The Creative Management and Development (3rd edition)

Citation

Austin, A. (2009), "The Creative Management and Development (3rd edition)", Leadership & Organization Development Journal, Vol. 30 No. 2, pp. 185-186. https://doi.org/10.1108/01437730910935783

This gem of a compilation was assembled as an assigned reader for the Master's in Business Administration program at the Open University Business School. Prior editions were published in 1991 and 2001. The frequency of publishing new editions has doubled, perhaps indicating that the development of creativity in organizations is accelerating. Although this is a very small sample size from which to draw a conclusion, corroborating qualitative observations confirm that the evolution of ideas about this topic evident particularly in the broad systems thinking approach to creativity and organizations render this book a valuable addition to the literature.

In this current edition, 18 chapters are organized into six sections: Creativity, Cognition, Style, Culture, Development and Perception. These familiar, commonplace and maybe too general headings belie the wealth of insights and original thinking that is presented here. Contributing authors include such notables from the fields of organizations, creativity and leadership as: Chris Argyris, Charles Handy, Daniel Goleman, Teresa Amabile and Mihaly Csilszentmihalyi.

Jane Henry has carefully constructed the introductions to each section so that the context and expectations are clear, even when the lack of clarity of some of the chapter titles might lead you to think otherwise. Additionally, she has crafted the selections and ordering to systematically build a broad and ample picture of what is necessary to create, nourish and sustain organizational creativity and innovation. Specific organizational or company examples are sparse, but those few selected are used to great effect as for example, the Royal/Dutch Shell model given in the last chapter to illustrate successful organizational change.

In the first section on Creativity, there is a clear movement away from the notion that creativity is primarily an individual activity or attribute, and attention is focused on how the organization or community in which an individual or team works impacts creativity and innovation outcomes. Section 2 on cognition expounds upon the idea that for organizations to build creativity they must allow implicit, analogous, and other non‐formal ways of thinking including the use of intuitive knowledge, non‐reflective judgment, and emotional openness.

The middle two sections, style and culture explore the elements of individual personality and leadership combined with the organizational form and how risk, trust, and self‐organization play into the levels of creativity. Also explored is how many people adapt a creative style so that innovating behaviors produce incremental outcomes with each new idea building upon what has gone before, usurping the traditional view that creativity shows up as a “breakthrough”.

The final two sections of development and perception were particularly inspiring for me. Chris Argyris explains that change management fails in most organizations due to lack of participation. The process is sabotaged by an unintended outcome of the design where top managers are comforted by the control they are afforded, but other levels of the organization do not identify with the change and therefore do not prioritize it appropriately. The last section, Perception, gives a detailed example of one way to correct this deficiency.

Often, I am distracted by collections of chapters written by different authors because the writing styles clash and the content and message becomes obscured. Yet, here the writing is clear, and while differences are detectable, they do not interfere with the pleasure of learning. This volume would be a good resource for change and organization leaders, consultants, practitioners, and anyone in an innovator role. The major flaw is that this is not a “field guide”, hence, there is very little how‐to information given. While there are some tools and processes described, even these would need to be adapted for use elsewhere. I would still recommend this book highly as it gives background, theory, ideas and practice of building and sustaining creativity for modern organizations.