The Importance of Organizational Culture in Creating a Supportive Environment - Essay Example

Student Name: Tutor: Title: Organizational Behavior and Negotiation Course: CREATIVITY Executive summary Creativity forms an important part of business and the right culture fosters innovation. This report discusses the creativity in organizations and ways to foster a creative environment. Adaption to advances in technology compels fostering of creativity. The introduction sets the pace of the topic and highlights important issues to be discussed. The body discusses important issues about support of creativity and the involvement of top management. Recommendations suggest further initiatives to be undertaken to support creativity. The importance of organizational culture in creating a supportive environment has been emphasized. The conclusions recaps main ideas discussed in the report and the reference list contains the consulted sources. Introduction Creativity is an integral part of business but it has not been given priority by the top management in organizations. Creativity is essential for ensuring sustainability particularly when a company breaks into the global market. The business leadership has to take creativity at the workplace seriously. Ideas have to be tapped from all ranks of the organization and bureaucratic levels reduced to enhance sharing of ideas. The culture of the organization is crucial in enhancing creativity and attainment of organizational goals and objectives. The culture has to be open to new ideas to encourage creativity (Zhang & Bartol, 2010). Organizations have to constantly adapt in order to keep pace with technology expectations and consumers’ expectations. Collaboration can be enhanced through removal of excess levels of an organization. Excess scrutiny and committees can stifle creative ideas. This paper discusses creativity in organizations and gives recommendations of how creativity can be supported. Creativity in organizations According to the article it is crucial for the management to be involved in the creativity process in order to motivate the members of the organization to be creative. Creativity cannot be managed but it can be supported by the top management in any organization that is interested in new product development in order to remain competitive in the market. The leaders in the organization have to engage the right people during the right time in order to encourage creativity. Employees have to be allowed to contribute their imagination as opposed to the top-down strategy used by some organizations. Traditional management focuses on projects and puts people in charge but in most cases creative ideas do not come from the managers but the people under them (Amabile et al, 2004). Regardless of the ranks in an organization, ideas have to be tapped from all levels. Autonomy being allowed for workers allows them to be imaginative and creative and they end up with new ideas for new product development. In order for creativity to flourish collaboration has to be encouraged and enabled. Creative ideas have to be gathered from all levels of the organization instead of concentrating on the top leadership. Many innovations currently come from many contributions instead of depending on one genius in the organization. The fundamental structure of organizations supporting creativity is highly networked and not top-down or centralized. Organizations still fail to utilize the contribution of internet technologies to tap creativity of various smart people who are working on the same task. Leaders have to promote coordination totems during new products’ conceptualization. In the modern world new ideas are developed by team as opposed to individual genius. Hierarchical structures and disparities in ranks among people is a challenge to exchange of ideas in organizations (Quinn, 2004). Organizational change has to happen in order for embrace new ideas. Organizations have to be opened to diverse perspectives. Innovation can easily manifest itself when people from different background, of different disciples, and area of expertise engage and share their thoughts about something. In some circumstances the complexity of a problem requires diversity. Diversity creates room for diversity and enhances it even where an individual is involved. Coming from a background that is full of diversity can elicit creative ideas in an individual. Managers can encourage diversity by looking beyond the organization for avenues of creativity. In order for collaboration to be successful, walls of the firm have to be brought down and encourage a networked environment. Open-source development will be the bedrock of innovation in future. The Wright brothers who discovered the airplane networked and worked together to come up the idea. Creativity in an organization depends on ongoing, vibrant collaboration and free flow of ideas. Many layers of management create bureaucratic structures that hinder sharing of ideas within a good time frame. Different types of creative people have to be appreciated and the subversive tolerated. The organization leadership has to be careful about commercialization handoff. Very few people possess equal skills in idea commercialization and idea generation and that is the reason large corporations put the two functions separate. The marketing of an idea during commercialization is very important. The momentum of the original idea should not be lost during handoff. Direction through paths of the bureaucracy has to be provided. Managers have to act as shepherds of new ideas generated in the organization until they are commercialized. The management has to offer protection from hostile environment for people engaged in creative work and eliminate any obstacles that will hinder their work. Excess bureaucratic structures stifle sharing of ideas to encourage creativity in the organization (Cameron, 2008). A filtering mechanism has to be creative to separate creative ideas that can be commercialized from those that are not worth pursuing. Without the filtration process and mechanisms, the organization will spent time on ideas that are not beneficial or are bound to flop in the market during commercialization. The articles emphasizes motivation of employees is very important when it comes to creativity. An employee who is not inspired to have a grasp of the prevailing challenge is unlikely to conceptualize a solution. Intellectual challenge has to be provided to inspire the employees to be creative in their work. Intrinsic motivation is very important in encouraging workers to be creative in the workplace. Intellectual challenge encourages people to be innovative. Independence is also important. More independence can lead to higher productivity in an organization. Employees have to be encouraged to pursue their passions in order to nature creativity in them. The executive should not regard itself as the sole source of creative ideas but allow coordination and collaboration among workers to create an environment for creativity. The management has to act as an appreciative audience in the course of new idea generation and development. Employees engaging in creative work are highly motivated by the behavior of the management. Managers have to be alive to the certainty of failure. The managers have to eliminate the fear of failure and encourage consistent or persistent experimentation. Some firms within the Silicon Valley that have the hardest time in the management of creativity have been successful due to their aversion to failure. Being averse to failure will encourage creativity. Establishment of an economic viability of an activity can enhance increased scrutiny and hence stifle new ideas. Fear of failure appears to rise with the scale of a business. Any business that engages vigorously will be exposed to failure. Failure has to be capitalized to encourage creative problem solving. Failure can be categorized into system breakdowns, process deviations, and unsuccessful trials. Unsuccessful trials have to provide the richest potential for creative learning. Deeply ingrained norms which stigmatize failure inhibit experimentation. Training is important to enhance the success of ventures. Recommendations The organization culture plays an important role to fostering creativity in an organization. Culture is deeply rooted, long standing and usually slow to change. It refers to the beliefs, values and traditions reflecting the corporate behavior of the organization. Creativity has to be part of the organizational culture and using explicit goals. The culture in the organization has to nourish creativity. People’s perception of the behaviors, feelings and attitudes impact their creativity and the resulting creativity (Cameron, 2008). A positive culture is important for the success of the organization. The recruitment and retention of workers who are highly talented is important as a source of creativity in an organization. Human resource professionals have to develop strategies to enhance a creative environment at the workplace. Human resource has to play the important role of creating an environment that reflects the values of the organization and establish management practices which support and respect the creative potential and unique skills of everyone in the organization despite his position in the organization (Griffin & Moorhead, 2009). The top management has to clearly demonstrate that it cares about creativity in order to inspire workers to be creative. Committee and excess scrutiny should not be used to stifle new ideas before commercialization. A working environment that is full of conflicts cannot sustain innovation, creativity and commercial success. Open-mindedness has to be encouraged in organizations. Conclusion Creativity in organizations cannot thrive without the involvement and support of the top management. The executive has to support creativity and create environment that fosters it. Bureaucratic structures have to be reduced to eliminate bottlenecks and encourage collaboration and sharing of ideas. New ideas do not necessarily come from individual but experts can collaborate in coming up ideas to develop new products. A good culture has to support the achievement of organization goal. The culture of the organization has to encourage creativity and enhance individual talents. Fear of failure can be an impediment towards innovation since it discourages experimentation. References Amabile, T. M., Schatzel, E. A., Moneta, G. B., & Kramer, S J 2004, Leader behaviors and the work environment for creativity: Perceived leader support, Leadership Quarterly, 15(1), 5. Cameron, K 2008, Positive leadership: strategies for extraordinary performance, Berrett-Koehler Publishers, Inc. San Francisco. Griffin, R. & Moorhead, G 2009, Organizational Behavior: Managing People and Organizations, Cengage Learning, New York. Quinn, R E 2004, Building the bridge as you walk on it: a guide for leading change, Jossey-Bass, San Francisco. Zhang, X., & Bartol, KM 2010, Linking empowering leadership and employee creativity: the influence of psychological empowerment, intrinsic motivation, and creative process engagement, Academy of Management Journal, 53(1), 107-128. Read More