Self-Evaluation Application of Course Concepts:

¶ … Self-Evaluation

Application of Course Concepts:

Creativity, discovery and innovation are three of the most critical concepts that organizations must master in order to be successful in today's increasingly competitve marketplace. According to De Miranda, Aranha, and Zardo (2009), creativity, people, environment, and organizational culture are the key elements to organizational success. Gong, Huang, and Farh (2009) found in their study that it was employee creativity that was positively related to not only sales performance, but also employee job performance, in general, as reviewed by their supervisor. Furthermore, the employee's learning orientation and transformational leadership were also positively related to creativity. Zabielaviciene (2009) surmises that organizations that wish to thrive in an innovative field must ensure their teams are comprised of employees who have an inner motivation for creativity and that that creativity is nurtured in order to facilitate innovation. Pandy and Sharma (2009) concur that one of the primary factors for organizational innovation is creativity. It is this innovation and creativity that the start-up of Wonderment Literary Agency would be founded upon.

The literary world is one centered on creativity, yet the back end artistic management oftentimes becomes so bogged down with the business management aspects of their duties that creativity, and therefore innovation, often take a back seat. Wonderment Literary Agency would foster creativity not only with our author clients, but our agents as well. All aspects of the literary management business would be enhanced with the innovations that would flourish due to this commitment to creativity.

Marketing comes in two forms in, in the literary management field -- marketing the agency to attract the best clients to represent and marketing the author clients to publishers. Traditionally, literary agencies rely on a limited number of marketing venues to attract new clients. These include: unsolicited submissions, writer symposiums and referrals from existing clients. Wonderment literary agents will use creative collaboration techniques, such as brainstorming sessions, to think outside the box and discover new ways of attracting new clients. These methods can also be used to discover new ways to market our author clients to publishers, as opposed to the traditional methods of talking to editors on the telephone or by e-mail and simply submitting a manuscript for their review.

Using tools like the Meyers-Briggs Personality Type assessment can help us understand what personality types our team of agents have. In this way, creativity inspiring methods can be geared towards the team members' unique personalities. For instance, an agent who is shown to be introverted may not do as well in a group brainstorming session where ideas are shouted out and would be more productive if the session involved writing down the ideas and then sharing them with the group in a more orderly fashion. No matter what activities are utilized, one thing for certain must be done -- the fear of failure in the team must be eliminated.

Fear of failing can stifle an individual's creativity. Ideas that have too much perceived risk will be shunted aside for the more tried and true and traditional ideas, which is the antithesis of innovation. Instead, creating an environment where thinking outside of the box and trying new ideas is rewarded, even if they are not successful, will foster continued creativity.

Boden (1990) offers two different dimensions of creativity P-creativity and H-creativity. P-creativity is personal or psychological creativity. In this aspect of creativity, the creative ideas that are developed are new to the individual who came up with the idea. H-creativity is historical creativity. In this instance the idea is truly unique and has never been conceived in the past. it's important to differentiate between these two branches of creativity at Wonderment, because although an agent may believe their creative idea to be innovative, it may fall under P-creativity and be an idea which has not only been thought of before, but perhaps even tried before. H-creativity is the true goal of the organization, in order to be the most innovative literary agency in a very competitive industry.

S-creativity is an addition to Boden's (1990) theory.

Suwa, Gero, and Purcell, 2000 proposed a third possibility for creativity -- situated creativity. S-creativity occurs when an innovation happens that was unplanned for in the original design. Although these ideas may not be truly unique, their application in the specific situation is unique, giving them value. As an example, if an idea from another industry could be applied to our literary agency that had not been done before, this innovation would be highly valuable, helping set us apart from the competition.

Self-Evaluation:

Self-evaluation is an important task for any good leader. During this task, the leader can evaluate where they currently are, what is working for them and what is not. Currently, I have a fairly full plate with educational, professional and a personal responsibilities. This has caused me to be pulled in many different directions, which is often a challenge. This is especially true of time management issues. However, when it comes to the concepts that were the primary focus of this course, I feel that I've begun to take steps necessary to facilitate creativity, discovery and innovation.