Creative Reaction

Is the end of management near?

These are some of the questions asked on Harvard Business Publishing’s Conversation Starter blog. The post itself has to do with larger corporations, though clearly applies to smaller companies as well. In a day and age where creativity is necessary for success, yes even survival, managers must adapt quickly and foster creativity.

Harvard Business School professor (and researcher) Teresa Amabile opines that we will need to reinvent management in order to:

• Enable collaboration by people with diverse perspectives on a problem
• Respect the fact that creativity thrives in situations where there is slack and redundancy.
• Rethink job design and incentive systems in light of what really motivates creativity: intellectual challenge and public affirmation.
• Manage as though we expect creativity from everyone — not just isolated “lone geniuses”

Much of this is antithetical to “conventional wisdom”, but that’s the one of the keys to success, isn’t it? Sensing when conventional wisdom is passé and reinventing the “rules”.