Reflection on Module Literature...

I would like to say that the piece that stuck me the most is the six thinking hats technique. It captured my interest at the lecture and made me go through the book of Edward De Bono (1999), Six Thinking Hats. I found it very interesting how parallel thinking of the Six Hats method works. I strongly agree that it is very simple concept which allows a thinker to do one thing at a time. Thus, it allows the brain to maximize its sensitivity in different directions at different times. Based on my experience, I agree with the author that it is not possible to have that maximum sensitization in different directions all at the same time. For that reason, Six Hats method provides convenience, which is the main value of the concept. Author mainly introduces the concept as an alternative to the argument system and puts emphasis on “what can be” rather than “what is”. If I relate author’s words with my personal experience, I have always seen if two people disagree, there is an argument in which each tries to prove the other party wrong. But as for the parallel thinking, which struck me the most, both views are put down in parallel. And then, in case of essentiality to choose between the contradictory positions, an attempt to choose is made at that point. Most importantly, if a choice cannot be made, then the design has to reflect both possibilities. Furthermore, I want to emphasize on the effectiveness of Six Hat technique in dealing with the “showing off” issue, which is some people enjoy argument because they can show off how clever they are, but remember, in a nonconstructive manner. While using the Six Hats method, thinker shows off by performing well as a thinker and significantly, this type of showing off is constructive. The another reason this creativity technique struck me the most is that it gets people to “play the game”, which is a very powerful form of changing behavior and more effective and quick than methods that set out to change personalities. Even though I agree with the author on the effectiveness and significance of the method, I think that it consumes some time before team members learn “the rules of the game”. Consequently, it made me think about it would be useful if author gave instructions how to “play the game”. At last, Six Hats technique made me think about my competence and possibilities in fostering creativity at my future work place with the help of the technique.

The next topic I want to discuss is The Weird Rules of Creativity by Robert I. Sutton. This article made a big influence on my understanding of creativity. I totally agree with him when telling that ideas for managing creativity and innovation are nearly all 180 degrees different from standard management practice. That’s why, what he discovered and shares with us seems weird to most of the readers. Despite this, I agree with him that in order to employ creativity, we should take our past successes and forget them, we should ignore people who have solved the exact problem we face, and we should think of some impractical things to do and plan to do them. Based on my personal experience, I found his “rules” useful. When I recall the hiring process at my previous work, I understand now I could use job interviews to get new ideas not only to screen candidates. At the same time, it would have been more efficient and effective to hire someone who made me uncomfortable according to the author. I agree on that since we would “fight” for ideas and have a better result than with someone who would obey me and support my ideas. Another important issue I agree with the article is to reward success and failure, but punish inaction. We all are human-beings and make mistakes. If we punish mistakes then people do not get motivated to try things that was not tried by some one else before and thus, eliminates creativity. But, important is we should learn on our mistakes and not make same mistake in future. Even though I agree on the most of the weird rules presented by the author, I doubt it costs a lot and many companies can not afford it. Those rules are well-shaped for large organizations and do not fit small organizations if we look at its possible costs. As we know, creativity is an activity with high variance. So, disagreement comes here when deciding how big a company should be to afford creativity. To sum up, this article made me think about weird ideas that work. Before reading this article, I would not listen to the person talking about impractical things he/she plans to do and simply, would disregard them. But now, the article made me think of some of such things myself.

Finally, I want to summarize the case study What a Star - What a Jerk. This case study gave me great insight how to deal with an employee who is nasty, hard-hearted and at the same time, top performer. The most amazing is the fact that I found advices given by four commentators to be different from each other. Consequently, this made me think about how various and diverse can be our answer to one and the same problem identified. Afterwards, this enforces the suggestions of finding different alternatives, considering many ideas and approaches before we come to the conclusion, which may affect strongly on the creativity and efficiency of an organization.


References:
Edward De Bono (1999). Six Thinking Hats. Unites States of America: Little, Brown and
Company.
Sutton. R. I. (2001). The Weird Rules of Creativity. Harvard Business Review, 94-103.
Cliffe S. (2001). What a Star-What a Jerk. HRB Case Study, 37-48.
Gustavsson V. (2008). Lecture September 8th: Organizational Creativity. Retrieved 2008-
09-08, from Jonkoping International Business School´s website :
http://jibsnet.hj.se/documents/index.asp?SID=11&GID=kurs_JIBD28&PID=3768451492693623091&Pagenr=2