Read a selection of your colleagues’ postings.

Respond to two of your colleagues in one or more of the following ways:

· Compare how you and your colleague view the elements needed to support creativity in the workplace.

· Share a relevant experience where you or your organization tried to implement an element or a practice in an effort to create an environment for employees to be more creative.

· Explore a way you might want to implement an element shared by your colleague at your organization or within your industry.

Responses to Classmates Template (Must use for response to both Collegues)

Compare how you and your colleague view the elements needed to support creativity in the workplace.

Share a relevant experience where you or your organization tried to implement an element or a practice in an effort to create an environment for employees to be more creative.

Explore a way you might want to implement an element shared by your colleague at your organization or within your industry.

APA References

1st Colleague to respond to:

A description of three organizational principles at Pixar that support a workplace environment where employees can implement creative solutions to problems.

After reading the article on the way, that Pixar fosters creativity the three principles that I resonated with would have to be the peer culture, communication is essential for everyone, and postmortems. These principles would be great for any workplace environment. They would help the environment implement creative solutions to any problem. As Catmull, (2008) states, “you get great creative people, you bet big on them, you give them enormous leeway and support, and you provide them with an environment in which they can get honest feedback from everyone” p.5. These three principles, encompass the companies overall philosophy.

Having your work evaluated by your peer is a big help in the fact that they will give you blatantly honest reviews and ideas that you never thought of. Pixar’s group of “brain trust” (Catmull, 2008, p.6) shows just how the company uses divergent thinking to get feedback about a project.  This way they can fix an issue or delve deeper into a certain branch of their feedback.  

Communication is an essential part of all companies’ environment. When teams communicate, well it makes the environment have less tension and work productivity is higher. Giving members the ability to not have to worry about whom they approach about getting feedback or input from for a project is a great way to show not only inclusion but trust in the employees. It shows that the company values all employees’ input.

Being able to reflect on not only the good but also the negative is an important part of growing. For the company to realize that they are not just confronting the unpleasant that they are learning a lesson from going back over their work is a highly valuable principle to have.

Choose one of these principles or another principle that you are familiar with that could be implemented at your organization or an organization which with you are familiar to improve creativity and the implementation of creative solutions.

As of right now, I believe that the organization that I currently work for would benefit greatly if we applied the postmortem to the work that we do. If we were to implement the practice of this principle, it would help us come up with solutions that would possibly last longer than the method we are currently using. I really would love to bring to the organization Catmull (2008) technique of “list the five top things they would do again and the top five things they wouldn’t do” p.9.  Just this one technique would help the implementation of creative solutions in my opinion.

Explain why it would be beneficial to implement this principle at the organization you selected.

The practice of the postmortem would help at the organization I picked because we constantly have to change how we approach situations. While that is not a bad thing in my line of work, the turnover of new ideas is a bit too quick.  We implement new ideas about every two months. This, in turn, is burning out the team fast. The team hardly gets to take time and reflect on what did work and what did not work. By using this principle, I believe it would help to generate a solution that would last for a longer period or even a permanent solution.

Explain how you as a manager might implement this principle and how you would need to tailor it for the organization you selected. Support your conclusions with references from this week’s Resources.

If I were to implement this principle at the organization, I would need the support of others in the organization first. As Miller &wedel-Wedellsborg (2013), advises “seek support from managers who are a notch or two above or at your level” p.5. By having support, it is likely that they will be on the same page as I am. They are more likely to join in on helping me implement the practice (Miller & Wedell -Wedellsborg, 2013, p.6). After getting support, the next step would be to use the “POINt tool” mentioned in The Innovative Team (Grivas & Puccio (2012) to assist in helping the team see the best part of using the principle and ways that they principle would best help us in the long run.

APA References

Catmull, E. (2008). How Pixar fosters collective creativity. Harvard Business Review, 86(9), 64–72.

 Grivas, C., & Puccio, G.J. (2012). The innovative team: Unleashing creative potential for breakthrough results. Chapter 20,” Developing Solutions” (pp.215-224)

Miller, P., & Wedell-Wedellsborg, T. (2013). The case for stealth innovation. Harvard Business Review, 91(3), 90–97.

2nd Colleague to Respond to:

A description of three organizational principles at Pixar that support a workplace environment where employees can implement creative solutions to problems.

· Create a Peer Culture: Encourage people throughout your company to help each other produce their best work (Catmull, 2008).

· Craft a Learning Environment: Reinforce the mind-set that you’re all learning—and it’s fun to learn together (Catmull, 2008).

· Get More Out of Post-mortems: Many people dislike project post-mortems. They’d rather talk about what went right than what went wrong. And after investing extensive time on the project, they’d like to move on. Structure your post-mortems to stimulate discussion. (Catmull, 2008).

I specifically chose these organizational  principles because they all have one thing in common, it promotes collaboration. When you give your team creative freedom to innovative fresh ideas amongst each other. This gives your team the opportunity feed off one another (creating a peer culture), develop new strategies that works best for them/company (craft a learning environment), and come to a common ground of what benefit the brand (get more out of post-mortems).

Choose one of these principles or another principle that you are familiar with that could be implemented at your organization or an organization which with you are familiar to improve creativity and the implementation of creative solutions. Explain why it would be beneficial to implement this principle at the organization you selected.

· One principle that I am most familiar with is creating a peer culture. Catmull explains that everyone is fully invested in helping everyone else turn out the best work. Which means your team really do feel that it’s all for one and one for all. Nothing exemplifies this more than our creative brain trust and our daily review process (Catmull, 2008). When you have a great work relationship with your team, this helps develop trust and honesty when feedback is needed. Receiving genuine advice on how to better a task can be uplifting and a challenge to make the results better.

Explain how you as a manager might implement this principle and how you would need to tailor it for the organization you selected. Support your conclusions with references from this week’s Resources.

· I implement this principle by collaborating first with my management. I am a firm believer in having your management team on one accord as well as have a great relationship amongst everyone. As leaders, we are watched and duplicated by our associates because every day we are setting the standard of what the company initially want. In the world of retail, this principle is the first step.

APA References

Catmull, E. (2008). How Pixar fosters collective creativity. Harvard Business Review, 86(9), 64–72.