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CREATIVITY IN WORK IMPROVEMENT
by Dr. Ben S. Graham, Jr.
Chairman
The Ben Graham Corporation
© Copyright 2000,
The Ben Graham Corporation. All rights reserved.
Permission is granted to post, print and distribute this document in its
original PDF format.
People who are highly
creative do things that make it easy for them to see creative opportunities. It is easily demonstrated that when
anyone does these things their creativity improves. This article covers basic elements of
creative behavior and includes several techniques some of which are general
creativity techniques and others that are specifically aimed at finding better
and easier ways of doing work.
Basic Elements of Creative Behavior
Creativity and
Values, Improvement Vs Change
There
is a crucial distinction between the concepts of change and improvement. Change simply means doing something
different and this requires no skill at all.
Improvement requires that our
change leaves us better off and better is an issue of values.
As
soon as we consider the subject of values the question, "whose
values?" becomes important. If
we improve for the benefit of one faction to the detriment of another the side
that benefits will consider the change an improvement but those who are damaged
will not. To qualify as a
legitimate business process improvement a change generally needs to benefit four
important factions, the owners, the management, the employees and the customers
(sometimes referred to as clients, students, citizens, patients, etc.).
This is the major creative challenge in work
improvement. "Win-lose"
changes simply don't work. For
instance, a medicine that clears the lungs while causing a heart attack destroys
the organism, lungs included. When
our work improvement blatantly rewards one or more of the factions at the
expense of others, the pay-off is short run at best. For instance, changes that reap profits
for owners and managers at the expense of employees and customers will hurt
sales and anger employees. In time,
dissatisfied customers will leave and the alienated employees will not do the
things that are necessary to get them back. Organizations of every sort, private and government, can fail
as a result of such one-sided change and calling it improvement or reengineering
or reinventing or downsizing or any other buzzword won't correct the situation.
Instead,
we should look for "win-win" opportunities. In fact we should look for
"win-win-win-win"! The real challenge of work improvement is to come up with
creative changes that provide better products and services at lower prices (or
taxes) that in turn generate increased volumes and surplus cash flow. This makes it possible to reward all
factions. The key to accomplishing
this is to focus our creativity on doing the best possible job and not on
getting a bigger share of the current pie.
As for finding the creativity to do this, the key is to make use of the
creative potential that resides, generally unused, in the organization.
Universality
It
is important not to confuse creative behavior with creative potential. Behavior is what we actually do and social conditions such as
bureaucracy tend to restrict the amount of creative behavior that is actually
done. Potential, however, includes
all of the things we could do. And, almost all people have within
themselves far more creative potential than they exhibit or are even aware of. We should not assume that a person who
rarely exhibits creative behavior is a non-creative person.
People
sometimes mask their most creative efforts intentionally. Certainly they do so when they are
embezzling but it does not have to be outright criminal behavior. Almost every child learns early in life
to pretend, "I didn't know." In
an alienated bureaucracy there will be lots of pretending; dysfunctional
creative behavior like defensive record keeping, fudging expenses, sleeping
undetected in the warehouse, and beating the system in general.
In
fact a great deal of highly creative behavior has a non-creative appearance. This happens in bureaucracies as
follows. People in authority impose
top-down decisions that are ineffective because they are out of touch with
reality. The employees who are in
touch with the facts are kept busy trying to make bad processes work. Eventually people get tired of trying. "Tee Shirt Philosophies" like
"If it ain't broke don't fix it." and "Don't make a wave"
take on an aura of wisdom that they don't deserve. People find it easier to direct their creativity at avoiding
creative challenges than at addressing them.
Once this pattern is established people get so used to making excuses
they fail to notice wonderful opportunities for improvement. Out of force of habit they wind up
expending far more creative energy proving that improvements cannot be made than
it would take to accomplish them.
A
level of creative improvement effort evolves, in each organization, based on the
improvement skills of the people and how much they have worn themselves out with
ineffective improvement efforts. This
level continues because the people find that if they do any more they cause
flack and if they do any less they feel irresponsible.
All
people have a potential for creative improvement.
However, there is a self-fulfilling prophecy where lack of opportunity
leads to the appearance of lack of ability, leading to further limiting of
opportunity. People apply their
creativity in those parts of their lives where they have the opportunity. For junior people in bureaucracies, this is almost
exclusively off the job. On the
job, senior people sometimes get the idea that the junior people (particularly
in clerical areas) are not creative and they limit the exercise of creativity to
themselves and their lieutenants. They
justify top-down change and establish an elite who have the exclusive
opportunity to exercise creativity and who operate at a distance from reality. And, thus they ignore a vast resource of
ingenuity.
Appearances
To
assume that employees are not creative because they are not doing creative
things is superficial. It is also
superficial to assume that you can tell creative people by how they dress and
wear their hair, by the language they use and the unconventional things they do. Suffice it to say that being preoccupied with appearances is
standard adolescent behavior and growing up calls for focusing our efforts on
things of greater consequence. Well-adjusted
adults simply do not treat appearance as an issue. People whose appearance is very
conventional may be extremely creative and people whose appearance is "off
the wall" may go through life never accomplishing anything of authentic
value with their creativity.
Similar
to associating creativity with bizarre hairstyles and dress is a tendency to
also associate creativity with mood. Some
people are convinced that they can't force creativity and therefore they should
wait for the spirit to move them. This
badly underestimates our creative abilities and leads to procrastination. Unfortunately the spirit moves them as
time runs out and the result is a rush job.
We don't have to do it that way. We
can bring on the spirit of creativity any time we want and the more often we do
so the easier it gets.
People
who have had a brush with psychology sometimes hold another superficial view of
creativity. Having heard that
compulsive people are rarely creative they assume that any disciplined effort at
organizing will stifle creativity. Actually
organization and discipline are necessary if creativity is to be directed at
worthwhile accomplishments.
The
problem with compulsive people is not that they are organized. The problem is that they don't stop
organizing. If they spend all of
their time getting organized to do something creative and never muster up the
courage to start doing it, obviously they won't get much done. But, that does not mean we should ignore
the necessary preparations for improvement.
The trick is to organize quickly and realistically and get on with
improvement. The following
techniques can help people to be creative effectively. And, they can be applied quickly, any
time the need arises.
Pure Creativity Techniques
The
reason astrological forecasts appear so amazingly accurate to people who believe
in them is not because of the insight of the writer. It is because of the natural creativity
of the readers, who usually have little idea of how creative they are. The words that the astrological writer
puts in front of the reader, momentarily shift the perspective of the reader who
is briefly lifted out of whatever ruts may be channeling his or her life. For that moment, the reader looks at his or her life from the
perspective of the words that have been supplied. And, amazingly (because the human mind is so amazing, not the
astrologist) the reader finds a message that fits beautifully.
Fresh Eyes
Any
subject can be handled more creatively by viewing it with fresh eyes. We can use a graphic presentation of it,
a diagram, a chart, a photo, a model, etc. to view it with fresh eyes. The essential element is to step out of
the rut of habit and gain a new perspective.
Here are a couple of techniques for accomplishing this.
The
Yellow Pages
Take
the Yellow Pages and hold it by the spline.
Allow it to fall open and then blindly place a finger somewhere on one of
the exposed pages. Read what it
says and use that subject as a starting point for discovering creative ways of
dealing with the subject under study.
The Think Tank (Dr. Edward de Bono and lateral thinking)
The
think tank is a plastic ball that contains 30,000 plastic strips, each with an
English word printed on one side. There
is a transparent window on one side of the ball.
When the strips are stirred up in the ball, typically 4 or 5 of the words
can be read through the window and these are used to form a concept that becomes
a starting point for discovering creative ways of dealing with the subject under
study.
Simply Stepping Back
Artists
have known for centuries that working on a painting too long leads to seeing
what you want to see rather than what you have actually painted. There are several ways of avoiding this,
each of which can be related to creative projects that are not painting.
Simply Step Back - By simply stepping back a few feet from the
painting the perspective changes.
Step Back and Use a Mirror - While simply stepping changes the perspective, the
effect of fresh eyes can be dramatically increased by using a mirror to view the
painting. This is usually done by
facing away from the painting and viewing it in a mirror held so that the
painting can be seen over the shoulder. This
little expedient reverses the picture so that, at least momentarily there are
fresh eyes.
Limiting the Amount of Time - By limiting the amount of time that you
work on a painting in one session you leave it and come back to it the next day
with fresh eyes. Raphael worked on
several paintings at one time. Each
time he started with a different painting he turned over an hourglass and when
the hourglass was at the bottom he stopped work on that painting and moved to
another.
All
of these efforts help to provide fresh eyes.
This is the visual equivalent of getting out of the rut.
Creative Techniques for Work Improvement
Creativity in Work
Improvement (when it is constructive) is the action of finding better and easier
ways of doing our work. It is not
working longer or harder. It is
working smarter. It is the biggest
single factor that distinguishes between accomplishments that are outstanding
and those that aren't. When it is
done well in a hospital there is better health for the patients. When it is done well in a legal process
there is more justice. When it is
done well in national defense our nations are more secure. Wherever we do it well we benefit. And, where we do not do it well we simply live less well than
we might.
Brainstorming
The
technique of brainstorming is one of suspending judgment while assembling ideas. Brainstorming is usually done by a small
group of people, one of whom records the ideas on a flip chart while the rest
simply blurt out anything that comes to mind without consideration of how
effective or practical it may seem. As
they call out one ridiculous notion after another it becomes easier to be
non-conventional and occasionally an idea emerges that proves to be a jewel. Often it is so different from current
practice as to seem nonsensical but on second thought it becomes obvious that it
is an exciting and practical alternative.
The Questioning
Method
The
questioning method is a more rigorous approach.
It involves asking a series of questions about the steps of a process. Clear, reasonable answers suggest that
the work steps are justified as is. However,
when we ask the questions, "What is happening here and Why
is it happening?” and we find no reasonable explanation, that work step can
probably be eliminated. As we ask
the questions, "When is this
step done and Why is it done at that
time?" opportunities for streamlining by changing the timing emerge. As we ask the questions, "Where is this done and Why is it done there?"
opportunities for streamlining by changing the location become apparent. As we ask the questions, "Who does this and Why does this person do it?" we find opportunities to benefit
by shifting work assignments. And,
when we ask the questions, "How it
is done and Why do we do it that way,
opportunities for improving the way that step is done by work place redesign,
programming, form design, etc. surface. These questions, asked in this sequence are bound to generate
ideas.
Summary
All
minds are potentially creative. They
act creatively when they are open. They
are open when they are willing to step back and entertain questions. Having lots of questions is a natural
condition for children and sages. Pretending
to have all the answers is a phony condition that thrives under social pressure
and inhibits natural creativity.
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