Team Creativity

“Creativity, or ideation is the production of novel and useful ideas – the ability to form new concepts using existing knowledge… Innovation is the realization of novel ideas in the form of products and services” (Thompson, 2011). It is one of the least understood aspects of business and teamwork, and one of the most important. There are many aspects of creativity, from understanding, to hindrances, to enhancements, and everything in between.

Creativity can be measured by its fluency i.e. how many ideas can be generated by one person or team, flexibility which is defined as how many types of ideas are created, and last is originality i.e how unique or unusual a solution is. These three characteristics are strongly related to each other. Generally some who has high originality also has high flexibility and fluency. Everybody has its own thinking. This thinking can be of two types: Convergent and divergent. Convergent is thinking towards common things while divergent is thinking “outside’ the box. In general cases, divergent thinking is beneficial as it results in many ideas and that too highly creative.

Threats to Team Creativity

Social Loafing: This is the tendency for group members to slack off. These members may think their ideas are dispensable, or may see other members working hard, and believe they do not need to contribute.

Conformity: Members may conform due to the desire to be liked. If they believe their teammates will be critical of their suggestions, they will be more likely to agree rather than disagree.

Production Blocking: This can occur when members cannot express their ideas because others are expressing their own. When working alone, individuals can work without interruption of thought, whereas when working in a group, members may forget their ideas or may not get time to speak.

Performance Matching: When working in a team for an excessive amount of time, members will start to develop the same tendencies. Members that achieve higher ideals than the group may “lower their standards”, whereas members that work at a slower pace may “raise the bar”. Overall, the team will plateau, and may find it more difficult to generate unique ideas over time.

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