Creativity Innovation and Design Essay Sample

Creativity, innovation, and design are often interchangeable but are often defined as different qualities and business implications, but they are comparable and contrasted. Defining creativity, innovation, and design assists to understand further their influences in business development and factors that contribute to a successful business. Some organizations can survive exclusively on creativity; however, the increase in global competition is driving more companies to strive and develop more innovative products and services to create a competitive edge.

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New creative ideas are then made substantial through the implementation of practical design. Creativity involves the creation of new and fresh concepts, which is a vital building block for innovation. Therefore, creativity, innovation, and design is a combination of developing and applying a compelling idea. The purpose of writing your essay (e.g., The aim of writing this essay is to critically evaluate and put forth arguments on whether successful creativity, innovation, and design thinking activities are only dependent on the work of individual employees. I disagree with the above statement using Schumpeter's Theory of Innovation and Ebert's Cognitive Spiral Model.

Innovation is the deliberate application of an idea or information to get a higher or different value which is converted into useful information. It is the successful implementation of an individual's ideas into practice while remaining organized. Innovation involves revolutionizing a particular concept differently instead of doing it ordinarily. Creativity consists of cultivating and developing ideas to brainstorm possible solutions to resolve a specific problem and being able to put forward a viable solution. Design thinking is a user-based approach to creating solutions.

The design is the link between innovation and change that shapes ideas to become useful and commercially appealing for both customers and businesses. Therefore, a plan is a process, and many companies recognize it as the way for successful innovation. In reputable companies, the design is used at every level of the business which opens new opportunities for growth to ensure that every innovative idea is rewarding.

Organizational Structure

Organizational structure plays a critical role in influencing the realization of innovation than affecting an individual employee to produce creative and innovative ideas. The structure that is flexible, decentralized decision making permits diversity and individual's expression and provide a favorable climate among employees for innovation and creativity. A constructivist view of Structure that allows interaction between departments provides information crucial for the generation of ideas. Mainly, employees with more diverse expertise give more facts and perspectives that initiate innovation and creativity among various employees.

Flexible structures in an organization provide conducive environments for effective communication between departments with effective coordination and clarity. To generate innovation outcomes in a company, diverse employee skills set knowledge and background stimulate divergent thinking in the working group. Tao & Hong, (2014) states that innovation results might be affected by the task characteristic. Intellectually stimulating and challenging tasks. Schumpeter's Theory postulates that the availability of resources in a company influences employees to be innovative since resources are vital in developing new ideas (Keklik, 2003).

Google fosters creativity and innovation through utilizing its People Analytics department with is the human resource version of the company with close association with the academics. Ebert's Cognitive Spiral Model states that when applying creative thinking to institutional design, it is prudent to have cognitive processing as an integral component (Ebert, 1994). Google is sharing its management best practices with other organizations to enhance their activities. Some of the best practices from Google include identifying and train individuals likely to perform creatively as well as manage creative performance.

Moreover, Google also develops managers because, without managers, employees are left overwhelmed and are often distracted by tasks that hurt creativity. Google empowers its team and paying attention to employee success and individual welfare, developing a shared vision and team strategy and have technical expertise that allows them to advise team members and evaluate creative ideas adequately.

Google promotes innovation and creativity in the organization by managing diversity. A diverse mix of individuals with the different academic background to gain the aspect of creativity from its employee. However, biasness on how employees interact with each other that can pose a significant challenge to teams or individual's ability to work together. To manage biasness, Google developed unbiasing programs that aim at helping employees achieve their diversity. Moreover, Google acknowledges team dynamics including psychological safety and dependability which has a significant influence on ensuring that team members are comfortable in sharing ideas and being open to each other (Rozovsky, 2015).

Organizational Management

Managerial behaviors significantly contribute to employee's creative performance. Leaders in a company support employee creativity and innovation by allocating sufficient resources, time is a vital resource to foster creativity in an organization. Availability of funds, facilities, as well as information, also supports creativity and innovation in a company. Organizational leaders are vital in assigning work groups; groups should have diverse, skilled employees to promote openness to new ideas and commitment to work where members can challenge other's ideas. Moreover, work roles that relate to creativity including difficulty and variety support creativity at the workplace. Therefore, a working environment with supportive leaders encourage employees and valuing their contributions hence significantly contributing to creativity and innovation.

Theorists such as Likert and McGregor were of the view that organizational trust is vital to enhance employee creativity and innovation. As a leader, building trust with employees of the organization facilitates them to take bold decisions, and as a result, employee's creativity strengthens that in turns benefits the organization. To innovate, employees need to interact with both inside and outside environment to create a cross-functional communication to promote innovation. Decentralization and weak hierarchy are critical for creating an environment conducive for creativity and innovation. This is because it gives rise to greater participation and allows more opinions during the generation of ideas and innovation. Creativity and innovation arise more naturally in organizations with decentralized and flexible leadership structure.

Often, leaders in organizations fail to understand that innovation involves various steps and the capacity required at each process is entirely different. Therefore, it is implausible that one employee would resilient and follow through the processes of creating, advancing, refining and executing. Hence, for innovation to succeed, it requires a team-based approach and the team should comprise of members different capacities. Creating a culture of change in a company needs the leaders to recognize employee talents and identify them in groups and encourage team involvement towards innovation.

Organizational Culture

Organizational culture involves the surrounding environment that employees of a specific organization engage with. It is a vital element in shaping the working relationship of employees and working process. Innovation primarily depends on the culture of an organization, particularly on the encouragement of creativity and reception of new ideas from researchers, access to grants and important resources as well as empowerment and freedom. A company with good organizational culture has reduced risks through presenting new ideas, enhanced team learning, and excellent job involvement. Innovation primarily relies on the interchange of ideas from different sources; therefore, creativity and innovation depend on organizational factors that may encourage or discourage.

Encouragement is a vital aspect of the working environment that includes supportive evaluation of ideas that foster innovation and creativity in a company. Psychological safety of an employee in an organization provides ample environment to give new ideas without fear of negative consequences. When design thinking is not infused in a company, it is effortless for activities to revert to usual, with employees hiding away instead of working together. Making design a driving power in an organization, each employee from the executive leadership to marketing and engineers should be trained on design thinking (Caniels & Rietzschel, 2015).

The research and development department of an organization is critical in adapting insights and techniques from design thinking. The initial process of design thinking is heavily dependent on research and development and the various tools for collecting data. Apple is a design-driven company; therefore, it goes from creating a culture of design thinking to building a practice of design doing that focuses on the customer experience. Therefore, before a particular product is made, a team of marketers, designers, engineers interface with customers to ensure they appropriately comprehend the problem to design the required solution. Innovation in technology has been a core foundation of Apple, sometimes experiencing market failures with each point acting as a pivot to further advance in their products. Apple did not solely rely on the research and development department for innovation, the physical shopping experience in their shops showing the high level of change in retail.

Apple is considered amongst the most innovative companies in the world. Its user-oriented focus dominates its operations with new products that draw considerable speculations about upgrades. Apple puts its best on design thinking amongst all its products. They seek what customers want, creating products based on customer needs as well as developing samples and experimenting them to ascertain their success (Elmansy, 2016). For instance, Apple OS was designed based on customer preference and figuring out how they should accomplish it technically. Apple packaging and top-notch products, the user experience is not far from the employee's mind. The recent products including the Airpods have significantly transformed music listening experience and iPhone X with facial recognition capabilities that gave the iPhone a new touch compared to the previous version.

Conclusion

In the contemporary business environment, a product or service has to be tailored to meet the demands and preferences of the customer; else it will result in the company making loses. When an organization lacks innovation, design, and creativity, it can easily break. All three components work together to produce a compelling product and service to place an organization in a competitive environment. Team dynamics is essential to creativity, innovation, and design. Organizational factors such as culture, management structure, task characteristics, and organizational climate affect creativity, innovation, and the design of employees.

References

Caniels, M.C. & Rietzschel, E.F., 2015. Organizing Creativity: Creativity and Innovation under Constraints. Creativity and Innovation Management, 24(2), pp.184-196.

Ebert, E.S., 1994. The Cognitive Spiral: Creative Thinking and Cognitive Processing. The Journal of Creative Behavior, 28(4), pp.275-290.