Dialogue is a very important “tool” for
creativity development within a company; indeed, several authors suggest
to use it at different times.
Firstly, David Gurteen (1998) maintains that the major problem for a
company is to think about knowledge – already available in a big
quantity - in new ways. However, you often fail to attain this objective
because there are some “locks-in” that you need to remove,
in order to liberate your creativity.
Gurteen identifies the following “locks-in”:
- Creativity is a serious business: creativity is too often
regarded as a serious analytical task, whereas it is meant to be
a pleasant activity;
- Creativity is not needed: creativity is very often seen
as an attitude to be adopted from time to time, rather than a mental
habit;
- Creativity is specialized: creativity is regarded as a
prerogative for some disciplines or company functions, like R &
D, rather than an activity of the company expertise;
- Limiting paradigms: they are the major creativity lock-in
because they limit unconscious thoughts and actions; they concern
everyone’s unique perception, vision and communication of
the world;
- Inappropriate mental models: unlike paradigms, mental models
are conscious and correspond to reality interpretation schemes;
- Limitations of traditional teaching: it concerns traditional
teaching which does not involve the games learning potential;
- Inappropriate belief in absolutes: knowledge is always
in evolution and is not absolute at all;
- Worry and rewards and punishment: when you are afraid of
being rewarded and punished;
- Fear and lack of trust: it is the most common lock-in;
it is when you are afraid of failing and being mocked by others.
- Infanticide: when you tend to put down new ideas;
- Information overload: when you rely on and analyse information
too much;
- Judgement: when you tend to judge (without thinking twice)
instead of suspending judgement.
To remove these locks-in, he suggests to use dialogue. It allows to
discuss about things, in order to reveal one of the major creativity
locks-in, i.e. the limiting paradigms. To be really efficient, dialogue
must be carried out adequately; speakers need to listen to each other
and not simply reply because dialogue is not a fighting confrontation
but a tool to investigate the point of view of the person whom you are
speaking to. All participants need to take some advantage from dialogue,
like learning something new. It is to be conceived as an opportunity
to establish a contact between people, rather than a moment for complaining
about others’ ideas.
According to Gurteen, dialogue is important, especially because it helps
participants to become aware of their mental paradigms, as well as the
others’, and therefore to clear their mind of prejudices. This
is a precondition to allow people’s creativity to burst out.
Unlike Gurteen, Weiss W.H. (2002) suggests to use dialogue during the
internal mapping phase. He states that as all employees in a company
could always generate ideas, chief managers must be ready to receive
them. So, they can carry out dialogues (even informally) with their
employees during which they would listen to their ideas, advice and
suggestions which could possibly lead to improved products, procedures
and processes. This is a positive factor for the company, since it can
bring new ideas and involve its personnel in the company processes,
thus making employees more fulfilled.
Also Lawson and Samson (2001) think that having a dialogue
with all company employees (the so called INTERNAL SENSORS) can help
to better allocate the necessary resources for the company development.
Unlike the authors mentioned so far, Sutton (2002) defines dialogue
as an integral part of the creative process. He thinks that dialogue
is a fundamental element of group work because it allows to develop
and test the value of new ideas. It is a kind of “intellectual
conflict” that is totally different from interpersonal conflicts;
in fact, it is about a “clash of ideas” that only aims to
generate innovation. Such clash deals with a selection of well-balanced
people without particular communicative problems; they are confronted
to each other and respect each other. Their dialogue is centred on the
relevant problem and aims to develop a number of alternatives to be
examined collectively.
Humour and jokes are the creative group major tool to relieve any conflict
between participants and keep focused on facts, rather than personal
conflicts.
A relieved atmosphere improves our mental flexibility, as it allows
to connect inputs and generate a larger variety of ideas. Moreover,
too strict people need to be isolated because they could have a negative
influence on the others. Conflict is strictly forbidden during the early
stages of the ideation process, when the idea is not complete yet.
It is necessary to suspend judgement during these debates, to make sure
that negative criticism does not prevail and put down early ideas before
they are fully developed and ready to be examined.