creative_manager

Module 9: Creative Manager: Facing the Future - Chapter 11

On-line Lesson

MANAGEMENT CHALLENGES

	Need to lead and inspire others (This is the most important function of a manager)
	Motivate staff to perform at their best
	Show leadership for policy development; program innovation; fiscal operations; public relations; and developing partnerships.
	Be proactive to demographic, environmental, and social changes in society.

KEY LEADERSHIP RESPONSIBILITIES

To meet the future challenges facing leisure-service organizations enlightened leadership will be the mark of a successful manager. The following tasks will be crucial.

Walk the talk! Professionals must demonstrate strong values and ethics with staff members and the public;
Network with other community organizations;
Advocate personally and professionally for recreation and leisure in the community, environment, and other important societal needs;
Demonstrate a high level of professional dedication and commitment personally and on the part of all staff members;
Facilitate communication of management philosophy, concerns, and priorities to all parties (staff, management, other organizations and the public);
Select, train, and assign new staff members;
Promote proactive planning, processes, and procedures;
Develop staff performance objectives and work standards;
Incorporate new technologies and program innovations in all agency operations; and
Be proactive to changing social conditions and community or organizational priorities.

ESSENTIAL PERSONAL QUALITIES FOR A SUCCESSFUL MANAGER

	Risk-taking and assertiveness
	Counseling and mentoring under-performing staff
	Constructively manage conflict
	Promote planned organizational change (be proactive)
	Become more comfortable with uncertainty and learn to be more flexible
	Create innovative and motivating work environments

IMPORTANCE OF CREATIVITY

An idea can turn to dust or magic, depending on the talent that rubs against it. - Bill Bernbach

Creativity is the ability to generate novel and useful ideas and solutions to everyday problems and challenges. Creative thinking, which lies at the heart of creative management, involves two kinds of thought processes: divergent and convergent.

Divergent thinking involves beginning with a specific problem or management concern, and generating various perspectives on it-without being limited by rules, "practical" constraints, or past policies.

Convergent thinking is used to screen and narrow down the possible perspectives or solutions to a problem, in order to identify the most promising course of action.

Creativity has often been thought of as an intrinsic quality, found primarily in great artists or scientific geniuses. The reality is that all people possess varying degrees of creativity, and that it represents an important ingredient in on-the-job performance, particularly in situations requiring ingenious solutions to problems.

Four dimensions of creativity: creation, productivity, originality, and expressiveness. The courage to take risks and persistence are the key characteristics of the creative person. The other characteristics are repeated patterns of thinking, feeling and behaving - from Eli Lilly and Company

The Osborne-Parnes Creative Problem Solving Process

The steps guide the creative process. They tell you what to do at each immediate step in order to eventually produce one or more creative, workable solutions. A unique feature is that each step first involves a Divergent thinking phase in which one generates lots of ideas (facts, problem definitions, ideas, evaluation criteria, implementation strategies), and then a Convergent thinking phase in which only the most promising ideas are selected for further exploration.

OF	FF	PF	IF	SF	AF
Objective Finding	Fact Finding	Problem Finding	Idea Finding	Solution Finding	Acceptance Finding
Identify Goal, Wish, Challenge	Gather Data	Clarify the Problem	Generate Ideas	Select & Strengthen Solutions	Plan for Action
What is the goal, wish, or challenge upon which you want to work?	What's the situation or background? What are all the facts, questions, data, feelings that are involved	What is the problem that really needs to be focuses on? What is the concern that really needs to be addressed?	What are all the possible solutions for how to solve the problem?	How can you strengthen the solution? How can you select the solutions to know which one will work best?	What are all the action steps that need to take place in order to implement your solution?

ESTABLISHING A CREATIVE CLIMATE

Creativity is a personal trait, but it is influenced by the organizational culture and climate. Factors that promote creativity include:

	Challenges
	Colleagues' support
	freedom and autonomy
	organizational structure
	organizational support

Two basic rules of life are:
1) Change is inevitable
2) Everybody resists change.
- W. Edwards Deming

OBSTACLES TO CREATIVITY

	manager's receptivity to new ideas
	lack of training, equipment or materials
	avoidance of risk-taking by the organizational culture
	work overload
	lack of time
	routine work assignments

The world hates change yet it is the only thing that has brought progress - Charles Kettering

Creative Problem Solving with cartoons

1. Draw your problem as a cartoon.
2. Write a caption for your cartoon.
3. Modify the cartoon by introducing another element. Does this move toward you generating a solution?
4. Alternatively, draw elements of your problem in cartoon form.

Creativity with a ball.

EFFECTIVE LEADERSHIP STYLES

Situational Leadership: Where the individual's leadership style adapts to the setting, group, required skills or leadership tactics.

Many leaders focus primarily on task-accomplishment, while other are chiefly concerned with providing socioemotional support. Still others employ varying combinations of directive and supportive behavior, with the demands of the work situation influencing the best choice of leadership styles.

"Consistent with this new context, new models of leadership have emerged-models that are "non-positional," team based, or empowering. These new models call for new leader behaviors. Leaders who act as coaches, stewards, servants, or partners are seen as dramatically different from the leaders of old who used the power of their position and/ or their persona to exert their influence." (McGill and Slocum, 1998)

Even if you are on the right track, you will get run over if you just sit there. - Will Rogers

Working with New Team Structures

As part of such new approaches or organizational leadership, traditional lines of responsibility are often bypassed to create new and more flexible team arrangements.

For example, if there is a special arts event and an employee is assigned responsibility for it, she may coordinate the work of other staff members. When another event takes place, she may not have any authority. Those in the matrix usually have certain basic tasks, but their level of involvement and responsibility may vary by work assignment. (Kraus and Curtis, 2000, p.356)

New organizational hierarchies create relatively independent work teams in a new approach to flexible work assignments. Teams have a high degree of independence in carrying out their projects. They develop their own internal leadership. The leadership may change depending on individual skills and levels of authority or job titles. The leadership is based on mutual trust and openness, shared values, and goals, and cooperation in problem solving and decision making.

Empowerment of Staff Members

The ultimate goal of such team-building approaches is to encourage empowerment in the agency's staff.

Empowerment: the process through which staff members are helped to become more confident and cooperative risk takers with a strong sense of commitment to the organization and its goals.

Quinn and Spreitzer (1997) describe four characteristics most empowered people tend to share:

Empowered people have a sense of self-determination (this means that they are free to choose how to do their work; they are not micro-managed).
Empowered people have a sense of meaning (they feel that their work is important to them; they care about what they are doing).
Empowered people have a sense of competence (this means that they are confident about their ability to do their work well; they know they can perform).
Finally, empowered people have a sense of impact (this means that people believe they can have influence on their work unit; others listen to their ideas).

The only sure way to avoid making mistakes is to have no new ideas. - Albert Einstein

TRENDS AFFECTING LEISURE-SERVICE ORGANIZATIONS

	The steadily increasing aging population, the impact of electronic forms of play, the commodification of sport and the growing fascination with "extreme" physical recreation activities;
	Increased privatization of public services, along with expanded use of partnerships among various types of agencies, including business, nonprofit, private and educational organizations;
	Growing variety and sophistication in recreation programming with shifts in emphasis that directly respond to demographic changes, such as Club Mediterranee's new focus on family groups-as opposed to earlier, "swinging," young adult clientele;
	Greater emphasis on two contrasting service models-the marketing, entrepreneurial approach and the socially oriented, human-service model-with the benefits-based approach used to incorporate both thrusts;
	Greater efforts to bridge the gap between leisure "haves" and "have-nots," both in terms of those with greater or lesser amounts of free time, and those with varying economic capability to enjoy recreation;
	Growing concern about promoting family stability and offering alternatives to morally questionable leisure pursuits-including substance abuse, gambling dependency or commercialized and exploitative sex-will also offer challenges to leisure-service managers in the future;
	Stronger efforts to link the recreation and park profession with environ- mental organizations, with promotion of such programming thrusts as " eco-tourism;"
	Increased emphasis on meeting the needs of over 45 million persons with disability, in both separate and integrated settings-along with promotion of recreation and leisure as an important source of personal wellness; and
	The need to create a greater public awareness, value and appreciation of parks, recreation and and leisure services as a fundamental part of quality community life. (Kraus & Curtis, 2000, p. 361)

The people who get on in this world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want, and, if they can't find them, make them. - George Bernard Shaw

[Class]

	Divergent thinking involves beginning with a specific problem or management concern, and generating various perspectives on it-without being limited by rules, "practical" constraints, or past policies.
	Convergent thinking is used to screen and narrow down the possible perspectives or solutions to a problem, in order to identify the most promising course of action.