HOW DO YOU VALUE CREATIVE MANAGEMENT
A GLOBAL MBA PARTICIPANT SURVEY
It is not easy to be creative in the workplace. For some of you Kedge Global MBA’s, the term “creative” may not even be clear on what creativity is. It is clear, however, that all of you share a genuine interest in the impact of creativity in your professional lives and how best to foster and implement this. You remain curious about how your colleagues are creative in their professional lives.
Survey respondents come from an extensive array of sectors and comprise more than 33% females. More than 60% hold positions of senior management. In each case, as a majority, MBA’s feel they are creative managers and believe that managing creatively improves their performance as well as that of the teams they manage.
Here are some of the key ideas produced by our survey given to the Global MBA participants*
In their words…
“I don't consider that being creative necessarily requires coming up with something very original, but rather coming up with something that transcends habits and typical responses.”
“… Changing the way things were done before by thinking outside of the box.”
“Creativity can be used in many of my functions: related to contracts, logistics, innovation, using new technologies and strategies. Creativity is everywhere.”
“Having an opportunity to step back and think, (time), provides the faculty of sometimes being creative.”
“Enhancing creativity, allowing time to your teams to exit from routine and their daily work. Time given for brainstorming is perfect to generate creativity.”
“Creativity is not necessarily marketing. Creativity can be inserted into processes for example.”
“Creativity often requires a lot of perseverance and energy to be successful, especially in big companies. Often, it is killed by conformity, influence of habits and by internal rules.”
“Thinking outside the box is now simply a question of status quo to survive… as the box is full.”
Here’s where you’d like to be more creative…
• Inspire, drive, rally my teams
• Find new ways of solving problems
• Find creative solutions for implementing projects
• Solve unique problems over short periods of time
• Motivate people other than with money
• Use creativity to solve long lasting issues
• Find solutions to a specific technical, organizational and social problems
• Manage people better
How do YOU manage creatively?...
• Asking my team how they feel/project themselves in their jobs and how can they improve their daily work
• Using new ways of leading meetings, workshops
• Promoting innovation through partnerships,
• Leading international development activities through group integration strategy
• Using pertinent external tools and competence to change a business approach
• Taking risks by breaking the company's codes/ rules
• Designing how a business process will evolve over the next 5 years
• Looking for new services
• Finding new talent when the competences are not there
• Building a benchmark of previous offers to become more efficient and agile
• Taking innovative approaches to people management to Influence teams to achieve their objectives
• Considering project solutions that please the largest number of stakeholders
• Believing that all people can be creative
• Understanding how people manage change successfully
• Adapting approaches to match new situations
• Trying new things
• Modeling positive leadership,
• Integrating team building activities
• Staying open to new ideas to be more creative in the innovation process
• Reorganizing meeting schedules and organization
• Being a leader. Not just a manager.
• Reflecting before acting. Not being a fireman. Thinking strategically later.
• Reorganizing and being flexible with employee work schedules
• Writing creative RFQ’s
• Promoting openness and transversal communication
• Encouraging initiatives
• Eliminating processes that do not create added value
• Leveraging technology to automate, improve and norm management
• Implementing practical methods not guaranteed to be optimal or perfect, but sufficient for the immediate goals to deal with unforeseen and urgent matters
“Creativity in negotiations! Regularly involved in high-level/stakes, intercultural and multi-party negotiations, I started organizing cross functional and multi-party brainstorming sessions with a clear objective: search for different solutions/approaches together that would lead to quicker winning outcomes for all involved parties. With this new approach to negotiations (instead of ME going back and forth between parties), WE managed to solve problems in short time frames, save time and money for all parties and rebuild the trust and collaborative work between parties.”
~~*the survey results reflect a significant percentage (more than 60% response rate) of the active participants target group.
