Successful creativity, innovation and design thinking activities within organizations

This article discusses the significance of creativity, innovation, and design thinking in organizations and emphasizes the role of individual employees in driving these activities. It explores the difference between creativity and innovation, the importance of employee motivation and a supportive work environment, and other strategies to foster creativity. The article also highlights the role of management in promoting creativity and innovation.

Running head: Successful creativity, innovation and design thinking activities within
organizations are dependent on the work of individual employees only
Successful creativity, innovation and design thinking activities within organizations are
dependent on the work of individual employees only.
Name of the Student
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Successful creativity, innovation and design thinking activities within organizations are
dependent on the work of individual employees only

Successful creativity, innovation and design thinking activities within organizations are
dependent on the work of individual employees only
Table of Contents
Introduction................................................................................................................................3
Sameness and difference between creativity and innovation.....................................................3
Creativity and innovation in the current context....................................................................4
Statistical data........................................................................................................................4
Creativity and role of the employee and the managerial administration...................................5
Other emerging ideas to aggravate creativity.........................................................................6
At the macro level..................................................................................................................7
Conclusion..................................................................................................................................7
References..................................................................................................................................9

Successful creativity, innovation and design thinking activities within organizations are
dependent on the work of individual employees only
Introduction
With the onset of globalization the organisation today, operate in a highly
competitive, global environment, making creativity very crucial. This is because creativity
has the potential of opening the vistas for the respective organization. Organizations seek to
harness creative elements of their employees. This axiomatic process of idea generation and
implementation allows the company to have distinct competitive edge. For analysing the
importance of it, it is important to understand the definition of creativity and its core
competencies. Creativity is another form of innovation, which needs the cooperation from
both management and the employees. Creativity and innovations are essential for a
commercial business organization because it has the potential to provide the competitive edge
and it also ensure sufficient leadership. However, these specific skills are not just dependent
on the employees because the management is also responsible for the discipline, integrity and
even the vision. Thus both the parties are equally responsible for the creativity, design
thinking and the innovation in the business organization.
Sameness and difference between creativity and innovation
Often creative and the innovation are used interchangeably but there is a difference as
creativity only refers to mechanism through which one can be innovative. On the other hand,
innovation includes many competencies that is not fixed to one thing. IBM conducted a
survey of more than 1500 chief executive, and found that creativity ranked the number one
factor for the success of the business. Creativity not only implies the importance of being
open minded but also the importance of having ambiguity. In the age of globalization and
increased industrialization, business operation has accelerated and the increasing at an
increasing rate. Thus, the business is evolving in much faster rate along with the goals and the

Successful creativity, innovation and design thinking activities within organizations are
dependent on the work of individual employees only
priorities. In the environment, it is very important for the business to keep some space for
ensuring that there is flexibility. Since creativity and innovation are complex and includes
multi-level skilful leadership, just depending upon the employees for generation of idea will
be hazardous.
Creativity and innovation in the current context
Creativity or innovation has a subjective dimension in it and managerial department
must be careful in harness rule and regulation because if the employees do not feel safe and
secured they will not be able to contribute effectively. The creativity process not only
requires early stage of innovation process but they also have cyclical and a recursive process
of idea generation and implementation. Even though employees are at the receiving end they
require a suitable atmosphere for working their brains out. According to the book, Leading
for creativity by Tim Brown, employee safety and security plays a huge role in their creative
aspects. Feeling of being included in a group encourages their confidence and that is how
they can creatively act on their ideas.
Statistical data
Empirical studies show that creativity or the innovation process often includes messy
and reiterative process where there is two steps forward, one-step backward and several
sides-steps (King, 1992: van de Ven angle & Poole, 1989). Creativity cannot depend on any
single aspect in the organization because it is concerned with an absolute and a true novelty.
Essentially creativity is a precursor to the innovation because creativity is the idea generation
and innovation is the idea implementation. Company for stimulating such kind of behaviour
requires proper implementation of rule and regulation so that they can foster a cooperative
environment and can nurture the innovative and design thinking ability of the employees
(Razzouk and Shute 2012).

Successful creativity, innovation and design thinking activities within organizations are
dependent on the work of individual employees only
Creativity and role of the employee and the managerial
administration
Creativity do not come single-handedly, because the ability of the employee to be
creative depends upon the varied level of skills, energies, experiences, attitude and
motivation. Inclination for doing their job depend on various factors like job motivation,
earning satisfactory salaries. In this way the development of the employee, their individual
act of learning, growing, progressing, acquiring knowledge and skills depends upon the will
of the organization. In the work of Peter Senge, who wrote in the early 90 has identified the
benefits of organization; he termed it as “learning organization”, recognizes the benefits of
the organization against the development of the employees (Jackson 2017). Thus the
employees and the organization, both mutually contribute to the enhancement of the
organizational skills and also the creative aspects of the employee.
Employee motivation plays a crucial role and investment on their psychological safety
be a key factor in ensuring the creative aspects of the employees. Companies like Google,
IDEO and other top innovation firms are effectively using creative tools to enhance employee
creative. Google’s chief innovation Evangelist, Frederik Pferdt and IDEA CEO Tim brown
recently spoke on the importance of the Creativity Confidence series. Google has explored the
team interaction and found out that it does not matter who is in the team but how much they
have communicated. Non-economic factors plays an important role in developing the group
behaviour, that is, element of trust and empathy needs to be there so that employees feel
psychologically secures. Dan Maycock an analytics Product manager of GE digital identifies
five techniques, which is being implemented by the company Google.

Successful creativity, innovation and design thinking activities within organizations are
dependent on the work of individual employees only
Other emerging ideas to aggravate creativity
Often the companies may feel the problem of channelizing the innovation to an end
product. Companies with sufficient amount of creative employees may not be equipped with
proper implementation strategy, thus there may result a lot of time waste and frustration. In
this juncture, Frog Design can help the teams to walk through the design process and result in
creative solutions (Xue et al 2017). During the brain storming session, it is very important to
keep the flow of the ideas, which requires a creative and an active culture. Thus, it is
important to set up rules for brainstorming sessions. This kind of environment can be built
only when there is cooperation from both the ends. Here come the importance of ethical
codes of conduct, which can encourage people to have open dialogue and create cooperative
environment. Sometimes the innovation session can have no real concrete output because of
its subjective element. Thus, it becomes important to draw an innovation flowchart, which
can assist the employee to keep a track of the fundamental ideas. Again, the role of the
managerial section becomes more important for modulating the spirit of the employees. The
structure should not be constraining the role of the agents but rather facilitating them.
Google is a company that is famous for its staff benefits and as reported by The
Guardian. This company not only provides cooperative environment for business operations
but also attends to the need of the employee recreational activities. For instance, the company
provide the employees with pool tables and bowling alleys, free food and gym memberships.
The company has also appointed Chief happiness officer for assessing the happiness level of
the employees and they comprehend the level of the productivity of the employees (Ho
2019). These strategies are working as an eye-catcher for other workplaces. For instances, in
UK all the business enterprises are creating breakout zones and gaming areas where the
employee can chill out and stimulate their creative juice.

Successful creativity, innovation and design thinking activities within organizations are
dependent on the work of individual employees only
At the macro level
In the dynamic environment of the globalised world, it is important for both the
parties to work in a complementary fashion. The organization has the ability to foster happy
and healthy environment, which will ultimately foster employee motivation. The market
capitalization of Google breached a record of $ 260 billion and soaring 900% after its IPO in
2004 (Coleman 2019). Along with the growth, the company has also managed to keep
innovating their strategies. The success of their company has not resulted because of a good
employee strength but it has resulted because of the initiatives taken form the material
sections too.
Conclusion
Thus is can be concluded creativity, innovation and design thinking is not a product
of individual endeavour but it is the fruit of collective balance. If the company can instil
certain kind of innovative strategies, it can transform the individual innovation to
organizational innovation. The intrinsic motivation enables the employees to feel
psychologically secured which turn cause them to be more productive. However it is
important to understand that creativity is not just situated the implementation of the rule and
regulations. The informal communication procedure to affect the innovative ability of the
employees (Anderson et al 2014). According to Woodman, Sawyer and Griffin creativity is a
complex process, which occurs between the individual and their particular situation of work.
The cognitive built, relevant knowledge, social influence and their contextual influences
affects the employee motivation. Thus, cooperation from both the ends is needed, so that a
proper and a healthy atmosphere of business environment is maintained.

Successful creativity, innovation and design thinking activities within organizations are
dependent on the work of individual employees only
Motivation being the integral part of the creative aspect for the employee needs
proper structure that will foster and nurture them. According to the model provided by Ford
there are three important factor like individual’s sense making process, motivation,
knowledge and skills. Therefore, company has the potential to influence the employee
motivation thus it is important for the company to build motivational framework where the
employee feel secured and safe. It is only then the employees can world productively.

Successful creativity, innovation and design thinking activities within organizations are
dependent on the work of individual employees only
References
Anderson, N., Potočnik, K. and Zhou, J., 2014. Innovation and creativity in organizations: A
state-of-the-science review, prospective commentary, and guiding framework. Journal of
management, 40(5), pp.1297-1333.
Coleman, A. (2019). Is Google's model of the creative workplace the future of the office?.
[online] the Guardian. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/careers/2016/feb/11/is-
googles-model-of-the-creative-workplace-the-future-of-the-office [Accessed 11 Apr. 2019].
ho, l. (2019). Google's Secrets Of Innovation: Empowering Its Employees. [online]
Forbes.com. Available at: https://www.forbes.com/sites/laurahe/2013/03/29/googles-secrets-
of-innovation-empowering-its-employees/#3c678cf157e7 [Accessed 11 Apr. 2019].
Jackson, B.G., 2017. A Fanatasy Theme Analysis of Peter Senge’s Learning Organization.
In The Aesthetic Turn in Management (pp. 139-155). Routledge.
Razzouk, R. and Shute, V., 2012. What is design thinking and why is it important?. Review
of Educational Research, 82(3), pp.330-348.
Xue, L., Sanz, B., Luo, A., Turner, K.T., Wang, X., Tan, D., Zhang, R., Du, H., Steinhart, M.,
Mijangos, C. and Guttmann, M., 2017. Hybrid surface patterns mimicking the design of the
adhesive toe pad of tree frog. ACS nano, 11(10), pp.9711-9719.