8/8/2014, 4:17 AM Why Companies Are Terrible At Spotting Creative Ideas | Co.

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01/01/14
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Why Companies Are Terrible At Spotting Creative
Ideas
In business, a creative idea is only worth as much as the
manager who can recognize it. Malcolm Gladwell once told
the story of Xerox engineer Gary Starkweather, who
conceived of a laser printer circa 1970 but was forbidden to
pursue it by a boss. Starkweather developed a prototype in
his spare time and forced the company to transfer him so he
could finish it. He basically begged Xerox to let him work on
an idea it should have been begging him to work on.
That story ended just fine for Xerox, but no doubt many other creative ideas
stall in the conception phase for lack of encouragement. Truth is many
managers face what might be called a creativity dilemma: their desire for
novel ideas and creative workers is at odds with their need to provide
practical order. The result of this dilemma, in many cases, is that an aversion
to novelty rules the day.
"An aversion to novelty rules the day."
Management scholar Jennifer Mueller of the University of San Diego has
studied the failures of creative assessment and found hidden cognitive
factors at its core. "There are situational variables that are very subtle and
transitory that can shift your ability to determine what's creative," Mueller
tells Co.Design. These seemingly random factors--such as a manager's
mindset during an idea pitch--can bias people against creativity without
them knowing it.
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In one study, published in
Psychological Science last year, Mueller and collaborators asked test
participants to rate a creative product: a running shoe equipped with
nanotechnology that improved its fit and reduced blistering. Some of the
participants were put in the mindset of someone open to uncertainty (by
being told there were many potential answers to a problem). Others were put
in frame of mind that favored certainty (told that a problem needed a single,
certain resolution).
These slight mental nudges had an outsized effect on assessments of
creativity. Participants who'd been predisposed toward certainty rated the
shoe as significantly less creative than those predisposed to tolerate
uncertainty. They also responded more favorably to concepts of practicality
on an implicit word association test. The researchers concluded that idea
evaluators can harbor a "negative bias against creativity" they don't even
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"An abstract 'why' mindset may
be a better psychological
framework to consider novelty
than a narrow 'how' mentality."
realize exists.
In more recent work, set for publication in the Journal of Experimental
Social Psychology, Mueller and some different collaborators expanded the
idea assessment scenario to include four ideas. Two were independently
rated as creative, and two were not. The researchers wanted to see whether
an evaluator's mindset influenced every idea heard, or only the ideas that
were truly creative.
Before test participants rated the ideas, some
were put in a "why" frame of mind, while others
were put in a "how" frame of mind. The "why"
mindset was supposed to establish the sort of broad, abstract thinking one
might want during creative evaluation (known in psychological terms as a
"high-level construal"). The "how" mindset was meant to evoke a narrow
mentality locked onto practical details and logistics (a "low-level construal").
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"Recognizing which mindsets
stie idea assessment is the rst
step toward resolving the
creativity dilemma. "
All the test participants felt the same way about the two non-creative ideas.
These were seen as uninspiring no matter a person's frame of mind. But
ratings of the creative ideas varied significantly based on which construal had
been established earlier. Participants in the "why" mindset considered the
ideas much more creative than those in "how" mindset. It was as if these
hidden cognitive factors formed a secondary layer of assessment, once an
initial creativity threshold was passed.
Mueller suspects that an abstract or "why" mindset may be a better
psychological framework to consider novelty than, say, a narrow "how"
mentality. "So the 'how' mindset focuses on the one Achilles heel of all
creative ideas, which is the more novel the more uncertainty--the less you
know about how feasible it is," she says. "That's what we think is driving
down these assessments of creative ideas."
Recognizing which mindsets stifle idea
assessment is the first step toward resolving the
creativity dilemma. Managers prone to
practicality can begin pitch meetings with a quick intervention that promotes
a more abstract frame of mind. In Mueller's latest study, the "why" mindset
was achieved simply by asking test participants to consider why people do a
series of common activities: back up a computer, for instance, or drive a car.
Might also ask why people use a laser printer, while you're at it.