The Role of Individual and Group Efforts in Creativity and Innovation

This argumentative essay explores the debate surrounding the roles of individual employees and organizational groups in driving creativity, innovation, and design thinking within businesses. The essay begins by defining creativity, innovation, and design thinking, highlighting their importance in gen...Read More

Running head: ARGUMENTATIVE ACADEMIC ESSAY
ARGUMENTATIVE ACADEMIC ESSAY
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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Introduction
Creativity, innovation and design thinking is always associated with something that is
about to be introduced. Thus these help in bringing something new. On an educational
perspective individual and collaborative creativity and innovation does not make a significant
difference but in terms of management they does make a huge difference (Camburn et al.
2017). It acts as the intellectual capital of the organization. Most of the organizations try to
secure and protect their successful achievements through creativity with financial certificates,
awards, patents and several other legal rights. Besides, the development of an individual
within the organization, the quality of research and development and the human resource
management system is totally proportional with these three factors- Creativity, innovation
and Design Thinking. Therefore it is very controversial whether these three factors are
dependent upon the individual employees only or the organizational groups are involved as
well. Under certain complex circumstances the nature of the company and the legality of the
company’s ownership helps in acknowledging the proper contribution of the individual or
groups to the company’s objectives. Although it is said that these factors are dependent or
work of individual employees only, there is no agreement to this statement from a personal
perspective.
Creativity, Innovation and Design Thinking
Creativity refers to the original ideas and wonderful imaginations that help in the
creation of something new. It is the act that helps in the transformation of these new and
imaginative ideas into reality. It helps in perceiving all the challenges and hurdles in a new
way. It helps in finding out the hidden patterns and connections between some unrelated
situations and thereafter help in the process of generation of easy solutions. Thus it involves
two processes – thinking and producing (Caniëls and Rietzschel 2015). Merely having ideas
and not acting upon them are not creativity. If the ideas are acted upon then only it becomes

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creativity. There are many beliefs that say that only the special, talented and genius people
are creative. This belief is wrong. Any persons who possess the innate potential to do
something are creative. It is a process that leads to happiness and boosts the motivation of
the individuals. A person who is creative in nature, and is creating an automated process for
his process, does not necessarily feel tired even if he stays awake the whole day. The minute
problems surrounding that person fade away while performing a creative task and hence it
increases the productivity as well. But, it must be kept in mind that the task on which the
creative work is done upon is of the individual’s interest. An individual can only be creative
on something if he has a lot of interest on that particular thing.
Innovation on the other hand refers to the implementation of new products or
improved products, services and processes that helps in the generation of values for the
organization or the society. Like creativity, innovation also leads to value creation. It refers to
a number of activities that are performed in order to uncover new and better ways to perform
things. Innovation helps in the creation of greater opportunities that are very important for
economic growth, success and survival of the business organization. It helps in development
of original ideas and optimization of operations (Gruber et al. 2015). Organizations that are
involved in innovation are able to identify new opportunities and the simplest and best
method of problem solving. Each and every individual are innovators. Several business
processes improvement, introduction of new and better products and services in the market,
increasing efficiency and increase in the profitability can only occur when there is successful
exploitation of new ideas that are very important to the business. Innovation itself is a
creative process that can be the following –
i. Improvement or replacement of certain business processes for the purpose of
increasing the profitability and efficiency.
ii. Development of entirely new and better products and services in the market in
order to meet up the rapid changes in the customers’ needs and preferences.

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iii. Value addition to the existing products and services and differentiating the
business form that of the competitor thereafter increasing customer satisfaction
and loyalty (Nowacki and Bachnik 2016).
Innovation helps in improving the productivity, reduction of costs, improving
competitiveness, building a strong brand value, establishment of new partnerships and
agreements, and increased turnover and profitability (Dorst 2015). Any business without
innovation will lose its market shares. Lack of innovation will not motivate the employees,
who will reduce their productivity and most of the key employees may also resign because of
the lack of satisfaction. There will be a steady reduction in the margins and profits and the
business can be a failure.
Design Thinking refers to the human centric process of creative problem solving that
encourages the organization to focus on the people for whom they are creating the internal
processes and the products and services (Carvalho and Goodyear 2018). It is a non-linear
process that tries to understand users, challenge the prevailing assumptions and create
solutions that are innovative in nature. It is a method that consists of five different processes
–
i. Empathize – It helps in gaining the empathetic understanding about a problem
that is to be solved.
ii. Define – It requires accumulation of information being created and gathered in
the first stage.
iii. Ideate – Generation of new ideas and thinking outside the box happens in this
stage (Felin and Powell 2016).
iv. Prototype – This stage is an experimental stage that aims in the identification
of the best and simple solutions for all the problems that are identified in the
first three stages.

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v. Test – This is the phase where the solutions are implemented into actions and
it is an iterative process.
Design thinking is very important in today’s world. The world is changing rapidly and
it is becoming more complex and interconnected as the days are passing. It has been a reason
behind the success of many big global companies like Google, Airbnb and Apple (Elsbach
and Stigliani 2018). This process helps in improving the surroundings everyday because of its
ability of generating simple solutions in a disruptive manner. Design thinking is very helpful
for collective problem solving.
Arguments
The given statement of the essay cannot be justified properly and hence the argument
is that successful creativity, innovation and design thinking activities within organizations are
not dependent on the work of individual employees only. It requires organizational group and
collaborative efforts for a long-term success. A real life situation that has been personally
experienced is mentioned. A process requires automation and in order to do that a lot of
macros are required to be prepared in MS Excel. One single person made a macro out of his
creativity and saw that the result was positive and it was reducing time. But in order to make
it full proof the process was to undergo through big data. Certain errors popped out while
performing with a large number of variables (Wrigley 2017). The person then had to consult
another colleague and both of them pooled their expertise and prepared a new macro. They
then showed the macro to their teams, who in return performed certain checks and said that it
was a full proof macro (Johansson‐Sköldberg, Woodilla & Çetinkaya 2013). The particular
macro was then given several tests with large number of data and the result was positive.
Thus, this situation clearly states that there can be certain errors that might still be there
irrespective of the creativity level. But when more people are involved the task gets separated
and there comes a maker and checker concept. Any steps skipped can be investigated by the

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others and in this way the process becomes more strong and accurate. Thus collaborative
efforts are always required for a greater success.
Every organizations deals with value chain promotion and it requires preparation,
incubation of ideas and verification of ideas. Promotion in the value change needs to undergo
a lot of changes. Decision on budgets, qualities and market potentials cannot be made on an
individual level. It always requires group discussions and efforts (Goffin and Mitchell 2016).
Furthermore, most of the people are resistant to changes and hence a strong coalition is being
done in those complicated situations to have a smooth change management system (Hughes
et al. 2018). Business feasibility, better products and services and several process
improvements can happen only when there are proper team of employees, leaders and
management. Collaborative team plays an important role in the exchange of information. The
whole team is required for enforcing innovation. While one team plans the idea, the other
team implements it and the management team spreads the information and help in guiding the
employees towards the vision statement being set.
Conclusion
It can be concluded that successful creativity, innovation and design thinking
activities of the organization are dependent on every individuals of the organization. One
single individual cannot carry the load for thinking, on every aspect of the organization and
then implementing it. It is only through team works and collaboration that the employees
within the organization are able to implement successful changes, innovation and creativity.
Collaboration ensures that the employees can learn from each other and help each other in a
coordinated manner without taking many pressures. Dependence on all the individuals of the
organization helps in the generation of better ideas, designs, creativity, thoughts and
innovation.

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References:
Camburn, B.A., Auernhammer, J.M., Sng, K.H.E., Mignone, P.J., Arlitt, R.M., Perez, K.B.,
Huang, Z., Basnet, S., Blessing, L.T. and Wood, K.L., 2017, August. Design innovation: A
study of integrated practice. In ASME 2017 international design engineering technical
conferences and computers and information in engineering conference (pp. V007T06A031-
V007T06A031). American Society of Mechanical Engineers.
Caniëls, M.C. and Rietzschel, E.F., 2015. Organizing creativity: Creativity and innovation
under constraints. Creativity and Innovation Management, 24(2), pp.184-196.
Carvalho, L. and Goodyear, P., 2018. Design, learning networks and service
innovation. Design Studies, 55, pp.27-53.
Dorst, K., 2015. Frame innovation: Create new thinking by design. MIT Press.
Elsbach, K.D. and Stigliani, I., 2018. Design thinking and organizational culture: A review
and framework for future research. Journal of Management, 44(6), pp.2274-2306.
Felin, T. and Powell, T.C., 2016. Designing organizations for dynamic
capabilities. California Management Review, 58(4), pp.78-96.
Goffin, K. and Mitchell, R., 2016. Innovation management: effective strategy and
implementation. Macmillan International Higher Education.
Gruber, M., De Leon, N., George, G. and Thompson, P., 2015. Managing by design.
Hughes, D.J., Lee, A., Tian, A.W., Newman, A. and Legood, A., 2018. Leadership,
creativity, and innovation: A critical review and practical recommendations. The Leadership
Quarterly, 29(5), pp.549-569.
Johansson‐Sköldberg, U., Woodilla, J., & Çetinkaya, M., 2013. Design thinking: past, present
and possible futures. Creativity and innovation management, 22(2), 121-146.

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Nowacki, R. and Bachnik, K., 2016. Innovations within knowledge management. Journal of
Business Research, 69(5), pp.1577-1581.
Wrigley, C., 2017. Principles and practices of a design-led approach to
innovation. International Journal of Design Creativity and Innovation, 5(3-4), pp.235-255.