2nd Group Assignment

How to Foster Efficiency in Creativity?

Creativity in an organization is important to the future development of the companies. On the other hand, being too “creative” may create extra risk to the group. In our Blog analysis, we are going to have a deep look on how the organization go through the creativity process and how we can manage these imaginary ideas in reality. Before, we start our analysis; the picture below showed you the war between the developers, designers and project managers and their perceptions on their roles.

 reference: http://sacreativenetwork.co.za/2011/11/day-in-the-life-of-a-graphic-designer-funny/

Background:

Synergy is a new movie making company with young creative talents. we are producing an advertisement to sale our movie to our potential distributors.

Scenario 1: The team is required to come up with a 30S script. Each of the members are required to submit a 30s script to the leader. The leader will review the scripts and pick the best one of the team.

The leader's instruction: to create a cartoon that both the adults and the kids want to watch.

Script produced from Scenario 1:

Kenneth:	Scene 1: Extract some "chok"(“Chok” is the Cantonese dialect, meaning one pretending to be cool)  looks of Woody and Buzz Lightyear from the movie. Scene 2: Some operations of Green Army search the area and move forward. Scene 3: Woody and Buzz's adventure of escape from dangerous place. Last scene: Show the title "Toy Story - The First of CG movie!"
Paul’s Comment: It is too simple. I can’t see any special features from the script, please do rework.
Gary	First version: War & Love A touching story. Father and son. Family lost but love ever. Dad: Believe yourself. You can do it. Future is in your hand. You are my proud. Child: Dad, I can't. I need you. Dad: Remember, although we split in far place, our hearts are linking together. One day, one day we will meet. Child: Dad....... Warriors took father away, with child's heart....... Forty years later, back to lost place, old man and man gaze each other, smile......
Paul’s Comment: The idea is so touching but it might not attract the kid’s attention to the movie. I don’t want a script which might create a false image like this.
Jason:	Fade in – (Disney ) Dark Screen and words appear (The Toy Story is here for all fans of Disney movies.) Fade out (IN Andy'S BEDROOM - DAY) Andy pages through a scrapbook, stops on a moving photo   of woody and Buzz. (SQUAWK! ) Andy jumps out to the store room and pecks at the lock slung through his cage door, then very happy to look at Woody.         Andy: Alright everyone, don't anybody move! Let’s see the magic. All of toys move. Mother was just tidy up the bed room of Andy, but now it becomes very dirty.         Mother: Andy, I warned you. If you can't control your toys, I will lock them again into the    cage. Mother just left. A GROUP OF TOYS have been crowded together in Andy’s bed room. Let’s go party.
Paul’s Comment: The script is funny but I don’t think that it could draw the adult’s attention. It cannot should the mature side of our objective.
Winky:	Type: Inspirational (勵志片) Category: Cartoon Name: Toy Story 4 Content: After 50 years, all children are only playing TV games / smart phone games; popularity of traditional toys is decreasing. A main toy manufacturing company would like to stop producing all traditional toys. Woody and his friends would like to change the decision. The message of the movie is traditional toys are not only for playing, but also for being a friend with the kid. Trailer: Woody and his friends are playing music instruments (in a band of toys) and sing a famous song (For international version, I have no idea what song they should sing, please advise; for Hong Kong version, they could sing “天與地”Theme Song.)
Paul’s comment: The idea is good as it creates a big contrast between the tradition toys and the toys today. And the toys and music would be an important ingredient to draw the audient’s attention. Let’s pick this script for our promotion project!

Scenario 2: The team is required to produce a 60s script by an open meeting among peers. Everyone is able to share information with anyone.

Script produced from Scenario 1:

Script Two: This is the first computer animated movie that bring you to the world of imagination. Have you every think about what is happening in your home during your sleep?

(At Night, the camera focuses on one of the brick wall outside the house. Shadows of a big man and a cow boy walking pass the screen. Sound: A vast dropped)

Is it a ghost, alien, thief....or.....? It's Woody and Buzz Light Year!!

In this year Woody and Buzz is going to bring you to the new journey of joy, fantasy and adventure. Let's join their team and help them find their meaning of life.

====================================================================

The movie script both exercises were marketable. The scene created in scenario 2 was eye-catching and fascinating, but it is quite similar as the commercial movie trailer nowadays. It could be success but since it is not creative at all. However, the time for discussion was not enough for us to bring out the best from the team. The discussion ended up with selecting one completed script and the team agreed to start for the projection because of running out of time. Meanwhile, in scenario 1, we found that there was some creative and marketable idea, however, because of the rule on discussion, the communication between the group mates is limited. The team made fast decision on the job but the quality of the decision was confined by the team communication policy, which is going to be discussed in the later parts.

Overall, we voted Winky’s script as the best and most creative. It could achieve both objectives required by the leader. The idea was creative among the proposed and it isn’t been too long for a trailer.

Analysis of exercise 1 and exercise 2
  
Thus, we are going to illustrate the fundamental different between the two exercises. We are going to identify the situation we faced in the exercise and analysis whether it could facilitate or inhibit the creativity process.

Exercise ONE:

Situation	Statement	Comments (NOT Helpful)	Comments (Helpful)
Everyone must check in with the supervisor when they have an idea and the supervisor has to approve it. The supervisor will instruct the rest of the team on what is the next direction to proceed with the script writing process. (D)	The axiom that two heads are better than one really is true when it comes to strengthening children and families in a holistic way. In a truly collaborative effort, partners relate to each other on a non-hierarchical basis, regardless of the organizational structure (Jehl & Kirst, 1992). Gucci also runs a program to develop lead-ers on the commercial side. One of its goals is to make leaders more aware of different styles of thinking and communicating, including their own.	All team members wait for instruction by the supervisor. They cannot know the whole process and what will be the next. All team member just follow what the supervisor think, banned the own ideas or direction.	Supervisor guides the teammates to work on the scripts. Ideas from teammates will be consolidated to Supervisor and then he extracts some good points. Efficiency of the teammates’ work is high as they don’t try to have the idea in ALL directions at the beginning. As the situation doesn’t depend on other teammates’ idea, it arouses teammates to think independently
Any time the supervisor decides something is a good idea (such as he/she gives a compliment) the supervisor also has to point out two negative aspects. (D)	Amy Edmondson, a professor at Harvard Business School, underscored what a lost opportunity that constitutes. Any business that experiments vigorously will experience failure – which, when it happens, should be mined to improve creative problem solving, team learning, and organizational performance. (creativity and the role of the leader) There are really two leaders: the director and the producer. They form a strong partnership. They not only strive to make a great movie but also operate within time, budget, and people constraints.	The Supervisor must be professional in creativity otherwise the outsider will waste some good idea from teammates. Supervisor may tend to accept ideas which match with his minds or interests. Team members unwilling to present their own ideas as there are too many criticisms.	Hidden risks and drawbacks that the good ideas also bring about will be known and considered. For example, if the idea is good but it needs high budget and longer time to archive it, the supervisor can judge if such idea is really accepted or not
No laughing is allowed during brain storming. (A/D)	The laughter of one person can itself provoke laughter from others as a positive feedback.	There are higher pressures during the meeting as it is not allow laughing. Team members may caused tension, banned the creativity.	Teammates concentrate on the direction of thinking given from the supervisor and unnecessary gags and small talk are eliminated.
No team member is allowed to talk without the permission to speak from the supervisor. (D)	Small talk and short exchange can lead people to develop trust. (Thompson, 2009) The use of jargon-free language and bilingual translators is essential to help all partners understand the issues and feel that their contributions are valued.	Team members cannot exchange ideas and comments (not allow talking) and mix up good idea.	Since unnecessary gags and small talk are eliminated, the meeting time or even the time to generate their idea will be shorter. Besides, the supervisor can control the rhythm in idea creation.
The supervisor presents the movie script. (D)	Collaborative partnerships often bring together individuals with very different knowledge bases, attitudes, and assumptions.	The ideas only represent the supervisor idea, but not reflecting the views of the majority. There are low responsible for all team members as supervisor handle all matters.	Supervisor will know all parts of the script and the presentation tone and style is unified. This gives audience impression that the style and expression is consistent throughout the presentation instead of just a  puzzle piecing up by different teammates with different presentation styles.

Exercise TWO:

Situation	Statement	Comments (NOT Helpful)	Comments (Helpful)
Everyone must have the freedom to communicate with everyone.	Consensus decision making can be time consuming. To reach a decision in the time allotted, groups sometimes have to resort to another method such as majority rule. and agreement that he or she understands, supports, and is willing to implement the group's decision	Free to speak may cause disorder, loss of control. No one make the final decision, needed to spend longer time for discussion, it is very hard to summaries into the final decision, very low productivity and inefficiency.	Teammates have freedom of expression and they may generate a new or good idea for the movie clip through public debate and information exchange. Besides, all teammates share their opinions and idea so it highly draws their involvement during the meeting and even during the idea creation. Teammates may vote for decision and they can choose a common method (eg. select decision from majority) for their decision making.
It must be safe for everyone to offer ideas.	-Team members may contribute too many ideas. Wryly, he recalled seeing powerful people hold forth in meetings even though others in the room had much better ideas for solving problems. It should be management’s mission, he suggested, to “fi gure out how to get people to shut up at the right time.” (creativity and the role of the leader) The process of developing a shared vision is open - ended and exploratory (Kagan, 1994). Conduct "cross-learning" exercises in which each partner tells the others who he or she is and what he or she does.	Different opinion may cause conflicts. Also, it may deviate from the main frame when all of them offer different ideas.	Teammates will reinforce the good idea and develop to better ideas after discussing with each other. The common excellent ideas are shared to all teammates to explore better ideas A teammate may inspire other teammates during idea creation. Other teammates will learn new idea and the way of thinking from the teammates
The group collectively presents the movie script.	“The way in which a leader asks a question can move a team very positively,” he noted. Russ Wilcox of E Ink agrees with this emphasis on the manager’s role as appreciative audience. (hbr.org | October 2008 | Harvard Business Review)	It is very hard to assign a good presenter to present the movie script properly.	Since the presentation is performed by team, workload will be shared to every teammate and they experience the power of teamwork.

Ref:

Week 4 Reading - How Pixar Fosters Collective Creativity (Catmull2008HBR)

Week 4 Reading - Creativity in Turbulence(RigbyGruverAllen2009HBR)

Week 3 Reading - Building collaborative partnerships

Link: http://www.ncrel.org/sdrs/areas/issues/envrnmnt/css/ppt/chap1.htm

Link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laughter

Analyze and explain how the two different conditions inhibited or facilitated your product development process. What worked well? What could have been improved?

Exercise ONE:

Information flow & Idea Generation:

The creative thinking is prohibited by the atmosphere of the presenting opinion channel. The process is not efficient as the ideas are consolidated by the supervisor. Such limitation on information flow affected the efficiency of idea generation from the team. 

Also, the whole process was mainly dependent on the supervisor. According to the theory bounded rationality of decision making(reference 1:  McShane/Von Glinow, p.203, organizational Behavior Emerging Knowledge and Practice for the Real World), one try to make rational decision but she/he is limited by his/her information and capability to make the best decision. If the supervisor’s view focused in the wrong direction, he/she may reject others ideas which could be a very marketable idea. The action may harm the output of a creative organization.

Atmosphere for Ideas Producing

Another important obstacle hindered the creativity was the strict guideline of no laughing and no talking is allowed during the thinking process. This creates a stress, serious and uncomfortable environment which could narrow the mind of idea generation. It is obvious that creativity will lighten under a freedom and comfortable working environment. The hierarchical system decreases our trust between teammates and supervisor. According to the three foundations of trusts in teams (reference 2: McShane/Von Glinow, p.252, organizational Behavior Emerging Knowledge and Practice for the Real World),we can identify the team trust in different perspective, which is calculus, knowledge and identification based trust. From the above exercise, there was almost no communication between the teammates. Such situation might result in lack of identification-based trust among the group. The situation could not describe as a team working environment and it just looks like working in a classroom.

Meanwhile, such atmosphere would have better efficiency and output. The idea is submitted to the supervisor and the idea is first judged by the supervisor in terms of cost, capability of the company, marketability and feasibility in order to come up with a final commercial decision. The process is effective because the supervisor could make the right decision in the first time and avoid unnecessary communication and discussion.

Suggestion to improve:

l           Enable everyone is free to speak out their ideas. Throughout a better communication channel could enhance the collaboration on idea building.

l          Creating a comfortable atmosphere relieve the stress and serious working attitude that prevent the brainstorming and idea thinking;

l           The leader should act as a facilitator instead of a supervisor in the team to make the discussion is going to the right direction.

Team Structure and Decision Making Process

The advantage of exercise B1 is that there is a clear hierarchical system. The supervisor would assign the given work to all teammates clearly. Thus, all members would hold accountable for the work they do. (It is obtained from the paper “In Praise of Hierarchy”)

The system is not only good for reward and punishment, but also benefit for development of the team. A staff, for instance, could not complete his work on time and delete the progress of the team. To prevent the status getting worse, the supervisor could easy to find out the problem and solve it immediately. Of course, the member who submits his work late would not have any excuse. However, to get successful of using hierarchical system, the role of supervisor (manager) is extremely important. The supervisor should know of the ability of his/her subordinates because all work assignments are appointed by him/her. Also, the supervisor should provide clear target and schedule to subordinates as these factors would affect team efficiency.

Team Decision Making Process in this scenario is effective, since the operation of the team is well organized by rules and regulations. The whole process is under control and governance of the supervisor. Despite the fact that he might make the wrong decision and kill some good idea, such task oriented environment would facilitate the team performance and judgment.

Exercise TWO:

Information flow & Idea Generation

For the situation in exercise B2, it works better than the previous condition. Members are free to share their ideas and as a result in a better team spirit. In the brainstorming process, each member contributes and shares their personal experiences and specialties. When one presents his/her ideas, others will have an opportunity to learn and think about of the situation. This is important in team building as it could build up the trust among teammates.

Suggestion to improve:

Atmosphere for Ideas Producing

The working atmosphere is comfortable and free of stress. It could also broaden the mind of idea generation that is ideas will not limit to certain level. The direction of the thinking would not mainly depend on one person as everyone needs to communicate with teammates. This type of thinking procedure enhances team spirit and everyone is accountable to the results. They will strive for excellence to present their great notions. However, this thinking process requires much time to brainstorming and the organization need to have a better decision making system.

Suggestion to improve:

l           Have a system that allows everyone could have a chance to speak and no one will dominate the discussion process.

Team Structure and Decision Making Process

For the disadvantage in scenario 2, as there is no supervisor, no one would distribute and control the process (staff’s responsibility is not clear) and make decision once there is conflict. According to the team development theories (will add ref), there are four stages in the team development process. The fact that the team lacks rules, regulation and hierarchy resulted in extended time for team building, decision making and collaboration. As a result, team efficiency would be decreased.

On the other hands, although people could be free to have the discussion like a heavenly steed and soaring across the skies(天馬行空), the final decision made by the team may not be applicable or the team may not have the capability to execute the chosen. It is because the team may not balance the idea within art and commerce. Most of members, for instance, are designers; they would only concern the creativeness of their ideas and ignore the reality. Thus, someone should know the right moment to intercede and shift the focus of product development from design to engineering. (It is obtained from the paper “Innovation in Turbulent Times”).

To solve the problem and keep the characteristics of the team (all people are equal etc.), the project team could be formed by different departments by project base. Members, for instance, are come from design, marketing, engineering and finance teams etc. As members who have their own different capability, the job assignment could be based on members’ capabilities. Furthermore, since the team is formed by project base, all of them have responsibility of the result of project.

Finally, I would like to introduce the rule of thumb in the design industry nowadays. It is first illustrated by the picture below.

reference: http://sacreativenetwork.co.za/2011/11/day-in-the-life-of-a-graphic-designer-funny/

Sometimes it is difficult to balance the efficiency and creativity in a team production. In the condition of poor economy, efficiency is important but with our suggestions provided, I believe we could have a better balance on both side.

Q5 Make use of all five of the articles from the weeks covering Trust, Creativity, and Teamwork in this writing exercise. BOLD the sentences that indicate your mastery, understanding, and application of your readings.

1.          Creativity and the role of the leader:

l          One doesn’t manage creativity. One manages for creativity.

l          The first priority of leadership is to engage the right people, at the right times, to the right degree in creative work.

l          Collaboration need not be bounded by the walls of the firm.

l          To predict an idea is to have an idea.

l          Colloquium participants were of one mind on the subject of bureaucracy: it stifles creativity.

l          Management must create an environment of psychological safety, convincing people that they will not be humiliated, much less punished, if they speak up with ideas, questions, or concerns, or make mistakes.

2.          How Pixar fosters collective creativity

l          There’s no ego. Nobody pulls any punches to be polite. This works because all the participants have come to trust and respect one another.

l          Once people get over the embarrassment of showing work still in progress, they become more creative.

l          People learn from and inspire each other.

3.          Innovation in turbulent times

l          When resources are constrained, the key to growth is pairing an analytic left-brain thinker with an imaginative right-brain partner.

l          Creative people can’t do it alone.

l          Innovation requires teamwork.

4. “In Praise of Hierarchy”

l          Properly structured, hierarchy can release energy and creativity, rationalize productivity, and actually improve morale

5. “Innovation in Turbulent Times”

l          A better approach, in any economic environment, is what Polet has called “freedom within the framework” – a well – defined division of responsibility that plays to both partners’ strengths.

6. “What’s your Strategy for Managing Knowledge”?

l          Codification strategy: Standardized products, mature product, explicit knowledge

l          Knowledges is codified and stored in databases.

l          Personalization strategy: Customized products, innovative product, tacit knowledge to solve problems

l          Knowledge is closely tied to the person who developed it and is shared mainly through direct person to person contacts.

Extension 30 Apr 2012

The Importance of Creativity and Innovation

 Thank you a lot for different useful comments from our classmates. The comments gave us different insight and recommendation to enhance the collaboration and foster efficiency. Indeed, the idea developed by our team is actually an innovation instead of creativity. However, we do believe that the process involved to be creative or innovative is similar.

I would like to use Angry Birds © as an example. Angry Birds © is a creative games published on iPhone. It is an action puzzle game. The game purpose is to control the “birds” to fight against the pig kidnappers via solving different castle puzzle scene to save their eggs. With its simple control and difficult tasks, it has created a great success even it cost only US$0.99 for a download.

 

 

source: https://encrypted-tbn2.google.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcR8OjmzvC8uuVV1yVq5gTBwdDsH1OuorgElp2HFtjieuexZI0zR

Source: https://encrypted-tbn3.google.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcRqcZMYaUFxaQKO4TU4pcmRZyjsj9BnuZirv_7q72BcdoTsxyE0

  

Source:  http://www.rovio.com/en/our-work/games/view/1/angry-birds 

http://www.appappapps.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/Angry-Birds-Space-2.jpg

In the latest version of Angry Birds Space ©, Their eggs are once again kidnapped by the “space pig” kidnappers. The puzzle is modified into a space version. The game scene is no longer constrained by a plain but it is switched to a multi-gravitational scene. The game's ideas are once again refreshed by an outstanding creativity.

Indeed, we would agree that creativity is very important to an organization to success. A creative idea would help a company to create new products, new business models (e.g. Roxio, from music CD to online Music download store) to explore the new markets. However, as the example illustrated, innovation actually have the same importance as creativity. In the example, the innovative re-design of the game bring a breakthrough to a current capability. Iphone is actually a product of innovation as it combines the capability of a walkman, a camera, a mobile phone, a computer and bundled with a complete online application store. Each of the characteristics is actually existing technologies. But re-packaging of the “technology make it a new product on the market. According to The Thin Book of Appreciative Inquiry by Sue Annis Hammond, people are more confidence about the future if they. It also imply the rule of business, people are thinking hard on their business to maintain their current position. A creative product will soon be imitated or duplicated. In the business environment today, we need to be innovative and creative otherwise the business will soon be phased out.

Trust Building to Foster Creativity and Team Effectiveness

We would agree trust is crucial for an effective team. Not only could it be applied to the creativity and innovation process, it could apply to all of the team. We do agree that trust could finally be established but still the process of trust building is hindered by the rules and regulation in the exercise 1. But it is an interesting topic to investigate how trust would enhance creativity, innovation and team efficiency.

Trust is defined as a risk taking act of relying others to treat you in a fair, open, honest way, i.e. engaging in another people’s commitment. Trust are establish through social interaction opportunities involving risk are transformed into relations in which the people involved come to trust each other and honor that trust.

(reference: http://people.ischool.berkeley.edu/~coye/Pubs/Articles/Trust_via_Risk_Taking_SPQ_2005.pdf)

It implied that trust can be established with a prerequisite interpersonal relationship in the present of authentic behavior, favorable and previous commitment. In a group with effective communication, relationship could be readily established so that trust could be built. According to Zand(1972), the team effectiveness is interfered by the interpersonal relationship result in distorting the perception one problems. Energy and creativity are diverted from find the realistic solution. In a high trust team, the members are willing to share their ideas with each others. Communication is easier since the member trust each others because of the relationship established and they are familiar with the others professional and capability.

In Synergy, the members in the group have collaborated with each in previous project. We do trust each other. However, it was the first time we worked on a creative projects. With the rules and regulation hindering the communication, the members do not have the confidence on the new projection. The fact that we could not communicate hindering the trust formation in the new environment. Meanwhile, in another exercise that the members are free to communicate, the trust built and the role established in previous projects foster communication and information sharing give rise to effective communication. Indeed, time is also a constraint that prevents the formation of a mutual agreement in the team, i.e. the decision’s quality is affected.

Overall, we do believe that trust would foster creativity and team effectiveness. But an appropriate structure and rules is also required to turn the abstract creativity in to a concrete business strategy.

Is financial support one of the important considerations in creativity?

One commented the blog that good creativity without monetary support would not succeed. He quoted Christopher Columbus as an example to show his point. It aroused us having a question: Is money really important to make the creativity succeed?

We realize that financial factor is a support of creativity but it’s not important. Take Holga camera (http://www.holgainspire.com/) as example. The small Hong Kong Company originally aims at providing cheap cameras to the working class in China in 1980s. It concerns on the basic need (take photo) more than the low photo quality and fidelity it has.

  

Traditionally, photographers prefer photos having correct exposure, in focus, high color fidelity and predicted contrast and color saturation. Holga cameras are treated as toy camera because it bears none of the above features but abnormally photo effect (because it’s very cheap camera with low quality photos!). Later some artists find the camera’s creativity: produce photos with simple, insane characteristics, unpredictable effects, and stunning results similar to Lomography. As some professional photographers use some lomography styles seriously, Holga’s cameras became popular. A famous photographer, David Burnett earned a top prize in 2001 White House News Photographers' Association Eyes of History award because he took a photo for former vice-president Al Gore with a Holga camera.

Holga cannot fight with the camera giants like Nikon and Canon in terms of advanced camera technology, high quality camera but it won a large community to use its products and then of course, the company makes profit. Indeed, those giants copy the Holga’s special photo effects and add them into their new cameras. However, Holga does not expelled by the giant because Holga’s photo is analogue that its unique effect cannot be copied digitally by the giants that mainly concentrate their market to digital photography.

Holga does not have sufficient capital support but its creative products attract the people to make it more popular than before because people buy its creativity. Indeed, creativity can generate monetary profit that further supports its creativity. Can this example answer the question?

Reference:

http://www.holgainspire.com/

http://microsites.lomography.com/holga/history/

Summary

Overall, we do believe innovation and creativity are equally important in organization’s business development. Trust does improve the creativity process and the team effectiveness. But in a situation that the team members do not have previous experience, communicate would be a limiting factor affect the creativity process. Time and capability do affect the creativity outcome. But we believe creativity do require a support of financial capital otherwise it could be difficult to give life to abstract ideas.

Reference

1)      Sue Annis Hammond(1998), The Thin Book of Appreciative Inquiry

2)      http://www.holgainspire.com/

3)      http://microsites.lomography.com/holga/history/

4)      KAREN S.COOK, TOSHIO YAMAGISHI, COYE CHESHIRE, ROBIN COOPER, MASAFUMI MATSUDA, RIE MASHIMA (2005) Trust Building via Risk Taking:A Cross-Societal Experiment

http://people.ischool.berkeley.edu/~coye/Pubs/Articles/Trust_via_Risk_Taking_SPQ_2005.pdf

5)      http://www.rovio.com/en/our-work/games/view/1/angry-birds

6)      Mason A. Carpenter Wm. Gernard Sanders(2009), StrategicStrategic Management: A Dynamic Perspective, Concepts and Cases 2^nd edition, P.205