It is an accepted fact that the creative potential of companies far exceeds their realized creative performance. Every organization strives to enhance the level of creativity tapped by it. This endeavour is generally not very successful as the fountainhead of creativity is largely hidden and unrecognized. This intractable nature of creativity in companies leads to its springing up in unexpected places and in a myriad number of ways. It is a tall order to be able to predict the what, who, when and how of corporate creativity.The unexpected nature of corporate creativity is best exemplified by the experience of Japan Railways (JR) East. This is among the largest rail carriers in the world. JR East was constructing a new bullet-train line through the mountains lying north of Tokyo. Boring tunnels was a part of the construction process. When the engineers were tunneling through Mount Tanigawa, seeping water caused problems. Plans were drawn up to drain this water away. But the construction crew within the tunnel started drinking this water as they found it quite agreeable. A maintenance worker, responsible for the safety of the tunneling equipment, noticed this and suggested that this water should be packaged and sold as premium mineral water by JR East, instead of being pumped away. Thus was the popular mineral water brand Oshimizu launched in the market. JR East installed vending machines for it on each of its 1000 platforms. A new JR East subsidiary was set up to handle not only mineral water but also some other newly introduced beverages such as juices, and iced and hot teas and coffees. By 1994, the sales of these Oshimizu beverages accounted for about $47 million. Such ideas thus emanate from individuals and are unanticipated in nature. Management rarely plans and initiates them. Novel, high impact and award-winning projects are generally individual generated. The same is true for improvements. Continuous improvements are planned in advance whereas dramatic improvements tend to occur in unexpected ways. Companies should learn about the nature of creativity. This will help them improve their creative performance by encouraging the emergence of unanticipated creative acts. The key to aid this improvement is to uncover the true origin of creative acts. Managements generally tend to gloss over the actual source of creativity by taking credit for their extent of control when they succeed in innovations or improvements. Over time, due to misleading secondhand information, there is a dilution of knowledge of how exactly these successes were achieved. Companies need to guard against such mistakes and recognize the actual contributions that lead to creativity.

THE TRUE NATURE OF CORPORATE CREATIVITY
A company is creative when its employees do something new and potentially useful without being directly shown or taught. Corporate creativity leads to improvements (changes to what is already done) and innovations (entirely new activities for the company), both of which are essential for the long term survival and success of the company. Generally, most creative acts are improvements.
A critical realization has now dawned, about the true nature of corporate creativity. Most creative acts are not planned for and come from where they are least expected. Nobody can predict who will be involved in them, what they will be, when they will occur, or how they will happen. But this should not make us feel that nothing can be done about this. Companies can enhance their creative performance by recognizing the nature of their creativity and learning how to actively promote unanticipated improvements and innovations.

THE SIX ESSENTIAL ELEMENTS OF CORPORATE CREATIVITY
There are six elements that play a key role in promoting consistent corporate creativity. It is not possible to predict the specific creative acts that will be the result, but the likelihood of their occurrence gets vastly enhanced when all these six elements are present. “Managing” creativity is about raising probabilities. Taking care of these six elements will help a company in increasing the frequency with which creative acts occur. These six elements are alignment, self-initiated activity, unofficial activity, serendipity, diverse stimuli, and within-company communication. Alignment This ensures that the interests and actions of all employees are directed toward a company’s key goals, so that any employee will recognize and respond positively to a potentially useful idea. The functioning of companies is generally not impaired by relatively poor alignment. But their consistent creativity requires strong alignment. Most companies overlook alignment since it is intangible and elusive. Its effects on corporate creativity are visible only if the company is either very strongly aligned or completely misaligned. American Airlines’ IdeAAs in Action is a spectacular program that demonstrates the power residing in potential creativity for any company that sets up suitable systems to harness it. The focus of this company is on cost savings. And it is quite well aligned to solicit cost-saving ideas from its employees. This strong alignment makes its suggestions system high-performing. In 1996, the 86,138 employees of the airline who were eligible to participate in the system submitted 17,109 ideas, saving the airline $43 million. It is not easy to find strongly aligned companies. This is because this requires discipline, persistence, and hard work. The organization has to really feel the need for alignment. Only then will it take steps in the right direction. Misalignment has to be eliminated as a starting step. There are three factors that make up strong alignment. First of all, the organization has to be clear about its goals. In American Airlines’ case this goal was cost savings. The second factor is commitment to initiatives that promote the key goals. In American Airlines’ case, CEO Robert Crandall always had the time for any thing related to IdeAAs in Action. The third and last factor is accountability for actions that affect the key goals. Employees and managers must be held accountable for decisions that affect the company’s key goals. Corrective actions should be taken if these decisions are not in alignment with the goals.

Next