Academy of Management Executive, 2003, Vol. 17, No. 1
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Improving the creativity of organizational work groups
Leigh Thompson Executive Overview
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Creativity— how to ignite it and how to regenerate it—is a key question that managers and executives pose to management educators and consultants. Several organizational changes and developments make creativity a valuable necessity for the new economy and the organizations that inhabit it. First, flatter organizational structures require companies, divisions, and managers to act in a more entrepreneurial and inventive fashion. The absence of hierarchy and bureaucracy creates fertile opportunity for creative knowledge and action. Second, by nearly all counts, businesses are growing more competitive. Strictly speaking, this means that companies continually need to reinvent themselves. Frank and Cook’s book The Winner-Take-All Society provides compelling data on how companies are becoming more competitive, resulting in “winners” who gain more and more market share.1 Third, blurred lines between traditional notions of who’s “inside” and who’s “outside” the company allow teams to form new relationships with suppliers, complementary businesses, and shadow industries. In Co-opetition, Brandenburger and Nalebuff argue that cooperation and competition can co-exist in business relationships.2 Finally, the focus on customer service is more important than ever, and the quest to satisfy and delight the customer or client requires creativity. Just because the challenges facing a team call for creativity, however, is no guarantee that the team members will be creative. In fact, several
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