Nurturing Creativity

Creativity is a very difficult word to quantify for me. I believe that there is creativity in many sectors and positions, however how this is used to maximize a project's aim is something I did not previously understand. As my journey into event management begins it is interesting to see the different applications of creativity within a business setting and how a creative staff can be utilized. Norman Potter best describes this as, ‘all fields have the potential for design especially where it requires careful consideration of a concept of action, a mechanism for carrying that out and a reflection or estimation of the effect that has’. (2002)

To first reflect on creativity within the workspace, and assess my own creativity I would like to mention the Creativity Quiz produced by Mindtools. This self-assessment tool analyses the way you approach problems and scenarios within a project and gives both a total score, and a breakdown of your rating in five key areas: preparation, incubation, insight, evaluation, and elaboration. By completing this test I was able to identify that my two weakest areas are implementation/elaboration and generating/evaluating ideas (evaluation).

When focusing on these two areas it is important to understand their context within a real world scenario. To take the example of the Emerge Festival previously mentioned in my first blog article, implementation would refer to the logistic basis of creating the festival day and content, whereas generation and evaluation would refer to the ability to curate the specific thematic components and doing quality control on the work being shown.

When analyzing implementation it is key to understand the process that goes into the logistical implementation of creative ideas. When collaboratively with shareholders it is important that the management of ideas is done in a sensitive and fair way. Towards the beginning of our project, we had a brainstorming week with the four key staff members from each group of participants. During this first meeting we quickly came across the concept of a wide-ranging project that would run alongside our primary work. This project involved reaching out to other parts of the community such as libraries and other cultural sites to create origami doves, with the intent that each would have a quote referencing either war or peace. The intention behind this was to have a unique response to the work from a larger group than just the two community groups. Whilst good in theory, this project was largely left until the last minute due to no-one being responsible for its implementation throughout. Therefore, when the final day of the festival came, we had very few additions of these birds and the final effect of a large chorus of origami doves was lost. I believe this failure in implementation came from the hands-on approach I had to the logistics of the festival and the lack of delegation. Whilst supportive of the young people's work, many of the shareholders working directly with us had no interest in taking a proactive step to organize individual segments. This could have been mitigated by a more comprehensive action plan and regular meetings to analyze progress throughout. I personally believe that this was a key area which my event management failed due to a limited knowledge of project management techniques, further exacerbated by the distance between myself located in Derby and the groups in the Sandwell/Dudley area.

To analyze generation and evaluation it is important to understand that ‘the key to creativity is giving people autonomy concerning the means-that is, concerning process-but not necessarily the ends.’ (Amabile,1998). This astute point identifies the key issue we had when creating the festival. How do we create a festival designed to showcase a community's abilities and culture whilst also giving onus to the young people creating the work. When originally beginning our project, we had the intention to devise the work entirely with the young groups. Using our knowledge as devising performers we intended for the work to be largely theatrical in style with some overarching projects being made by the community. As the project progressed we found that both groups had very little foundation in designing and devising their own work and that the time restraints would not allow us to work from the ground up on this element. During this point what we needed to do was give them a more structured input into the creative process. This would mean a way for them to have control over the work produced whilst we ensured that the content met the brief for the festival.

This however did not happen, and due to time constraints growing closer and closer we began to dictate the work being made. There was however one element that kept this aim. Some of the youth group at the Sandwell community center were interested in singing as part of the festival. As this organically grew, people began to bring in songs they wanted to sing and by working with me when I was present at the workshops, we would unpick how these songs were related to our theme of War and Peace.

To improve this in the future, a well thought out risk analysis of the process could have been made before the workshops began, and I would also have suggested putting together a direct feedback channel, perhaps through the use of primary research. Within this the young groups would be able to evaluate the progress they are making, and we could have better tailored the workshops to their interests and needs. During the actual project, research was only collected by The Mighty Creatives as shareholders and this was largely centered on reflective understanding of the social/cultural effect the festival had on the groups rather than any preliminary feedback that would have influenced the final project.

References:

Potter, Norman. What is a designer:things,places,messages.4th ed. London: Hyphen

Mind Tools. ‘How creative are you?’

Available at: https://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/creativity-quiz.htm

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