Forcing Creativity
Since I attended kindergarten, I have had a loathing for cutesy, interactive classroom activities. Perhaps it’s my cold personality (a Chinese colleague, showing off his English vocab, called me ‘cadaverous’ the other day. I just shrugged it off).
However, I do understand the need for multinationals (foreign and domestic) to attempt to jump-start the brains of their staff and get the neurons firing. I’m in support of giving staff more responsibility, fostering creativity, and providing incentives for innovation. I would also expect that anything to do with innovation will be seen favorably here, particularly by the government.
What I don’t believe is that you can force innovation via corporate retreats to some hotel, where you spend the weekend playing childish games, ‘bonding’ with your co-workers, and getting hammered on tequila after dinner. Well, the tequila part is OK I suppose.
Apparently this sort of thing is getting popular here. I had to participate in one of these about a year ago — downright painful, it was. I think that this writeup in the AP does the subject justice (h/t Digital Times):
Amena Schlaijker makes her students cluck like chickens, mimic a toothbrush, jump up and down or pretend to die an agonizing death.
The aim is to make budding business leaders think outside the box.
It may sound extreme, but this is China, where students have grown up on rote learning and the ruling Communist Party has long discouraged creative thinking lest it lead to challenging authority.
"You can tell them to think outside of the box, but some employees don’t even have the concept of a box to begin with," said Roy Magee, an Australian whose training company, AchieveGlobal, has operated in China since 1997. "We just have to go in and start from scratch."
It comes as the government works on the economy’s next leap forward — to transform the nation’s industry from "Made in China" to "Invented in China." Addressing parliament last year, President Hu Jintao spoke of making China a nation of innovators. At the same time, China is recognizing that as wages and land prices rise, it is no longer a cheap place to manufacture other countries’ products, and needs to invent its own to remain globally competitive.
I’m a dyed-in-the-wool skeptic on this issue. Creativity can be encouraged but it is very difficult to foster in adults. I understand that China desperately wants to move up that value chain and have an IP-based economy, but you need patience for that sort of thing. Running around clucking like a chicken just makes everyone uncomfortable.
My suggestion: everyone should start a blog.
OK, obviously I was not being serious with that comment. Blogging, for most people, is even more uncomfortable than acting like a chicken. So if your company is in a bind, perhaps they can try the chicken pantomime initiative for a few weeks to see if there are any positive effects. Think of how much fun you can have telling your clients:
See that guy over there? That’s Xiao Li. Today he is acting like a chicken. It hasn’t helped boost his productivity, but we can sure use the eggs. [Note: I will not respond to any hate mail sent to me because of that joke, so don't bother.]
I’m not sure that you can foster creativity if it isn’t something that starts young. My sister was a public librarian in Compton, CA and one thing she noticed is that when she did creative activities for the teens, they all just copied what she did, even though she tried to get them to do their own thing or make it their own. I’m not saying that Compton teens are not creative, but it isn’t something that is fostered in their community and it may not be possible to fix that by doing chicken exercises.
If they can’t even figure out what the box is, how are they going to think outside of it?
Well put. This stuff doesn’t work in China, and I’m guessing it doesn’t really “work” anywhere else. I suggest you read “The Power of Simplicity” which has a chapter on this subject.
Creativity comes from eliminating the fear of failure and encouraging appropriate risk-taking. Employees can be encouraged to think of the company, or their functions, as their laboratory, where they can try test ideas. There’s more to leadership than that, but that’s a major chunk of encouraging creativity.
I’ve been asked many times by my people (here in China) to let them go on these types of retreats, or to organize this type of activity in house (falling off a chair blindfolded and expecting your teammates to catch you seems to be a popular one.) I’ve never bought into it and don’t expect to any time soon.
Creativity in China is a humorous concept. Coming up with a new idea is difficult. Even thinking ahead about possible consequences and then taking steps to reduce risk is difficult.
But, jury-rig a car or home appliance or cooking utensil or bicycle or scooter …. that is easy.
So why is repair-creativity so wide spread but new-idea-creativity not?
While I sort of disagree with the general idea behind both you and David Levy’s comment, I agree with some specific comments both of you made.
Growing up in the West I did a program called “Odyssey of the Mind” for 9 years in grade school (we made it to the World FInals twice and I got to compete against a Chinese team!). What “OM” taught us was the skills necessary to be creative. Yes, some people think that you do not need “skills” to be creative, but I think you need to map your mind in a certain way to take advantage of allowing creativity to pour out. That said, I see many programs “teaching creativity” incorrectly and focusing too much on “not being scared of making mistakes” but not enough on learning true skills and tools to help open the brain.
David Levy is correct that “Creativity comes from eliminating the fear of failure and encouraging appropriate risk-taking”, but that is only a small part of it. Being creative is not just “thinking outside the box”. Instead it is also “thinking what to do with the box”.
While this is not explicitly stated in the post or comments here (except in “Creativity in China is a humorous concept”), there are often people who say “Chinese and/or Asians are not creative.” That’s total nonsense to write-off an entire society like that. To that I say:
a) many people who make those claims do not work daily in fields that are deemed “creative”, and therefore do not see great Chinese creativity at work; and
b) they can’t see the forest for the trees.
Our office had to pick up the very messy pieces of one of these creative/bonding sessions. We had a very capable manager of Asian background who freaked out when forced to take part in a session that sought to explore inner motivations through group critiques. Maybe he found it too reminiscent of the mass public criticisms of the Cultural Revolution, or maybe he just lost face. He’s still on sick leave.
Exactly what you speak of here is what allows me to sleep at night. I don’t think China has enough intelligence to take over the United States’ superpower status. The very few at the top of the regime can do some, but not enough.
There are a few people in the US that still have this ability left, and measuring from my interactions and indirect conversations with others, that it probably WAY more than China.
Good-night, and sleep-tight.