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14450
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CREATIVITY Un-Ltd
DETLEF REIS
Two thousand five hundred years ago, the Greek philosopher Heraclitus proclaimed: "That which opposes produces a benefit." Do you agree?
If you are a business leader or manager, chances are that you follow the opposite approach. Most companies cultivate sameness. "The 'surplus society' has a surplus of similar companies, employing similar people, with similar educational backgrounds, coming up with similar ideas, producing similar things, with similar prices and similar quality," note the Swedish management gurus Kjelle Nordstrom and Jonas Ridderstrale. But can you expect different results than your competitors if all you do is similar to what they do? Of course not. If you want to achieve different results, you need to be different in what you do.
Here a necessary step to take is to make the culture of your organisation more diverse. Diversity means to "recruit, select, develop and advance employees solely on merit, irrespective of age, gender, nationality, physical challenges, race, religious beliefs, sexual orientation or identity" (as the company BP defines the term). How can you make your organisational culture more diverse to stimulate creativity and innovation? Here are four tips to consider:
1. Make diversity a central pillar of your HR strategy. "Where do good new ideas come from?" asks Nicholas Negroponte. "That's simple! From differences. Creativity comes from unlikely juxtapositions. The best way to maximise differences is to mix ages, cultures and disciplines." To make your organisation more innovative, make it more diverse. How does the truly diverse organisation look? Think of Star Trek and the crew of the Enterprise.
True diversity means creating a workforce that is truly multinational, multi-ethical, multiracial, multi-religious, multicultural, multi-age-level and multi-disciplinary.
Lesson: Ensure that your workforce could stand as a model for a Benetton ad. Lobby your politicians to change the immigration and labour policies to attract and retain the best global talents in the age of value creation.
2. Innovation is a team sport. People differ in their fundamental thinking preferences in that they favour theories, ideas, people or systems - or have combinations of these four main thinking modes.
Different modes are needed at different stages of the creative process. Theorists and Ideators collaborate well in the initial Xploration stage. Ideators and, to a lesser extent, People-oriented thinkers add value in the Ideation and Development stages. In the fourth stage Evaluation, all four modes are needed to thoroughly evaluate your ideas and solutions. In the final Action stage, it's the time for the system-thinkers to prepare and lead the idea activation effort. And use the people-thinkers as master communicators to sell the benefits of your solutions to vital supporters (such as executives or external financiers).
Lesson: Staff projects with a diverse team of people representing different modes of thinking that will shine at different stages of the creative process.
3. Collaborations thrive when opposites unite. In line with Heraclitus's view, consider pairing or combining people who are very different on projects where you need novel solutions.
Lesson: Boost work results by teaming opposite characters for projects that require fresh thinking and creativity as well as detail orientation and pragmatism. As Malcolm Forbes suggested: "Diversity: the art of thinking independently together."
3. Hire people who make you feel uncomfortable. I noticed some time ago that in a particular industry or type of organisation, a certain mode of thinking tends to dominate.
In order to become different from other companies in your industry, recruit a fair number of employees that tick differently than the dominant modes. This goes in line with the recommendation of Stanford professor Bob Sutton, who advocates "hiring people that make you feel uncomfortable" to make your firm more innovative.
Lesson: Spice up your organisation by recruiting a number of people who think and act differently that the dominant majority.
Conclusion: "Diversity is not about how we differ. Diversity is about embracing one another's uniqueness," noted Ola Joseph. Increase the diversity of your organisation to make it more innovative and truly unique.
Dr Detlef Reis is a university lecturer for Business Creativity and Innovation Leadership at the College of Management, Mahidol University. He is also the founding director of Thinkergy Limited (http://www.Thinkergy.com), the Idea Company in Asia. He can be reached at dr.d@thinkergy.com
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