MIS41020 - When Collections of Creatives Become Creative Collectives: A field study of problem solving at work

Module - Design, Development and Creativity

Class or Article - Article

Lesson or Name - WHargadon, A. B. & Bechky, B. A. (2006) When Collections of Creatives Become Creative Collectives: A field study of problem solving at work. 

Additional Info -  484-500

Precis

In this article 'When Collections of Creatives Become Creative Collectives: A field study of problem solving at work. ' by Hargadon and Bechky they present the notion of creative people collectively come together they create a creative collective. They look at this from 4 angles Help Seeking, Help Giving, Reflective Reframing and Reinforcing. Help seeking playes a pivotal role in getting over the creative barrier and creating moment of creativity itself. Problem solving cultures thrive on participants asking for help and creating a group collective but this has issues in the sense of who is invited to collaborate. Help Giving in essence looks to remove such concern but in effect can cause another domino effect. When someone asks for help, help is expected to be given, but this could be to the detriment of the help giver who may be pressed for time. Reflective reframing is a vital component to the creative collective ensuring that things like questions are the right question or when brain storming you may take a different direction and reframe it in another light. Reinforcing them comes in to effect from a more culture/environment perspective. If Juniors, Peer or even more senior management see people asking for help, receiving it and driving better outcomes this reinforces this method/model of working.It is important that reinforcement is utilised in order to drive the attributes you want in to the culture ingraining them in the companies DNA. If this is the case then it becomes the norm and in essence the reinforcement is cyclical. 

Reflection

Having studied design, design thinking and creativity and innovation I have always been open to asking for help even when it is not apart of the culture. And in turn I have then been the recipient of being asked for help as people seen me as open. I find it extraordinarily counter productive that companies do not actively encourage asking for help and should actually promote it. There is a tendency in organisations such as consultancy or technology companies not to ask for information or help as it reflects on your knowledge, but there needs to be an acceptance that one person can not know everything. Equally creating a culture of people helping one another is way of companies achieving mass dissemination of knowledge, improving knowledge share and in turn increasing efficiencies.  However as Hargadon and Bechky discuss it is the reinforcement of that to engrain it deep in the the culture of the business and put it at the centre of their DNA. Creating an open environment where colleagues are will to ask for help and provide assistance creates a much more collaborative and creative environment. Additionally it also provides clarity on where people and projects are at.

The saying two heads are better than one, comes to mind.

Also so did this image, when we are pulling in different directions the desired outcome is not achieved, however when we stop and work collaboratively both sides can achieve their desired outcome and benefit.



Notes

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