Edward Glassman : Overcoming Resistance in a Low-Creative Team
Overcoming Resistance
to Creativity Triggers in
a Low-Creative Team
By Edward Glassman, PhD
As a team leader, help the people in your work group think more creatively. Perhaps your work group wallows in too much complacency or has a routine way of doing business. You may want to boost creative thinking if the following conditions exist:
Team members resist trying out something new.
Everyone thinks alike...or thinks very little.
People do the same things in the same ways.
People lack interest in what others are doing.
Performance levels stay constant.
Your team lacks risk-taking.
The atmosphere does not challenge people enough.
People ask few challenging questions.
Many team members resist new creativity triggers. My discussions with people in large and small companies lead me to the following reasons for many of their doubts. Which fit you?
Some team members see creative thinking as a mysterious ability and talent of a gifted few. This belief produces a negative attitude toward learning or using creativity triggers.
Some team members believe we inherit creativity ability. Thus, they think that a highly creative person needs no help, and that a low creative person stays beyond help. Easy to see how this thinking leads to resistance.
Some team members think that learning and applying creativity triggers a waste of time (and money). Since they believe this, they don't use them to keep the work group on the creative track.
Some team members think their work group is already creative enough. "Too many good ideas lying around," they say. They think their work group needs more doers, more implementers, more product champions, more entrepreneurs, etc. Thus, they don't use creativity triggers.
Some team members really do want a more innovative work group, but doubt that creativity triggers help, usually because they do not have enough experience or information about them. My book can help them change their mind.
Some team members believe that only one right way to do anything exists and they cannot understand all that fuss about thinking creatively. Their pessimism and negative attitude becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Hence, no creativity triggers for the work group.
What keeps you from using creativity triggers to boost creative thinking with your team? Make action plans to use creativity triggers periodically. •
Edward Glassman is a former Guggenheim Fellow at Stanford University and a Visiting Fellow at The Center For Creative Leadership in Greensboro, North Carolina. …
Edward Glassman is a former Guggenheim Fellow at Stanford University and a Visiting Fellow at The Center For Creative Leadership in Greensboro, North Carolina.