CREATIVITY, INNOVATION AND DESIGN THINKING ARGUMENTATIVE ESSAY

CREATIVITY, INNOVATION AND DESIGN THINKING ARGUMENTATIVE ESSAY

Introduction

Despite the innovation, creativity, and design thinking playing critical collaborative and individual roles, they have not shown noteworthy disparities in educational perspectives. As such, concerns have been raised to avert the differences caused by design thinking, creativity, and innovation in the organizational setting. Managerial perspectives have, therefore, been developed to exemplify the concepts of innovation, creativity, and design thinking relative to specific benefits provide by the designer or creator. Moreover, the concepts play an integral role in promoting a worker’s research, development, and human resource management. As a result, legal ownership of innovations, creations, and designs have controversially depicted conflicts between employees and organizational management. Hence, a business must safeguard the legal ownership and contribution of every stakeholder towards an organization’s success.

The success of an organization in terms of creativity, innovation, and design thinking is dependent on the work of individual personnel only. Therefore, from an individual perspective, I partially agree that organizations only make a little impact in strengthening design thinking, creativity, and innovation. The argument used to support the aforementioned statement uses the componential theory as developed by Theresa Amabile, the management theory, the person fit theory, and the leader-member exchange theory. As such, the theories would be used to provide practical examples from organizations like Google LLC and Tesla Inc. the essay structure would be divided into two different sections having two paragraphs each. The first paragraph in each section provides relevant descriptions and literature backgrounds on concepts such as innovation, creativity, and design thinking. Besides, the second part would utilize specific theories that characterize individuals and organizational roles.

Creativity

Creativity refers to the use of original concepts and ideas to create an original and inventive portfolio to achieve change. However, individual creativity refers to the efforts of distinct workers to make a collective organizational objective (Bowler, 2014, pp. 58). For example, a particular worker is required to possess the personal creative skills and principles needed to achieve success in a business portfolio. It is worth noting that personal principles cannot be depicted as a firm’s terms and conditions but rather as employees’ strengths and weaknesses. In addition, organizational creativity entails the use of resources, tools, and approaches needed to foster collaborative business behaviors. My partial agreement to organizations only making a small impact on creativity is exemplified in the above stipulations. To achieve the overall organizational success, all the stakeholders must collaboratively work together. Hence, creativity must be developed by individuals and organizations to achieve desirable success levels. For instance, Google LLC is an American multinational company, has utilized organizational creativity (Bowler, 2014, pp. 58). The multinational technological company provides a unique, comfortable, and luxurious office setting to spur organizational creativity. Therefore, individual creativity depends on distinct workers’ genius levels to safeguard a company’s survival in the future. On the other hand, organizational creativity only thrives through a collective and effective collaborative initiative in business.

The componential theory on creativity stipulates that individual workers must utilize required creativity processes and excellent task motivation to achieve collective success. As such, the theory outlines the need to develop effective creativity activities that relate to efforts made by specific workers. Stipulations made by the theory are applicable to Tesla Inc., which is an automotive and energy firm based in California (Cropley, 2015, pp. 161). Over the years, the company has encouraged its personnel to develop its own rules and limitations (Davis, 2011). The initiative the empower the employees aims at creating diverse social roles for the workers in consideration of the world as a huge investment arena. As a result, Tesla has empowered its employees to use individual creativity to align the rules and limitations relative to personal capabilities. Nevertheless, the consistency of individual creativity does not align with the findings of research carried out. Findings from the researches indicate that organizational and individual research is always dependent on policies enacted by organizations like Tesla. Around 84% of companies that use individual creativity have been found to promote organizational creativity through the use of team reward-based policies (Davis, 2011). As such, firms like Google and Tesla need to hire innovative and creative stakeholders to increase the organization’s performance (Gibson, 2016, pp. 1). Also, Tesla and Google need to foster the development of managerial practices practicing organizational creativity.

Innovation

Innovation is the act of creating and developing new and creative thoughts. As such, innovation is applied to provide improved solutions to meet the needs and requirements in the existing markets. Besides, innovation refers to the promotion and generation of new ideas that would be utilized by an organization to improve personal and group outputs. The innovation process is usually competitive and unpredictable hence the need to evaluate the risks posed to the management. Individual innovation requires an organization to manipulate and evaluate its environment of operation creatively to safeguard future operations (Anderson, 2012, pp. 30). I partially agree with the fact that organizations make a little impact on innovation. In support of my argument. Organization innovation entails social constructs to hypothesize means to develop new ideas through interactions with relevant stakeholders. On the other hand, individual innovation largely depends on the environmental and physiological impact on organizational success. Thus, a collaborative venture is needed to spearhead the development of successful innovation activities by both individuals and organization management (Culén, 2015, pp. 127). An organization should not be seen to play an insignificant role in innovation because it is mandated to re-engineer their supply chains to achieve development. The employees only follow what has already been laid down as the company’s portfolio. However, there is a need to empower innovative minds in an organization.

The person-environment fit theory stipulates a number of options individuals should adapt to organizational innovation. The person-environment fit theory stipulates that individuals must adapt to the environment through the replacement of abilities, behaviors, and set expectations (Rauth et al., 2010). Also, the individuals should alter the working environment to align methods, objectives, and approaches used in interpersonal communication with organizational stakeholders. Therefore, the theory exemplifies some of the successful innovation initiatives undertaken by firms like Tesla Inc. relative to the four insights on innovation (Gibson, 2016, pp. 1). As such, Tesla was required to harness trends, challenge orthodoxies, comprehend market needs, and leverage resources. Tesla CEO Elon Musk has, therefore, become an outstanding innovator due to the utilization of the four innovation perceptions (Dyer & Gregersen, pp. 1). Musk has utilized individual innovative approaches to develop innovative ideas in technology and electric vehicle manufacturing. In addition, the leader-member exchange theory embarks on a quality affiliation between the workers and the managerial team depends on adopted innovative strategies. As such, the theory develops an insight into innovative activities adopted by Google LLC while carrying out data mining (CBS NEWS, 2013). The Google data mining processes provide a warm reception of its new employees, thus promoting their overall wellbeing. As a result, Google LLC has maximized its innovation prospects to improve manager-employee relationships in the workplace.

Design thinking

Design thinking encompasses the process and concepts that guide ideas and action plans adopted during the innovation process. In education, design thinking has been thought to have a wicked nature because students are not equipped with relevant theories prior to becoming designers. However, from a managerial perspective, design thinking is perceived to be the best strategic approach to creativity and innovativeness. Nevertheless, individual design thinking utilizes a cognitive capability to solve organizational problems (Guerra & Tripp, 2018, pp. 170). Organizational design thinking utilizes a firm’s resources to spur innovation needed to achieve the much-desired change. For instance, Google LLC utilizes individual thinking design, which aligns with the stakeholder’s aesthetic opinions. At one point, Google’s vice president on real estate services received complaints in the purple room. Despite being unable to understand the reasons for the negative attribute, the purple room spaces at the workplace were eliminated (Tschimmel, 2012). It seems that the purple sections had a negative impact on the employees’ working environment. As such, the management utilized aesthetic opinions from individual workers to formulate changes in the workplace. Therefore, employees and organizational management must work together to articulate desirable changes in design thinking of firms like Google LLC (CBS NEWS, 2013). Collective responsibility is thus required to develop a cognitive and strategic approach to the problems facing organizations relative to modernity trends.

The management theory outlines that design thinking requires group collaboration since it is a working process (Ideo, 2018, pp.1). The process is usually less distinct while having cognitive abilities to foster concerns raised during design thinking. The theory develops required consistency as required in cognitive design hence creating a connection required to create a simultaneous design process (Rauth et al., 2010). Furthermore, the management theory spearheads the development of a synergic flow as a team, contrary to individual efforts. For example, over the years, Tesla Inc. has developed successful organizational and individual design thinking processes through the use of aluminum (Guerra & Tripp, 2018, pp. 170). Tesla’s engineers and Musk comprehend that aluminum is stronger than steel but poses different perspectives on innovation. In terms of individual design thinking, Musk stipulates that knowledge is vital in leveraging resources compared to experience. Tesla’s organizational design thinking ensures that its engineers change aluminum bodies to ensure they adapt to requirements for space X rockets. As a result, design thinking activities adopted by Tesla have formed the backbone for its continued growth and development in the market. Tesla’s car design has received numerous positivity as they fulfill their clients’ specifications, thus qualify for multipurpose usage.

Conclusion

From a managerial perspective, innovation, creativity, and design thinking are generally complicated but must be utilized to create intellectual value. The concepts provide varying values and attribute to facilitate individual and organizational success. Business situations, as exemplified by Tesla and Google LLC, outline that success is partially attributable to individuals and organizational groups. In distinct scenarios, innovation, creativity, and design thinking are affiliated to organizational groups and individuals as intellectual properties. Each of the concepts relies on different theories with the componential theory articulating the importance of personal work throughout the creative process. On the other hand, the person-environment theory outlines the significance of environmental sensitivity towards individual innovation. In addition, the management theory highlights the need to use cognitive characteristics rather than stylistic nature during the design thinking process. Thus, the theories function as frameworks for innovation, creativity, and design thinking in a managerial and educational perspective.

References

Anderson, N., 2012. Achieving higher education graduate attributes in the area of creativity, innovation, and problem-solving through the use of design thinking. In QSApple Conference Proceedings (Vol. 7, pp. 29-33). James Cook University.

Bowler, L., 2014. Creativity through” maker” experiences and design thinking in the education of librarians. Knowledge Quest, 42(5), p.58.

CBS NEWS (2013). Inside Google workplaces, from perks to nap pods. [online] Cbsnews.com. Available at: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/inside-google-workplaces-from-perks-to-nap-pods/ [Accessed 12 Feb. 2020].

Cropley, D.H., 2015. Promoting creativity and innovation in engineering education. Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts, 9(2), p.161.

Culén, A.L., 2015. HCI education: Innovation, creativity, and design thinking. International Conferences on Advances in Computer-Human Interactions (pp. 125-130).

Davis, M., 2011. Creativity, innovation, and design thinking. Creativity and Design in Technology & Engineering Education, 1001.

Dyer, J., and Gregersen, H. (2016). Tesla’s Innovations Are Transforming The Auto Industry. [online] Forbes.com. Available at: https://www.forbes.com/sites/innovatorsdna/2016/08/24/teslas-innovations-are-transforming-the-auto-industry/#1a210bb319f7 [Accessed 12 Feb. 2020].

Gibson, R. (2016). How Tesla became one of the world’s great innovators. [online] Theleadershipnetwork.com. Available at: https://theleadershipnetwork.com/article/tesla-innovator [Accessed 12 Feb. 2020].

Guerra, M.A., and Tripp, S., 2018. Theoretically comparing design thinking to design methods for large-scale infrastructure systems. In D.S. 89: Proceedings of The Fifth International Conference on Design Creativity (ICDC 2018), University of Bath, Bath, U.K. (pp. 168-175).

Ideo (2018). This is the Way Google & IDEO Foster Creativity. [online] IDEO U. Available at: https://www.ideou.com/blogs/inspiration/how-google-fosters-creativity-innovation [Accessed 12 Feb. 2020].

Rauth, I., Köppen, E., Jobst, B., and Meinel, C., 2010. Design thinking: An educational model towards creative confidence. In DS 66-2: Proceedings of the 1st international conference on design creativity (ICDC 2010).

Schimmel, K., 2012. Design Thinking as an effective Toolkit for Innovation. In ISPIM Conference Proceedings (p. 1). The International Society for Professional Innovation Management (ISPIM).