Discussion 1: Organizational Support for Creativity

Google is famous for offering all of its engineers “20%” time; that is, each engineer can take 20%% of their working hours, equivalent to one day a week, to work on any project of their choice. This can involve fixing errors or bugs that they have independently noticed, developing new features for existing projects, or creating entirely new services. Google’s engineers have initiated some of Google’s most popular and innovative offerings during their “20%” time.

Google’s support for fostering a creative climate is extensive, to the point of allowing employees to self-determine a significant part of their workload. Have you ever worked at an organization that supported your creativity in unique and specific ways? In this week’s Discussion, you will assess your organization’s support for organizational creativity.

For this week’s Discussion, you will need to take the organizational-creativity assessment in this week’s interactive media piece titled: Dimensions of a creative working climate. Use this creativity assessment to assess an organization for which you have worked or with which you are familiar.

With these thoughts in mind:

Post results from taking the organizational creativity assessment, including:

· A description of the organization you selected for the organizational creativity assessment (i.e., is the organization small or large and what was your level/position within the organization or from what level/position are you making the assessment, etc.).

·

. Use these designations to describe the size of your company:

. Small organization: Below 500 employees

. Medium-sized organization: 500 to 1,000 employees

. Large organization: 1,000 or above employees

· The level/position relates to the level of management from which the assessment is made (i.e., from a first level management level or from an executive level management level)

· Describe the leadership, environment, and process factors specific to both individuals as well as teams that contribute to a creative climate. Make sure to compare and contrast how well these factors affect individual team creativity climate vs. team creativity climate. Consider leadership and influence at multiple levels of the organization.

· Next, describe the results of the creativity assessment you took. Explain how your organization fared according to the assessment. Summarize in your own words the salient points referring to existing creative practices that were assessed.

· Identify the dimensions of creativity at the organization that you ranked the highest and the lowest. Evaluate how the rank of these dimensions explains the organizational climate for creativity. Include whether the summary and suggestions provided by the assessment are supported by your experience or observations.

Read a selection of your colleagues’ postings. Make sure to find posts where the organization presented was different in size (large vs. small) or where your colleague assessed the organization from a different organizational level (e.g., top level vs. middle level management). Compare your colleagues’ experiences and assessments with your own, giving careful thought to how these dimensions might have impacted the results.

Respond to two or more of your colleagues in one or more of the following ways:

· Compare the results of your colleague’s assessment with your own. What factors were ranked differently and what factors seemed to impact the climate of creativity the most. Explain why.

· Based upon specific details in a colleague’s assessment, explain any additional insights about the influence of the size of the organization and/or the level within the organization from which the assessment was made. For example, how might the assessment change or differ if one is on the frontline versus upper management.

· Analyze the importance of leading from all levels of the organization in fostering a creative climate.

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Discussion2

Discussion 2: Shared Practice: Case Study: IDEO and Creativity

While you may never have heard of the design firm IDEO, you have likely heard of and even used products that it envisioned, including some of the very first computer mice. How does a company consistently generate groundbreaking ideas over the long term? One of the first steps, of course, is to recruit the best and most creative employees. Once those employees have joined the organization, however, there is still more that a company must do to support creativity and create a fertile ground for innovation. In this week’s Discussion, you will be sharing experiences you have had in participating in creative work environments.

For this week’s Shared Practice, read the following case study, Creative climate: Work environment allows IDEO to deliver promise of innovation. Examine how IDEO combines the elements of leadership, work environment, and processes in ways that harness the creativity of its employees and project teams. Then, think of an organization where you have worked, currently work, or one with which you are familiar. Consider how the organization compares with IDEO in supporting a creative climate.

With these thoughts in mind:

Post a response that includes the following, using an organization for which you work, have worked, or with which you are familiar:

· Describe the leadership, environment, and process factors specific to both individuals as well as teams that contribute to a creative climate.

· Evaluate how the leadership, work environment, and organization processes supported the creativity of employees and teams.

· Based on your observations and/or experience with the organization, describe an initiative that could be implemented that would strengthen the climate for creativity among participants in the initiative.  Hint:  You can base the initiative on the IDEO case study (i.e., redesigning employee work spaces to enhance collaboration) or you can craft one of your own.

· Explain how the initiative you have selected for the organization might build on its strengths and/or address its weaknesses in supporting individuals and teams in a climate for creativity.

Read a selection of your colleagues’ postings.

Respond to two of your colleagues (select colleagues, if possible, who have not yet received feedback on their original post) in one or more of the following ways:

· Based on your experience and the resources from the course, provide that person with additional suggestions and/or alternative approaches that he or she may not have considered specific to his or her evaluation.

· Compare your colleagues’ ideas with what IDEO found to be successful. Does IDEO offer additional ideas that would enhance the potential for success of your colleagues’ suggestions?

· Provide positive feedback that describes how the post gave you new perspectives on how to support and encourage a creative environment in the workplace. Provide details about how those perspectives influence the way you now think about creativity in the workplace.