Managing Creativity and Innovation is an oxymoron.
When ideas are required, leaders tend to herd people into a room with a flip chart and conduct (usually an ineffective) brainstorming session. Implicit in this action is an acceptance that certain techniques and processes can increase problem identification, idea generation and the elicitation of tacit knowledge.

Structures such as the Hero's Journey are accepted as increasing creative output when idea streams (such as in screenwriting) are needed.

Product development theory has proven innovation strategies that allow better idea selection, development and commercialisation. Frameworks such as the S-curve and idea funnels allow the efficient monitoring of ideas through a pipeline and effective go or kill decision making.

Creativity cannot be managed because ideas occur out of the blue.
Ideas are the result of the mind working on particular problems at various cognitive levels. Though you cannot predict what an idea will be, where it will occur and what form it will take you can increase the likelihood of ideas occurring. Further, you can increase the number of ideas produced, the rarity of those ideas, the diversity of those ideas and the frequency of their production.

Creativity is not a process.
If you analyse the behaviour of people who are used to generating many ideas regularly, you will find that common patterns emerge. There is a definite process that triggers creative activity on multiple cognitive levels, resulting in the required insight.

Creativity is not tangible; creativity cannot be measured.
Analysts can measure (and therefore make tangible) creativity by benchmarking a wide number of criteria. For instance, idea generation can be measured according to the number of ideas produced, their novelty, their variety and the frequency of their production. The DIY Creativity and Innovation Audit that comes with the MBA dissertation lists more than 150 benchmarking criteria, allowing holistic measurement.

Creative people will be creative whether they are "coached" or not.
Perhaps. Consider the infinite number of people who have been working on half finished manuscripts for months and often years. Management techniques increase creative output enabling completion in much shorter periods. Further, management techniques encourage targeted prolific activity, thus allowing the building of competencies and improvement.

Inspiration occurs out of the blue.
Inspiration results from the mind working at problems on various cognitive levels. Insight is the moment when solutions to problems become conscious. This is why inspiration most often occurs when people are actively engaged in a task and screenwriters, for example, find that good ideas for screenplays occur while they are writing one. It is possible to increase the frequency and likelihood of inspiration occurring.

Managing Creativity is not a useful activity unless it results in economic gain.
Creativity can be defined as problem identification and idea generation. Innovation can be defined as idea selection, development and commercialisation. First use creativity to generate an idea pool and then use innovation to select feasible ideas which can be developed and commercialised.

Does the MBA dissertation contain practical management tools?
The creativity and innovation DIY audit is an effective tool. Further, the conclusion contains other tools, recommendations and implications. And importantly, the knowledge allows you to develop your own.

Can we codify creativity?
Creative output can definitely be increased by applying processes, structures and techniques. Consultants can measure improvement by, for example, measuring the number of ideas, their novelty and diversity before and after application of these processes. Other measureable changes are also possible. For instance, before training participants might rate themselves low on creativity whereas after trainning it is not uncommon that they rate themselves much higher.

The concepts of creativity and training seem incompatible.
This results from the many enduring myths about creativity and innovation such as a) creativity is the domain of creative types, b) creativity cannot be learned, c) creativity is intangible, d) creativity cannot be defined or measured etc. Training dispels these falsehoods. Simply reading the MBA dissertation will dispel these myths.

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Tell me about the Easy Read version of the MBA dissertation?
Click here to find out about the Easy Read version of the MBA dissertation

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