While ”creativity” has become a catchword at corporations, experts say top managers sometimes fail to master the difficulties of identifying, recruiting and nurturing creative people.
”I think there is somewhat more interest among corporations for creative people, and I wish there were even more,” said Richard L. Hardison, a senior director of Spencer Stuart & Associates, a management recruiting firm.
”Increasingly, we are being asked to recruit creative individuals in certain industries such as financial services, communications, biogenetics and computer integrated manufacturing.”
Using soccer as an analogy, Hardison said: ”We have bred business school people adept at kicking the ball and keeping it moving in increments down the field and to score regularly.”
He said there is a need, however, ”to give the ball enough to creative people who might do unusual things with it–and yet ultimately make a bigger score.”
There`s a danger, he said, that creative people may be weeded out unwittingly at some highly structured companies. ”In business school, you cannot teach creative ideas, but you can teach entrepreneurial studies,”
Hardison said.
”Companies are definitely more interested in creativity,” said Larry Senn, who heads the Senn-Delaney group, a management consulting unit of Arthur Young & Co., the accounting firm.
”Companies are recognizing the need. Some earlier popular books, such as `In Search of Excellence,` have indicated that the people side of a company has a lot to do with the success of that company.”
According to Hardison, a creative person tends to ”ignore conventional wisdom and does not build on existing knowledge but starts from theory and moves forward.”
A creative person tends to use inductive, rather than deductive, methods of problem solving, he added.
”Creative people usually have superior memories and ability to relate ideas,” he said. ”They often exhibit high mental quickness.” But often, amid wide-ranging interests, they lack superior academic records.
He advises special handling of such people on the job. ”Don`t give them people to supervise,” he said.
They should be required to participate in management training programs that will instill a better understanding of how management works, Hardison believes. There should also be special incentives for these unusual individuals.
”The idea that a boss has all the answers does not fit today,” Senn said.
