BRAINSTORMING

It is difficult and challenging to be a manager today. Business must be able to adjust rapidly and effectively to the many changes occurring in our technology and our society. However, the era of rapid change we have experienced is but a harbinger of what is to come.

Most futurists agree that the current decade will be more turbulent, more unpredictable and even more rapidly changing than any decade we have experienced. Therefore, in the future, good managers will have to work even harder and be a little bit better than they are now.

Peter Drucker, the noted economist and author, has stated that the demands on the creative abilities of managers have doubled in each succeeding generation. The ability to harness the power of creative thinking will be an important — perhaps the most important — factor in being a better manager and ensuring business success in the future.

After all, every response to change and every improvement or advancement in business is a result of ideas, nurtured by a creative atmosphere. Good managers will develop this creative atmosphere in their companies by a conscious effort rather than leaving its development to chance.

In the earlier part of this century, industrial engineering principles provided the focus for business improvement. Men such as Frederick Taylor and Henry Ford developed the highly specialized, assembly-line work methods which were used in most of our industrial plants.

In this setting, only a few senior managers were permitted to design improvements, and these changes tended to be oriented towards process streamlining and productivity improvement. Management concerns focused on the technical or “hard” side of the business. The needs, aspirations and the creative potential of the people working on the assembly lines were largely forgotten by managers.

In the service and information economy of the future, every person within a company must be accorded a high level of responsibility. He must be responsible for providing good customer service, and he must be able to identify new business opportunities. Even in future industrial settings (for example, in the mining industry), fewer people will be responsible for managing a greater amount of capital equipment as productivity continues to increase.

The true value of people in every industry today and tomorrow has therefore shifted from their physical or manual abilities to their creative abilities. Our management methods must recognize this change and create an environment that promotes new ideas and creativity.

Although most of our society’s celebrated advances in technology were the result of some form of creative thinking, and most people would acknowledge the need for a business to continually adopt new ideas, many managers have difficulty understanding how to nurture and develop creativity within their organization.

Every growing child is extremely creative, with ingenuity and imagination peaking sometime around the age of eight. After the years of formal education have ended and that child becomes an adult, his creativity begins to decline significantly. In later years, creative thinking only occurs in infrequent spurts — usually when a person is forced by circumstances to be imaginative.

Despite this tendency for creativity to decline as one ages, the potential for creativity in everyone at any age is strong and only needs to be stimulated. There are several guidelines managers can follow to create an atmosphere of innovation within their companies, resulting in the development of exciting ideas for their businesses. Some of these guidelines are as follows:

* Set an example — As a manager, you can set an example to your employees by being imaginative and responsive to new ideas. Act as a role model. After all, people seldom improve if they have no other model but themselves to copy.

* Encourage self-improvement — Charles Schwab once said that when a man has put a limit on what he will do, he has put a limit on what he can do. Instill in your employees a sense that they can become better. Training or self-improvement seminars are an excellent motivational tool. If people’s interest is sparked and the creative fuse is lit, anything is possible.

* Brainstorm — The term “brainstorming” was developed by Alex Osborn, who defines the process as one where a group of people use their “brain to storm” a creative problem. The technique is used by many nationally known companies to develop a multitude of possible solutions to a problem, improving the chances of finding the best solution. The key ingredients of brainstorming are:

— Don’t judge ideas for practicability at first, but write down all ideas and do the judging later;

— Have as many relevant people involved as possible; and

— Study suggested ideas to see whether combinations or improvements to the ideas can be made. Even though an idea may not seem useful, it may lead to something better. Remember that when Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone, he was really working on a device to help the deaf hear.

* Don’t “chloroform” ideas — There are many ways of killing new ideas. One writer has listed more than 60 common phrases that managers use to stop innovation in its tracks; for example:

— It won’t work.

— It needs more study.

— It’s not in the budget.

— We’ve never done it that way before.

* Use lateral thinking — Often, a solution to a problem is not immediately obvious. Ideas sometimes can be developed if one “steps back” from the problem or gives some time for new thoughts to emerge. After all, one cannot see the stars in the heavens more clearly by turning on more lamps.

Albert Einstein said imagination is more important than knowledge. Creativity is the force that can give your company a real edge in business. It is also a quality we, as Canadians, desperately need to encourage if we are to maintain our competitiveness in the world market of the future.