DEAN C, DAUW

Bridging the Creat ivif y - Innovation Gap*

John Gardner (1965) has said : “Perhaps the most distinctive thing about innovation today is that we are beginning to pursue it systematically. . . . What may be most in need of innovation is the corporation itself. Perhaps what every corpo- ration (and every other organization) needs is a department of continuous renewal that would view the whole organization as a system in need of continuing innovation.” Fortunately, many corporations are now initiating programs in organiza- tional development. Executives are seeing more clearly that they cannot maintain a system without innovation, nor in- novate without maintaining the system. Organizations must face the challenge of balancing the maintenance demands and the innovation demands. On the other hand, as Machiavelli has written, “There is nothing more difficult to carry out, nor more doubtful of suc- cess, nor more dangerous to handle, than to initiate a new order of things.”

“Initiating a new order of things” is precisely what is in- volved in organizational innovation. Modern corporations and organizations of all kinds are finding that Machiavelli’s words contain a truism more and more relevant to their daily ventures. A large part of the problem is a result of divergence in re- search trends. One trend leads investigators to attempt the

A NEW ORDER

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ROAD IN THE

*The author’s article on Creativity Research on Actuaries appears in Volume 11, number 4, Fall 1968 of the Journal of Creative Behavior.

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formulation of a theory of innovative behavior in organiza- tions; another trend leads investigators into an analysis of individual creativity. On the surface, there appears to be no real divergence and one might wonder briefly why these trends should not in fact overlap. But let us urge a distinction be- tween innovation and invention.

Invention is the product of an original, elaborating, highly creative thinker who can usually generate novel ideas rather fluently. (He cannot always translate them into action as easily, however, if he is able to do it at all.) Inventions need not occur within an organization by any means, and prob- ably will not unless the organization has at least one original thinker.

Innovation, on the other hand, is an organizational or social process that usually follows invention but can be sep- arated from it in time and place.

This, then, is the difference : invention is individual, inno- vation is organizational, or basically a cooperative group action. Becker and Whisler (1967), for instance, after reviewing the literature on innovation in organizations, define the term as the initial or early use of an idea by one of a set of organizations with similar goals. Once innovation is defined in these terms, the theoretical problem is to explain what predisposes or equips an organiza- tion to become a leader. As stated, research to date has tended to keep separate these two characteristics - invention and innovation - and as a result we know a great deal more about creativity in individuals than we know about innova- tion in organizations.

Why should this be so? Becker and Whisler reach a major conclusion after spotlighting various research studies in organ- izational behavior (Shepard, 1967; Knight, 1967; Sapolsky, 1967; Becker & Stafford, 1967; Evan & Black, 1967, and Car- roll, 1967) : Most previous empirical work was cross-sectional, where statistical relationships were established between se- lected inputs and outputs. The results have not been very encouraging. This is not too surprising because all four steps of the process are treated as an intervening variable: that is, the researchers look first at inputs across a number of organizations prior to the adoption of an innovation, and then they relate those inputs to the various outputs.

Innovation actually seems to be not a single variable but an attenuated, complex process in which many critical vari- ables operate. Considering this, longitudinal analysis prob-

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ably would be more productive, even at the level of single case studies.

Shepard (1967) makes motions toward bridging the gap between individual creativity and organizational innovation, but he does not really make the final point because his pri- mary focus is actually on the organizations themselves. And, his concept of an innovator in innovation-resisting organiza- tions is very like that highly original thinker described in the creativity research. Such a creative innovator needs a unique combination of qualities : an original yet pragmatic imagina- tion; psychological security and autonomy; the gift of trust- ing and earning the trust of others; great and determined energy; sense of timing; organizing ability; and a willingness and skill to be Machiavellian when it is needed.

Other research has identified some relatively creative per- sonalities employed in organizations and has also described at least one industry which has set up programs to identify and nurture highly original thinkers (Dauw, 1966,1967,1968 a, b). Yet it is not clearly known whether these original thinkers have been able to actually effect any innovations as distinct from inventions. Interestingly, the most certain fact known about them is that their turnover rates are at least twice as high as their less creative peers’ (Dauw, 1967). One might conclude, then, that they have relatively little opportu- nity to perform much innovation. Future research will have to determine where these original thinkers eventually are able to find an environment that will nurture their creativity or whether their growing frustrations induce personality changes. Their creative thinking abilities may tend to diminish or “ossify” before significant (or any) innovations can occur.

Now let us turn to the other research trend: most creativity research identifies and studies original inventors. The typical subjects range from eminent architects (MacKinnon, 1962) to highly creative grade schoolers (Torrance, 1962, 1965). Most of these individuals are isolated outside of organizations. Furthermore, a great many of the findings from these studies have been applied in the development of programs for im- proving individual creative problem solving abilities; few find- ings have gone into the construction of programs for training individuals to be increasingly better innovators. That is, we can show engineers how to become more original, inventive thinkers who can churn out patents in the hot-house-nursery settings of various industrial laboratories, but so far we have not really been able to teach managers and executives how to innovate more effectively. (See, for example, Dauw’s sum-

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mary [19661 of the research on managerial creativity in organ- izations.) The problem is being approached indirectly by the entire human relations “sensitivity” movement, which helps managers better understand themselves and their impact on peer groups, so that they eventually can work more harmoni- ously together. (Bradford, et al., 1964; Schein & Bennis, 1965; see also the Journal of Applied Behavioral Science literature on sensitivity training and T-grouping.)

The point, then, seems clear: creativity research has identi- fied some original thinkers who are mostly - if not exclu- sively - in private practice or isolated settings; organiza- tional-innovations-theory has led to much related research and theorizing about innovations, but little, if any, parallel research on the personalities of successful innovators-in-organ- izations. An example of this latter type of research is available in O’Connell’s monograph (1968), which eminently chronicles a major innovation (some theorists might call it “change”) in the insurance industry. The monograph details the work of a major consulting firm helping one of the world’s largest in- surance companies to reorganize their nationwide branch office structure.

O’Connell’s first chapter tentatively approaches ”a theory of organizational change.” His next five chapters marshal the evidence. Finally, organization theorists can delight in his last two chapters concluding the “planning” and “controlling” of change.

One major element seems lacking, however. Apparently, no attempt was made to understand the personalities of the innovating consultants. Were they really creative? Or were they merely skillful manipulators who succeeded partly be- cause of a corporation‘s desperate plight? These consultants may very well have been highly creative. On the other hand, my own employment experience with two management consulting firms (and my close friendship with consultants) has led me to observe that a high degree of creativity is rarely a characteristic of career consultants. Thus, it is a possibility that the consultants’ success in the project recorded by OConnell may have resulted from the interaction of their Machiavellian skills; hard, honest labor; and an additional combination of organizational needs and attitudes. Looking at O’Connell’s evidence and taking into consideration other studies cited here, it would seem that one of the most necessary and fruitful areas of research to help bridge the

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creativity-innovation gap is the identification of really suc- cessful, innovating change agents. After identification, they should be studied as an experimental group - possibly using as a control group managers and executives with identical backgrounds, such as education, family, and so forth. Obvi- ously, a longitudinal study of the kind that will eventually become possible because of ”Project Talent”-type data would be more fruitful than a cross-section research plan.

Such a study may enable us to understand more fully Shepard’s (1967) hypotheses about innovating change agents. Perhaps their innovating talent is more of a “halo effect,” or the result of various felicitous environmental circum- stances. That is, possibly the most potent innovator is ineffec- tive unless his work coincides with a crisis or series of crises that put people in a mood to accept innovation. If this is true, organizations should know it and they should also know what to look for in and expect from innovators. Innovation is an organizational tool for growth and progress - for change, in other words - just as maintenance is a tool for continued existence. If an organization is to continue existing, however, it must do more than merely “maintain” itself; it must ”keep up with the times,” which means it has to change as society changes. It’s doubtful that this can be done without research into the nature of innovation, action and change; and to date, industrial research has not commonly had as its goal the acquisition of new knowledge. Berry (1967) suggests that personnel researchers in industry, because of the nature of their function as they seem to define it, conduct studies to solve people problems and to make needed changes in the firm’s behavior system. Although action and change should be among the goals of research and should be built into the research design, the investigators inter- viewed by Berry did not seem to consider implementation as a necessary variable or goal. Because of this, the organ- izational utilization of the personnel research function has been restricted and limited. Berry concluded that until imple- mentation is visualized as a research variable and is built into the research program, these departments will find their organizational growth rates and impact limited.

It may well be that this is exactly where the gap can be bridged. Innovation may be more readily accomplished by a creative person rather than by a typical change agent because he can build in the implementation phase. Since we already have so much literature on the creative person, particularly those outside of existing organizations, we need now to turn

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our research attention to innovations and the creative person‘s relationship to them. In other words, we already have a certain amount of information regarding the organization’s impact on the creative personality; we now need, along with research into the nature of innovation as defined here, information regarding the impact of the creative individual on his organ- ization. Business, industry, and society at large all are affected by change, and they should be equally interested in its agents.

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BECKER, S . W. & WHISLER, T. L. The innovative organization: A selective view of current theory and research. 7 . of Business, 1967, 40,

BERRY, D. F. Politics of personnel research. Ann Arbor: Univ. of Mich-

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GARDNER, J. W. Self renewal. New York: Harper & Row, 1965. KNIGHT, K. E. A description model of the intra-firm innovation process.

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Dean C. Dauw, Associate Professor, Department of Management. Address: DePaul University, 25 East Jackson Boulevard Chicago, Illinois 60604.

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