Creative Leadership: Skills that Drive Change

Gerard J. Puccio

&

Mary C. MurdockInternational Center for Studies in Creativity

State University of New York

Purpose of Keynote

• To explore the important link between creativity and leadership

• To position Creative Problem Solving as a core leadership competence

• To introduce Creative Problem Solving: The Thinking Skills Model

Who is this third author, Marie Mance?

Chateau Marie

A Cat Named Mance

Baby Marie

How are creativity and

leadership connected?

Four Fundamental Components of Leadership

• leadership is a process

• leadership involves influence

• leadership occurs within a group context

• leadership involves goal attainment

Northouse, 2004

Mumford & Colleagues’ Leadership Capacity Model

Career Experiences

Environmental Influences

General Cognitive Ability

Crystallized Cognitive Abilities

Motivation

Personality

Problem Solving Skills

Social Judgment & Social Skills

Knowledge

Prob

lem S

olving

Perform

ance

Mumford et al. (2000)

Qualities of Complex Social Problems

• Ill-defined: No single solution path – no right or wrong answer – thus allowing the problem to be defined in a number of ways.

• Novel: Past experience and knowledge is not sufficient to resolve the present situation, adaptive responses are needed for new or changing situations.

• Ambiguous: Gaps in information and/or a plethora of information of which only some is relevant.

CPS a Core Leadership Competency

“The available evidence indicates that creative problem solving may indeed represent an important influence on

leader performance” (Mumford et al., 2000, p. 18).

Creative Problem Solving: The Thinking Skills Model

Creative Leadership: Skills That Drive Change Puccio, Murdock, & Mance (2007)

Puccio, Murdock & Mance (2007)

Thinking Skills Associated with CPSThinking Skill Definition

Diagnostic Making a careful examination of a situation, describing the nature of a problem and making decisions about appropriate process steps to be taken

Visionary Articulating a vivid image of what you desire to create

Strategic Identifying the critical issues that must be addressed and pathways needed to move toward the desired future

Ideational Producing original mental images and thoughts that respond to important challenges

Evaluative Assessing the reasonableness and quality of ideas in order to develop workable solutions

Contextual Understanding the interrelated conditions and circumstances that will support or hinder success

Tactical Devising a plan that includes specific and measurable steps for attaining a desired end and methods for monitoring its effectiveness

Visionary Thinking

Articulating a vivid image of what you

desire to create

Strategic Thinking

Identifying the critical issues that must be addressed and pathways needed to move toward the desired future

Ideational Thinking

Producing original mental images and thoughts that

respond to important challenges

Evaluative Thinking

Assessing the reasonableness and quality of ideas in order to develop

workable solutions

Dotcom Failures: The Need for Good Evaluative Thinking

• Customer Service Meltdown

• Inadequate Order Fulfillment

• Use of Primitive Search and Transaction Tools

• Failure to Globalize• Building Community

Not ClienteleSullivan (2001)

Contextual Thinking

Understanding the interrelated conditions and circumstances that will support or hinder

success

Tactical Thinking

Understanding the interrelated conditions and circumstances that will support or hinder

success

Diagnostic Thinking(The Meta-skill)

Making a careful examination of a situation, describing the

nature of a problem and making decisions about appropriate process steps to be taken

Leadership Task: Using Diagnostic Thinking

Gerry is leading the rollout of a new information system in a medium size organization. This new system is going to radically change how a substantial number of employees carryout their work. Gerry is aware that there are varying levels of acceptance and readiness in regard to the new system. Before rushing to implement this new system Gerry wants to make sure that some thought is given to how to best introduce the proposed change.

The CPS Thinking Skills

• Visionary Thinking

• Strategic Thinking

• Ideational Thinking

• Evaluative Thinking

• Contextual Thinking

• Tactical Thinking

• Diagnostic Thinking

Creative Change Model: A Systems Approach

Person Process

Environment

Product(e.g., theories,solutions toproblems, ideas,services,inventions,etc.)

Change(e.g., socialchange, personalchange, innovationetc.)

Interactionleads to

Adoptionleads to

© Puccio, Murdock, & Mance (2005)

Creativity: A Core Leadership Competence

“It seems to me that business leaders have much more in common with artists, scientists, and other creative thinkers than they do with managers”

Abraham Zaleznik (2003)

Creativity: A Path to Developing Effective Leaders

“For business schools to exploit this commonality of dispositions and interests, the curriculum should worry less about the logics of strategy and imposing the constraints of computer exercises and more about thought experiments in the play of creativity and imagination”

Abraham Zaleznik (2003)

Thank You & Best of Luck!!

Puccio, G. J., Murdock, M. C., & Mance, M. (2007) Creative Leadership: Skills that Drive

Change. San Diego, CA: Sage.

www.buffalostate.edu/centers/creativity