A manager should not (only) hire creative people for the fuzzy front end, but should encourage all people in the innovation process (engineers, marketeers) to become more creative and jump into the fuzzy front end.

I also think that this is an area where applied improvisation can show it's value, because it makes people rather than the organization more creative.

What are your thoughts on this?