How to Kill Creativity Harvard Business Review Teresa

How to Kill Creativity Harvard Business Review Teresa Amabile

Three Components of Creativity �Expertise �Creative Thinking Skills �Motivation

Managerial Practices �Challenge � Freedom � Resources � Work-Group Features � Supervisory Encouragement � Organizational Support

Challenge �Matching people to the right tasks �Play to their expertise and skills in creative thinking �Stretch employees’ abilities �Detailed information about employees �Not trying to obtain the information necessary to make good connections between people and jobs

Freedom �More freedom leads to better creativity �Change in goals or not clearly defined �Not truly granting independence

Resources �Time and money �Fake deadlines kill creativity �Keep resources tight

Work-Group Features �Pay careful attention to the design of a team �Teams need to show excitement, willingness, and the recognition of what other team members bring to the table �Assembling homogeneous teams

Supervisory Encouragement �Make sure the employee feels valued �Failing to acknowledge innovative efforts or by greeting them with skepticism leads to killing creativity

Organizational Support �The entire organization needs to support creativity �Reward employees who are creative �Mandate information sharing and collaboration �Fighting and gossip in an organization can lead to the damage of creativity

Rewards and Risks �Fostering creativity is in the hands of the managers �Creativity often requires managers to radically change the ways in which they build and interact with work groups. �When creativity is killed, there is a lose of new ideas, energy, and commitment from the employees

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