Creativity, Inc.

Because I’ve studied and read so much about creativity I must admit that I approached this book with a certain amount of trepidation. I wasn’t sure that I wanted to read it. I told myself, just read the intro and the first chapter and then stop if you don’t like it. Well, I didn’t stop. It was an enjoyable read throughout with many insights along the way. What the authors bring forward in this book is a methodological approach to creativity in organizations, more particularly corporations. They describe a system that seems to touch all the right points in order to increase creativity in an organization. In addition, they provide some helpful information for individuals who want to improve their own creativity.

The book is divided into three parts and eight chapters:
Part 1 – Creative Thinking

• The Dynamics That Underlie Creative Thinking


• Becoming Creatively Fit as an Individual


• Breaking and Making Connections for an Enterprise

Part 2 – Climate

• The Climate for Creativity in an Enterprise


• Personal Creative Climate: The Bubble

Part 3 – Action

• Leadership: Fostering Systemic Creativity


• Purposeful Creativity


• Sustaining the Change

When an organization has systemic creativity, the authors write “systemic creativity becomes an integral part of everyday operations and spawns new thought, from small changes to breakthroughs, that organizations now need in every activity that makes a competitive difference.

For this to happen, creativity must become the responsibility of everyone – every leader and senior manager as well as every employee. Systemic creativity is only systemic when everyone in an organization learns how to practice it and then promotes it constantly.”

This is not an easy task in today’s short-term, bottom-line, stockholder-value driven organization. The authors point out “The behaviors required for successful creativity are out of tune with the behaviors that make a company operationally efficient, well-organized and clear-sighted on its mission and goals.”

The authors also correctly point out that there is no “right way” to foster creativity in an organization. The approach depends upon a number of factors. “There are, however, basic principles and practical techniques that have stood the test of time.” This book is a great contribution that goal.

The book is informed by six basic understandings:

1. There is no recipe for systemic creativity.


2. Creativity and innovation are two distinct concepts.


3. Creativity happens with individuals, coalitions and teams, and organizations.


4. There are four critical dynamics.


5. Creativity depends on climate.


6. Systemic creativity asks everyone to be a leader.

According to the authors, the four inter-linking dynamics of creativity are motivation, curiosity and fear, making and breaking connections, and evaluation.

In the authors’ model, making and breaking connections within an enterprise is the pivotal dynamic of the creative process. To foster this, they encourage conflict of ideas, encourage risk taking, the promotion of diversity, organizing for intrinsic motivation, the development of information flows that support creativity, and the utilization of more and less information.

The “conflict of ideas” concept is one of the few areas in the book that I find myself disagreeing. I have found that the metaphor of battle in creativity to be de-motivating for many people. There may be certain personality types that enjoy competition over new ideas, but there are even more people who find this stressful and a turnoff. I think what needs to be fostered in organizations to promote creativity is the development and facilitation of conversations about ideas. Non judgmental conversations about ideas usually generates new ideas that quite often are better than the originals. To converse is to turn around together.

The authors make a distinction between climate and culture. The difference according to their definition is understandable. Many models of culture include a hierarchy of philosophies, beliefs, values and behaviors. Values set expectations and therefore the author’s definition of climate encompasses values and behaviors.

The concept of a personal creative climate, a “bubble” is an extremely powerful one. There are many distractions, conflicting priorities, and decentives to creativity in organizations. I have always found for myself, as well as observing the behavior of others, that those who can create this “bubble” are the most productive and the most creative.

The authors end the book with some wise advice to would be promoters of creativity in organizations. They write “As the change to systemic creativity goes forward, everything covered in the introduction and the first seven chapters – from the dynamics of the creative process and their relationship to individuals and companies, through personal; and corporate climate, through leadership and innovation – requires continued attention, reinforcement, exercise, follow-through, and reinvention.” They explain that the forces against creativity are so strong, that without continued reinforcement and reinvention, any approach to systemic creativity will fail. Their advice:

• Plan ahead


• Record results


• Expect resistance


• Encourage the flow of information

“More than forty years ago, in The Human Side of Enterprise, Douglas MacGregor challenged the command-and-control assumptions about the business establishment: ‘The distinctive potential contribution of the human being…at every level of the organization stems form his capacity to think, to plan, to exercise judgement, to be creative, to direct and control his own behavior.’

MacGregor was arguing on behalf of the creative climate. Today, while there has been much progress, too few leaders ask and expect creativity of their employees; too few leaders provide the climate in which creativity can flourish.”

How true!

Jeff Mauzy is a Consulting Manager and Richard Harriman is Managing Partner at Synectics, a pioneering consulting firm specializing in business creativity and innovation.

Creativity, Inc.: Building an Inventive Organization
Jeff Mauzy & Richard Harriman, Harvard Business School Press, 2003, Hard Cover, 232 pages


© 2004 The Innovation Road Map

The Conscious Manager

For many of us with Western educated and disciplined minds, Zen is alluring but mysterious. To comprehend Zen requires that the Western mind unlearn much and spend years in dedication to its study and practice. This book is the best I’ve read at helping to understand how Western minds might benefit from Zen. It is aimed at managers, and all you need to do to appreciate the need for “conscious managers” is read the news about the state of business management. But, not only do we need conscious managers, we need conscious people. The US has never faced the complexities of the current environment. And, all the signs say that life and business are just going to get more complex in the future. Despite all our efforts to return to simplicity, I’m afraid our burden is complexity.

Phillips begins his book with a quote from an overwrought manager, “Wear a lot of hats?” complained the over-tasked manager. “I have to wear a lot of faces. And I hate it. I wish I could be the same person at work, at home, and with friends. I want my life to all of one piece, not a lot of fragments working against each other. Isn’t that what integrity means? How can I make choices and decisions without feeling torn.”

In eight chapters, the author covers beginnings, practice, opening, support, test, mission, recipe and perspective. Using his expereince in Aikido (5th degree rank and 25 years as an instructor) and his practice of Zen as a layman, Phillips writes an insightful and sometimes moving explanation of what he has gained from his expereince. He also describes accurately some of the problems of being a manager is today’s environment and how Zen can help people and organizations.

“My favorite comment of Zen was given to me by my teacher when I asked him, Sensei…what is Zen? After a long pause, eye contact, and a smile he replied, If I say…it is not Zen.

Yes, any time you freeze reality in black and white words, it’s no longer Zen. Many fine Zen books have been written before this one. Their pages have inspired readers, wrapped sandwiches, and lined kitty litter boxes. May this book serve you well!

Now here is a more serious way to answer your question. The highway sign pointing to Detroit is not itself Detroit. This book is not Zen, but it is a pointer. Like the highway sign, it might help you slow down, and turn in the direction you already want to go.”

So, here’s the difficulty I have as a reviewer. This book is not Zen. It’s pointing to Zen. Using the author's analogy, I’ve got to write a review about the directions to a place. I’ve never taken the journey and I’ve never experienced the place. Hmm…
I can comment on what’s in the book and excerpt some quotes I think might be valuable. The book contains the characteristics of a conscious manager. It also describes the steps along the Zen path of responsible decision making.

The book is loaded with quotes, all insightful and supportive of the ideas in the writing. It is written in a style that makes the concepts accessible to Western managers who think.

The author explains the connection between what is essentially a pacifist approach and it’s many militaristic applications:

“Buddha’s teaching was in no way war like, and in many ways pacifistic. Yet its connection to martial arts, centuries later, was logical, as its connection to business today. Martial analogies serve the conscious manager well when he* focuses on war’s imperative for strategic action, instantaneous response, and dealing with fear and compassion. However, war is destructive and tragic. Business and politics can involve ‘creative destruction’ that sweeps aside the old in favor of the new, but business and politics also construct wonderful new products, organizations and institutions. Analogies that focus only on the destructive aspects of war and management fail. In fact, we know that something is seriously wrong when a company's president (as actually happened in one firm known for indiscriminate downsizing) earns the nickname 'Chainsaw'. "

* The author generally alternates the use of he and she.

At the heart of this approach is the concept of non-attachment. According to the author, we are all already enlightened. But our attachments are what prevent us from recognizing our enlightenment. (He warns about becoming attached to the pursuit of enlightenment.) Before you can get rid of our attachments, we must first become aware of what we are attached to. Then we can begin the work of understanding the attachments and ridding ourselves of them.

“How can a manager become aware of attachments? Through meditation, through mindful practice, through the support of other students of conscious management, through challenges and tests, and through instruction from a qualified, compatible teacher” he writes. This book provides guidance and clues as to how to accomplish this.

What is a conscious manager? Phillips provides these characteristics:

• Attends to detail but looks at context; tries to see the big picture


• Doesn’t believe everything he or she is told


• Rejects any labels


• Constantly hones personal skills


• Is committed to lifelong learning – for everyone in the organization


• Exercises respect and compassion, but not indulgence, in all dealings


• Is flexible but not wishy-washy


• Spares no effort to match the right people with the right jobs


• Lets employees put their best foot forward


• Controls the organization loosely


• Gives employees the chance to stretch themselves


• Tries to see the adversary’s point of view


• Shows a creative imagination


• Is focused and steadfast in pursuit of a mission


• Uses every tool at his or her command

The ingredients necessary for becoming a conscious manager are:

• Hunger


• An opening experience


• A practice


• Support


• Tests


• A mission

But enough from me describing the directions pointing the way to Zen. Buy the book and read the directions yourself. It's a great read!

Fred Phillips is an educator and executive who has taught Zen martial art for more than 25 years. As head of the management department at Oregon Graduate Institute of Science and technology, he has built the Northwest’s most admired management degree program for high technology leaders. He is the author of the textbook Market Oriented Technology Management: Innovating for Profit in Entrepreneurial Times, and Associate Editor of the Journal Technology Forecasting & Social Change. A longtime Texan, Fred now lives in Beaverton, Oregon, with his wife and daughters. He holds fifth-dan rank in akido.

The Conscious Manager: Zen for Decision Makers
Fred Phillips, General Informatics, 2003, Paperback, 145 pages

© 2004 The Innovation Road Map