How to create creativeness in Asian businesses

Eridani W. Sudiono, Consultant - Accenture, Jakarta

It was not clear what kind of intuition led Gary Starkweather of Xerox or Chuck House of Hewlett-Packard when they disobeyed orders from their bosses.

Starkweather was ordered to stop his research on the "technology of lasers", but he was fed up and complained to a senior manager.

House was asked to stop the development of his display monitor, which only influenced him to go further by showing his prototype to prospective customers. They then made their organizations proud (and earned more profit) through the 9700 Xerox printer sales and the US$35 million revenue on the HP monitor.

What would have been the result if the two "disobedient" men had obeyed their bosses? No big revenues would have resulted from their invented products, for sure.

In several well-established companies, some feel that the concept of blindly following the orders of a superior limits creativity. This unwritten rule is becoming very clear especially during difficult times in business. Employees tend to do what have been ordered instead of developing their creative ideas, just to keep their jobs.

Creativity, which sometimes involves disobedience, is not popular.

It is very common to find that creativity, especially if leading to failure, is not rewarded. It is then disseminated as a bad example to other employees. This type of "reward" will only stop creativity. "What if this leads to failure?" is a question that undoubtedly lurks in employees' heads.

Developing a group of people with similar ideas, similar ways of conduct and unquestioned loyalty to bosses for the sake of uniformity are a clear tendencies. Anyone with an opposing opinion, doing things differently, or speaking a different language is mostly unwelcome and soon will be punished.

A reprimand is a normal consequence, but it might also lead to making the employee redundant due to an inability to mesh with the team.

It is true that naturally groups are developed for similarities of their members' idea. But for an organization to excel in the business, differences certainly need to have their place and should be valued properly. Organizations should also recognize leaders who value creativity to develop a growing organization.

It is very flattering to be part of a big organization where everyone in the organization "looks" similar and does things in a particular way. But is there any room for innovation? Since most of operations-related activities do need to follow the rules, but without disregarding the necessity to follow, it is advisable to give room for creative thinking.

Performance measurement system infrastructures might need to include this type of exception, so that the system will not kill fresh and creative ideas. True rewards should be given to both success and failure, and punishment should be given to inactive employees.

Human Resource personnel in each organization should be able to encourage supervisors to encourage their subordinates to be creative, or at the very least not creative idea killers, and especially not to put creative employees on the blacklist.

In Asian cultures, disobeying is most certainly discouraged. So, how does it work? How do Japanese, for instance, encourage this type of "disobedience"? A group of young people in Honda, was gathered to discuss about the type of car that would suit the needs and tastes of the young generation. Honda City was the result. How did they do this? The organization just provided the opportunity for the young people to gather, with no bosses and critical observers around. The result was better creativity and revenue.