Where the chief executive is convincingly behind a more creative way of doing business, the organisational culture is generally supportive of doing bigger and better things, writes EMMET COLE

NEW RESEARCH into creative personality types has revealed steps companies can take to generate a culture of creativity and innovation in their organisations.

Conducted by associate professor Øyvind L Martinsen at the BI Norwegian School of Management, the research also found creativity can be learnt and concludes the right leadership in the right environment is the key to stimulating creative thinking.

“There is stiff competition in business these days and those who stimulate creativity will be more innovative. Companies that don’t stimulate and nurture creativity are leaving innovation to chance,” says Martinsen.

A specialist in personality psychology, Martinsen spent several years researching the literature on the personality traits of creative people from artists to inventors. The result is a paper, parts of which have already been presented to the American Psychological Association, that describes steps companies can take to establish and sustain a creative environment.

The first is to use psychological testing to identify and recruit creative people, says Martinsen.

Standard personality theory emphasises five traits that characterise all people to different degrees. According to this model, Martinsen says, neuroticism (the amount of negative feelings one experiences), extraversion/introversion, openness to experience, agreeableness (high scores indicating a worker is somewhat “submissive” towards others, low scores indicating they are “cynical and tough”) and conscientiousness all combine to form a picture of a personality.

By analysing the results of previous personality research tests, Martinsen found that creative people, whether they’re artists, inventors, or scientists, share some common traits. Most noticeably, they tend to score highly on psychological tests measuring “openness to experience”.

Creative people also share low scores on agreeableness, which makes them more difficult to get on with than other personality types – a fact that employers should bear in mind when hiring creative people, Martinsen advises. They also demonstrate vivid imaginations, above average intelligence and a well-developed ability to come up with new ideas.

To create a truly creative environment, however, companies need to look far beyond simply hiring creative people, says Martinsen.

Management need to show they support creativity in practice by promoting intellectual variety and stimulation and embracing the flexibility that allows creativity to flourish.

“Leaders have a special responsibility to create a creative climate. If the climate is dominated by fault-finding, criticism, an over-focus concern on budget corrections, and so on, it’s not easy for creativity to survive,” he explains.

“Transformational leadership,” in particular, stimulates creativity and innovation, says Martinsen.

“Transformational leaders lead by example. Like President Obama – a Hollywood version of this type of leader – they demonstrate the value of vision, inspiration, individual consideration and intellectual stimulation. They also give the impression of being honest and that they can be believed in,” he says.

However, these methods will not have a long-term effect if employees do not find the working environment positive and stimulating, Martinsen warns. Nor will they have a long-term effect unless supervisors and senior management actively demonstrate that they support creativity.

“Employees need to have challenges. Their tasks cannot be easy. They also need a workplace where it is possible to discuss and to challenge each other at the ideational level,” says Martinsen.

Employees also need to be committed to their work. “Otherwise the whole thing would become a cynical activity,” he says.

Transformational leadership, when coupled with a motivated employee in the right working environment, Martinsen argues, is the recipe for creative output.

Although some people naturally are more creative than others, it is possible for non-creative types to learn how to become more creative, says Martinsen, who calls for educators and trainers to emphasise creativity in their secondary school, university and management training curricula.

Successful, innovative companies tend to have chief executives that understand and nuture creativity, agrees Eddie Commons, manager of applied innovation at Enterprise Ireland.

“Where the chief executive is convincingly behind a more creative way of doing business, the organisational culture is generally supportive of doing bigger and better things. Ambitious companies with good leadership get the most from innovation effort,” he says.

Creative people in general are more open to accepting the role of innovation in providing the best chance for economic success, says Commons, whereas less creative people are more likely to dwell on the fact that innovation success is not “certain”.

In an effort to encourage a creative climate in Irish business, Enterprise Ireland offers initiatives to help companies improve their understanding of creativity and innovation management.

Employees from Marco Beverage Systems, (a company that manufactures beverage-making equipment aimed at the catering and food service distribution industries) participated in one such Enterprise Ireland-led creativity and innovation management programme in 2008.

Today, the company sets time aside for “creative playtime” to ensure a continuous flow of creative output – although it’s a “huge battle” to keep that time in the schedule, says operations manager, Paul Stack.

“Going forward together in a group, talking about creativity is exciting. People like to work for a company that’s focused on creativity and innovation and moving forward. You get an energy,” he says.

Creative playtime has helped the company find creative solutions on both the engineering and business sides. And with business issues being managed more creatively, the company has benefited from improvements in many aspects of their business from new production floor designs to improved dispatch management, says Stack.

Marco uses psychometric testing at the hiring stage to identify key personality traits among potential employees, including creativity and leadership, but also believes creative techniques can be taught.

“Lateral thinking and processes can be taught to help people come up with more creative results, if the process allows and the training exists and people are essentially given the time. But I fundamentally believe that some people are more creative than others,” says Stack.

Time-pressure is the biggest obstacle to creativity, says Stack, but engineers also have a tendency to think too linearly.

“In my experience, you find awesome, but very linear, mechanical and software engineers and we need to take in people with an industrial design background to give the team that creativity. Even at third level they are not taught it sufficiently, or it is not supported sufficiently,” says Stack.

While creativity can be taught "to some extent", educators, particularly at secondary level, need to focus on teaching the basics correctly, says Eugene O'Brien, professor of civil engineering in the School of Architecture, Landscape and Civil Engineering, University College Dublin. O'Brien founded Roughan O'Donovan Innovative Solutions (ROD-IS) to commercialise innovative approaches to bridge safety assessment.

"At undergraduate level, we do have a module which teaches an innovative approach to conceptual design but I'm not convinced that it can be easily taught. We can, however, develop innovation in our PhD students and you can see them progress through their years of study," says O'Brien.

"Some innovation at second level would be useful but the priority at that level should be on getting the basics right. Give me a student any day who is ace in maths and physics and I will make a great engineer out of him or her."

ROD-IS doesn't use personality testing at the hiring stage. "I'm pretty sure most employers of civil engineers don't either, despite the fact that we would all acknowledge the importance of innovation in engineering design," says O'Brien.

Instead, ROD-IS looks for candidates with strong analytical abilities, an understanding of the complexities of engineering and good communication skills.

"If our recruits do not truly understand the engineering principles, then no amount of innovation will solve their problems. Indeed, I would go so far as to say that understanding is a prerequisite for innovation. Only when engineers have a superior command of their subject can they think about innovating," he says.

Meanwhile, UCD's Earth Systems Institute (ESI), a research centre dedicated to finding solutions to sustainable energy, climate change, natural hazard and nature conservation challenges, uses the TCD-UCD Innovation Alliance to support innovation at the university level.

"Strategically, our plan is to reduce the transaction costs of going from research to enterprise, and one key to this is geography," says Prof Frank Convery at ESI.

Designed to foster partnerships between universities and industry, the strategy involves innovation-centred course work, software and workshops. It brings innovators together to facilitate informal and spontaneous interaction as well as more structured engagement.

"Enterprise comes in all sorts of shapes and sizes, serendipity is important, and we need to be open to, and encouraging of all, whether it is start ups, partnerships, or just solving an immediate problem," says Convery.