How Leaders Learn To Boost Creativity In Teams: Innovation Catalysts

by Rob Sheffield

Overview

The book focuses on how leaders are learning to develop the creative capabilities of their team members and themselves. Through this learning, teams are developing original approaches to their work, benefitting their customers, patients, employees and other stakeholders.Using a strong interdisciplinary approach, How Leaders Learn to Boost Creativity in Teams introduces insights from the domains of psychology, creativity, leadership and power, and integrates these through a proposed framework for leading innovation. It contains nine in-depth, current-day cases of learning and workplace-based applications and has an optimistic message: creativity can be learnt. Making connections between current day research, learning and application in work contexts, it will appeal to leaders and students alike seeking to think outside of the box.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781786346209
Publisher:	World Scientific Publishing Europe Ltd
Publication date:	01/11/2019
Pages:	220
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.56(d)

Table of Contents

About the Author vii

Acknowledgements ix

List of Figures xv

List of Tables xvii

How Leaders Learn to Boost Creativity in Teams: Innovation Catalysts 1

Chapter 1 The Creativity Convergence A Meeting of Need, Means and Want 3

Relevance for the Reader 5

The Topicality of Creativity and Innovation 6

The Demand for Innovation is Growing 7

Delivering Innovation is Proving to be Difficult 12

Innovation and Reification 14

The Innovation Bind 15

A Cri de Coeur for the Age of Creativity 20

References 23

Chapter 2 Rethinking Power and Leadership 27

Research Overview: Power and Leadership 28

Training in the Power Motive 36

The Power Motive and Leadership 38

The Leadership of Creativity and Innovation 45

References 48

Chapter 3 Aligning Everyday Innovation with Strategy 49

Research Overview: Creativity and Purposeful Outcomes 51

Organisations are Changing from the Outside-in and Inside-out 57

References 58

Chapter 4 Building the Skills for Creativity 61

Research Overview: The Development of Creative Problem Solving 63

Divergent and Convergent Thinking 68

Principles for Divergent Thinking 72

Story: The Hagrid Concept 74

Principles for Convergent Thinking 75

Components of the Creative Problem-Solving Model 77

Component 1: Understanding the Challenge 78

Component 2: Generating Ideas 82

Component 3: Preparing for Implementation 87

Ten Practical Implications for Leaders 89

Case 1: The Ambulance Service 91

Case 2: The Drug and Alcohol Dependency Team 93

Case 3: The Creative-writing Workshop 96

Chapter Review: Key Learning from Building CPS Skills 99

References 101

Chapter 5 Work Context - A Healthy Climate for Innovation 103

Research Overview: How Climate Affects Innovation Performance 105

Leadership, Climate and Goodwill 108

Climate and the Situational Outlook Questionnaire 110

The SOQ Climate Tool 114

Case 1: Solverboard - The Open Innovation People 114

Case Review 118

Case 2: The Healthcare Unit 119

Chapter Review - Key Learning on Creating a Healthy Climate 128

References 129

Chapter 6 Making Use of Different Perspectives 133

Research Overview: The Role of Adaption-innovation Theory in Creative Problem Solving 134

Story: Experimenting with the KAI 140

The Leader and the Problem-solving Process 141

Research Support for Adaption-innovation Theory 142

Summarising Adaption-innovation Differences 144

So What? Reflections on Adaption-innovation Theory 147

Story: Unsuccessful Leader Coping 151

Story: A Fishy Tale… 155

Case 1: The Law Firm - More Structure Please 156

Case Review 158

Case 2: An Effective Pairing 158

Case Review 162

Case 3: Fitting People to the Work 164

Case Review 168

Chapter Review - Practical Learning on Optimising Cognitive Diversity 169

References 171

Chapter 7 Sustaining Creativity Across Time and Scale 173

Case 1: The Radical Education Offering 174

Case Review 183

Book Synthesis and Limitations 185

Potential Scenarios: Wider Creativity in Society 186

References 189

Further Resources 191

Index 193