Essay Sample on Unlocking Creativity: Understanding the Complexities of Original Ideas

Introduction

A significant number of people in the world depend on creativity as a source of their income. However, sometimes, it is more complex and confusing to understand and manage creativity. The research concentrated in this area tends to encounter various barriers, mainly due to its manageability. One can decide whether creativity can be accomplished by establishing a distinctive level of understanding on what happens for original ideas to be generated. The authors of the article try to determine the ideal conditions that need to be harnessed for creativity to prevail (Amabile, 2008). They also recognize the role of leadership in creativity and how leaders ought to behave in their attempt to motivate their employees to be more creative. This essay presents an analysis of the article "creativity and the role of the reader" to help identify the critical aspects of the paper while trying to identify the strengths and weaknesses of the ideas presented.

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Prominent Notes of the Paper

In the article, one can observe that the authors begin by identifying the strategies through which creativity can or cannot be achieved. For instance, they point out that the right minds have to be initialized for creativity to be natured. In the beginning, they point out that creativity has to come from all management within the management hierarchy. The idea is based on the fact that creativity mainly originates from individuals who are not in any power position. In other words, the writers argue that ideas can be easily identified if responsibilities are distributed across different sections of the organization (Amabile, 1996).

Collaboration is another strategy that can be utilized to help in the generation of new ideas. Studies show that most breakthroughs have been realized by just one genius, but others have drawn from the contribution of relevant participants whose ideas play significant roles. However, antecedents are also required for collaborators to work effectively(Amabile, 2008). When employees are required to work on creative products, there is also a need for compelling grounds upon which the main ideas can be generated. Ideas can be easily created when people make arguments based on a particular concept. The authors have further elaborated that ideas generated through collaborations are most likely to be centralized.

In addition to collaboration, the organization can also be opened for more than one discipline to get involved. For instance, a company can decide to utilize more than one department to help come up with an idea needed to solve a particular issue (Amabile, 2008). The authors have also given an example to explain this concept by providing an example of a project that enabled a monkey to control a mouse cursor by using its brain. A combination of various disciplines helps develop a perfect product which also motivates competition amongst the collaborators.

Even while coming up with creative ideas and solutions, there is a sense in which the original members ought to utilize the available resources that would help in endorsing complete creativity (Amabile, 1996). Various professors argue that one of the main contributors towards limited creativity is the amount of effort that organization place in trying to modify and improve existing products. They pointed out that such modifications contribute significantly to slow creativity rates over the long term.

The authors also argue that there is also a need to map the process and phases through which innovation is established. However, planning the aspects is not always effectively administered for all changes (Amabile, 2008). There are those innovations whose phases ought to be mapped, but others do not. For instance, the writers indicted that some stages, like the discovery phase, do not require managers who believe inefficiency. This is probably efficiency is not entirely needed when an idea is at its infancy for it is not mature enough to be utilized. Also, the authors argue that managers have to understand that some innovators are best when working at certain phases of innovation.

Bureaucracy is identified as one of the organizational aspects that hinder the growth of an idea. They give an example of a professor who compares an idea within a corporate setting to a bill being presented before the US congress (Amabile, 2008). The bill has to be perceived by several individuals whose needs have to be satisfied before they come into an agreement. The same thing happens to an idea in an organization. Some ideas have to go through engineering and other organizational departments that have to make sure that the idea satisfies them. The main issue here is that some ideas are likely to die before reaching to more potential levels if paths are not created within the bureaucracies.

Filtering mechanisms are also recognizing as critical stages within which an idea is amplified. In other words, there are those ideas that need to be eliminated depending on the potential impact they have to an organization. There is always a need to identify and eliminate those ideas not worth pursuing. Killing an idea is a complicated process that can be best fulfilled by persons closely associated with the concept (Amabile, 1996).

Content analysis.Drawing on the right minds is one of the fascinating concepts discussed in this article. One of the most exciting steps involved in the entire concept is where the organization is opened to diverse perspectives. In the process of involving different perspectives, various departments have the chance to combine their ideas and maybe implement other concepts like transposition. For instance, engineers can use concepts utilized in their fields to help come with ideas to solve innovative problems. Also, innovation is a process that involves developing universally acceptable products that can be used across diverse populations (Amabile, 2008). It will be easier to come up with ideas of fewer controversies if all the faculties are involved.

This is an approach that also involves bringing mixed personalities together and also having to stress gender equality during the entire process. The writers seem to believe that diversity would also help trigger other concepts in society, which can help develop innovative discussions. In addition to raising issues, diversity in terms of ethnicity and race can also be of significant help to the entire process. Research shows it is possible that people who come from different places have varying views on life and their ideas could also be innovatively unique. Psychology also indicates there is a possibility that the language that people speak has the power to affect their thinking (Amabile, 1996). Therefore, if a manager brings a person of an Asian origin to interact with an American within a working environment, they can be more innovative.

The authors have also focused on the degrees to which creativity can be managed. In the beginning, they established that it's better to control for creativity than to manage creativity. This statement can be considered to be fallacies since most people believe that creativity can be achieved. Most creative individuals have managers who attend to every detail of their lives, making sure that the decisions that they make only contribute to creative decision making or production (Amabile, 2008). I think that most organizations fail in creativity since they fail to utilize strategies utilized by managers who support successful creative.

One can rarely identify an organization that has a creative team whose job is to think creatively and come up with ideas for the organization. The authors of this article decided to consider an organizational setting as their platform above which creativity is generated (Amabile, 2008). The arguments fail to recognize that the fact a psychological approach which could help them understand how different brains work. For instance, some psychologists realized that there are people whose minds are only meant to operate best in conditions where creativity is needed, and others operate best when science and critical thinking is involved. It could be fascinating if the authors considered a situation where the two types of brains are brought together to help in innovation.

Conclusion

Creativity is one of the most exciting concepts ever studied. The process through which people's brains come up with ideas without having to engage critical thinking is yet to be clearly understood. Some researchers have suggested that coming up with original ideas requires there to be issues of pressing concern. Others have argued that creativity is inborn and creative people were born that way, and there is no way one can learn to be creative. The authors of this article focus on creativity at a corporation level where different departments may be required contributing some of their members for the process (Amabile, 1996).

This study has realized various factors in the field of creativity that can hinder an organization from making any significant progress. For instance, the writers suggest that ideas can be developed, but their activation phases several obstacles that can prevent them from reaching their maturity stages. The termination of the ideas doesn't necessarily mean that they were not good enough; it can mean that those ideas do not meet the needs of particular members of the senior level management. Nevertheless, some of them are not commercially productive (Amabile, 1996).

References

Amabile, T. A., & Khaire, M. (2008). Creativity and the role of the leader. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Business School Publishing.

Amabile, T. M., Conti, R., Coon, H., Lazenby, J., & Herron, M. (1996). Assessing the work environment for creativity. Academy of management journal, 39(5), 1154-1184.