When Sparks Fly: Igniting Creativity in Groups

by Dorothy Leonard-Barton and Walter C. Swap

Book Overview

Where do the best creative ideas come from? Most managers assume that it's the readily identifiable creative types that offer the quickest route to out-of-the-box thinking. Yet, say Dorothy Leonard and Walter Swap, most innovations spring from well-led group interactions. The authors sweep aside conventional thinking about creativity and offer proven strategies for stimulating and directing the group dynamics that lie at the heart of innovative thinking...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0875848656
• ISBN13: 9780875848655
• Release Date: August 1999
• Publisher: Harvard Business Review Press
• Length: 242 Pages
• Weight: 1.25 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 6.4" x 9.5"

Customer Reviews

The Creative Mindset

In Leonard and Swap's book, "When Sparks Fly: Igniting creativity in groups," the authors acknowledge that with the right physical and psychological group environment, creativity can easily emerge from all members of a group. This creativity can be brought forth in groups ranging from five to five-thousand. The authors present their views and information in a congenial way, which gives the book a lighter sense. Their overall intention was not to create a guide which would be viewed as mentally cumbersome to absorb, but rather to write a book which bestows fresh ideas upon the reader in a non-technical way. The book begins by challenging the typical myths associated with creativity, and subsequently proving them to be incorrect. The authors assert that by using certain motivational and managerial techniques, greater overall creativity can be achieved, even by those who would not typically be referred to as the "creative" type. The chapters cover all of the basics of group formation and management, beginning with basic creative group problems, addressing techniques with which to harness creativity and keep it focused in the right direction, and leaving the reader with the knowledge and motivation to foster the proper environment for the foundation and formation of a creative group. This is achieved through a five-step process defined by the authors as: 1) preparation, 2) innovation opportunity, 3) generation of options, 4) incubation, 5) the convergence on one option. These steps are intuitively arranged and thoroughly explained throughout the course of the book. Overall, this book seeks to leave you with the idea that creativity, while an inherit ability to some, can also be thought of as a process. Once creativity is learned to be viewed as a process, many new avenues with which to inspire creativity can be realized and achieved through careful manipulation of the work environment. These authors truly provide a great prospective on a somewhat perplexing topic to most managers.

True organizational crativity

THis book shows how the true creativity (the one for everyday work) arises and how managers should do in their corps to leverage this invaluable asset.

Creativity is an attitude and a learnable process

This is a successor to Dorothy Leonard(-Barton)'s excellent Wellsprings of Knowledge, and expands the treatment of knowledge generation or creativity that forms one of the important chapters of that book.The central message is that group creativity is a social process and that the process needs a sympathetic climate in terms of norms, beliefs, attitudes and physical environment and needs to be managed through a series of stages. Neglect of any stage seriously inhibits the process. The authors do not deny individual creativity but insist that all of us can contribute to group creativity if the conditions are right - and that individual creativity can be destroyed or at least suppressed if the conditions are wrong.These are very similar to the conditions required for organisational learning (see Nancy Dixon: The Organizational Learning Cycle), which is not surprising as knowledge generation and learning are different perspectives on essentially the same phenomenon. The two books in fact make good companions to each other.Chapter 1 draws out some principles, defines creativity and innovation for the purpose of the book and outlines the creative process. While saying that creativity is resistant to linear progress, the authors identify five steps as capturing the essential features of the creative process. They are: preparation, innovation opportunity, divergence (generating options), incubation, convergence (selecting options).The steps of divergence, incubation and convergence are the central (usually iterative) engine of creativity. Effective management of these steps is vital, and it is the balance or rhythm of the steps that has to be got right. The rest of the book is basically about the conditions necessary to ensure that each of these steps and their combination are fully productive. How should the group be structured? What norms, beliefs and behaviours are necessary for them to interact creatively? What leadership behaviours are needed? How should the process be managed and when, if at all, should there be external facilitation? What psychological and physical conditions are conducive to creative success?The authors conclude: "Creativity, like learning, is not only a process but also an attitude. Managing creativity is all about the values we enact."

An Essential Tool for the Internet Age

Innovation in the workplace is difficult to achieve for all organizations. Most businesses do not have a resident genius, but rely on the creativity of many people over multiple disciplines. Managing these different perspectives and expectations can be a nightmare. Risks of alienation, creating winners and losers and outright failure inhibit even the most self-assured manager. Within the first 15 pages of the book the authors, Dorothy Leonard and Walter Swap, introduce Ken Iverson, the chairman of Nucor Steel who reported that, "when his company took on a new, extremely high-risk creative project, he slept like a baby -- he woke up every two hours crying!"According to the authors, group creativity requires thoughtful preparation, cultivation of different options, time to reflect and careful culling of the "right" ideas. Each step in the process will either energize the team to work harder or become part of a demoralizing and fractious process. As Leonard and Swap write, "Two (or more) heads are better than one, however, only if (1) there is useful knowledge inside the heads; (2) all that useful knowledge can be accessed; and (3) all that accesssed, useful knowledge can be shared, processed, and synthesized by the group."While reading the first section, I "borrowed" a legal pad from my spouse to pilfer the numerous creative ideas suggested. By the time I was done, I had filled the entire pad and was writing on the cardboard back, with designs for programs to reward creativity and groundrules for initiating appropriate creative sessions. Just about everything is covered -- from why preppy Tommy Hilfiger can design for urban youth to how Weyerhaeuser created new, cost effective particleboard. While the reader may not want to use every single idea, there are many new ideas to choose from, representing the best-of-breed these authors have found from around the world's corporations in their considerable body of research.When Sparks Fly: Igniting Creativity in Groups marks the publishing debut for a team of seasoned professors: Dorothy Leonard, of Harvard Business School, and Walter Swap, dean of the colleges at Tufts University. It is a rare business book: accessible, fresh and realistic. Perhaps it is no accident that the book was written shortly after the marriage of these two well-respected academics. Sparks do fly.

Activating the Maverick Synapses

There are many books now available on the general subject of "creativity" but relatively few on the subject of "group creativity." Leonard and Swap have selected an appropriate title for theirs. As they explain, if you create the appropriate physical and psychological environments for a group, creative "sparks" can "fly"...perhaps igniting a department, a division or even an entire organization. For whatever reasons, others do not share my high regard for this book. So be it. What I expected -- and what it delivers -- is a solid conceptual framework within which to generate and then sustain collegial creativity. If you've read Robert Fritz's The Path of Least Resistance for Managers, you are already aware of his assertion that an organizational structure can be designed for success. Leonard and Swap agree with Fritz, not only that such a design is possible but also that it is imperative. Their book consists of six chapters: What Is Group Creativity?Creative Abrasion Generating Creative OptionsConverging on the Best OptionsDesigning the Physical EnvironmentDesigning the Psychological EnvironmentThese chapters are followed by several pages of Notes and a superb Bibliography. Their concluding thoughts reiterate that "creativity is a process -- and can be encouraged and influenced....Thinking of creativity as a process removes, we hope, some of the mystery -- and the temptation to step back from the challenge....Creativity, like learning, is not only a process but an attitude. An attitude that promotes creativity is a kind of alertness to innovation opportunities -- a constant mental challenge to routine and openness to change.... Some individuals thrive on the challenge of constant change and improvement; others recoil from the implicit chaos....But it takes only a small spark to ignite a large fire. Let the sparks!"I provide this brief excerpt for two reasons. First, it gives you at least some idea of how the authors think. Also and more importantly, their remarks imply some of the barriers to "group creativity" which must be overcome, if not eliminated: fears of being "wrong", of embarrassment, of rejection, of seeming "dumb", etc. As Leonard and Swap correctly suggest, it is as important to be alert to human sensitivities and vulnerabilities it is to "innovation opportunities." Without mutual respect, there can be no mutual trust. Without mutual trust, there can be no creative collaboration.If you share my high regard for this book, you may wish to check out the works of other authors such as Guy Claxton, Edward de Bono, Doug Hall, Michael Michalko, Joey Reiman, and Roger von Oech.