By Lee Faller
Psychology and Media Studies

About the Author: Lee M. Faller graduated from Claremont McKenna College in 2001 with a double major in Psychology and Media Studies. While at CMC, she was active in research for the Kravis Leadership Institute and won the Best Psychology Thesis award. She is currently working in California state politics in Sacramento.

INTRODUCTION

The current marketplace is one of changing demands and expectations. To succeed, products must not only be cost effective but also innovative, requiring creativity for their conception. Because of the pressures to succeed and exploit intellectual capital, wealth is no longer measured solely through current profit and material inventory, but also through intellectual innovation. This new "knowledge based economy" is placing challenges on management to foster innovation in the workplace, nurture intellectual capital, and avoid stifling creativity through unbending corporate culture.(Footnote 1) Management, then, becomes a guide through the creative process instead of a task manager. This change is forcing traditional organizations to re-evaluate their structure and culture. Heavy middle management, strict hierarchies, and rows of cubicles are typical of the old economy. The structure of most new economy organizations is flatter, more team based, and includes less middle management. (Footnote 2) Organizational objectives are changing with a new focus on organizational accomplishment, teamwork, leadership goals and processes. These new requirements for the successful organization bring entirely new challenges for leaders of the future.

There are many ways in which a given organization and its leadership can shape its workplace to promote creativity in order to obtain a competitive advantage. Adaptations to the organizational climate may include acknowledging the importance of innovation, providing an encouraging atmosphere, or something as simple as changing the physical environment of the workplace. All of these elements affect the overall feelings that workers have towards their organization.

THE IMPORTANCE OF INNOVATION AND THE DEFINITION OF CREATIVITY

Clark (1980) defines creativity as a result of elements of innovation. These include fluency, flexibility, originality, awareness, and drive - not just eccentricity and nonconformity, which are common terms associated with the concept. He defines innovation as the ability to come up with unconventional answers for questions of all kinds. Clark contends that one way to initiate these elements is through asking challenging questions and demanding employees to think outside of the norm. (Footnote 3) Therefore, it is not the individual who solely determines the success and innovation of a group. The organization and its leadership also have responsibilities to nurture this process.

Leonard and Swap (1999) define creativity as a process rather than a characteristic. One of the inherent myths about creative groups is that it takes inherently creative people to spur creativity. Research argues that this is incorrect. Leonard and Swap believe that organizational factors can nurture creativity. The end result of this creative process is innovation that is "the embodiment, combination, and/or synthesis of knowledge in novel, relevant, valued new products, processes or services". (Footnote 4) And it is key that organizations begin to examine those organizational factors that can nurture and expand the creative process in order to remain competitive in the marketplace. (Footnote 5)

THE NEW ORGANIZATIONAL STRUCTURE

As more and more organizations move towards a focus on creativity, it is imperative that we look at the elements of the workplace environment that can impact creativity, productivity and satisfaction. The flat structure can influence multiple aspects of the organizational community. Not only are communication paths altered, but responsibilities of leaders and followers as well as the physical environment may also be transformed.

In Peter Drucker's article, "The Coming of the New Organization," he discusses the unique characteristics of organizations as they attempt to survive in the new economic marketplace. He describes the organization of the future as a symphony orchestra having many different skilled workers all reporting to the one CEO--the conductor. These players are specialists and therefore the conductor, who may not even have the skills to play every instrument, has the responsibility to maintain the common vision or score for each part. (Footnote 6) It is possible to take Drucker's example one step further. Each group of instruments is really a self-managed team. But although each section is somewhat self-managed, they must ultimately report to the conductor. As middle management contracts and knowledge workers become more self-managed, the nature of leadership changes. Just as a good conductor must have a complete score, a good leader must instill a common vision for all of his or her workers, instead of only performing as a task manager.

A CREATIVE ORGANIZATIONAL CLIMATE

In addition to the less hierarchical set-up, the overall organizational climate plays an essential role in a creative organization. Steiner (1965) outlines characteristics of such creative organizations. Some of these include: maintaining open channels of communication, managers encouraging new ideas rather than just making pre-judgments, managers ensuring decentralization of the organizational structure, employees having autonomy, managers ensuring that the organization is not run too tightly or rigidly, and finally that employees must be allowed to have fun. (Footnote 7) Because of this need for flexibility and a relaxed environment, it is not surprising to find that many technical companies, along with entertainment and advertising, are marked with relaxed dress and elasticity concerning work hours. (Footnote 8)

Overall, organizational climate can be separated into two constructs; the psychological (or cognitive), and the physical organizational climate. The psychological climate focuses more on the cognitive and motivational attributes where the physical organizational climate is the shared meaning that is communicated to the employees through their physical work environment. Together these two elements affect the productivity and overall health of the organization. (Footnote 9)

There are many things that organizations tend to do to stifle creativity through their cognitive climate. For instance, many organizations have an abundance of negative phrases referred to as "killer phrases." Such phrases, which are known for rejecting and discouraging innovative work, are not just perpetuated orally, but also exist through position papers and memos. For an organization to truly dedicate itself to the creative process, it is essential that it make across-the-board agreements, extending through all management, to suspend initial judgments of new ideas. (Footnote 10) If this is not taken into consideration, there will be nothing better than the status quo created in a given organization. Tierney (1997) looked at the ability of the cognitive climate to influence employee's satisfaction. Such climates are related to feelings of self-efficacy and creative efficacy, although an individual's creative efficacy is the most important element in his or her creative performance. (Footnote 11) Amabile (1988) also agreed that an organization has a responsibility to make a commitment to innovation through its organizational climate. (Footnote 12)

PHYSICAL ENVIRONMENT: A CASE STUDY

Coupled with this cognitive climate is the actual physical environment of the office space. There has been little focus on the way the physical environment can affect efficacy and job satisfaction. I did not realize the potency of this effect until I experienced it personally while working for a television network. During my time there, the network moved to a new building in downtown Los Angeles. In the original building, employees in the promotions department all worked in a large, common space with their desks pushed up against each other. There were large windows looking out into the Hollywood hills and, on a clear day, one could see the Hollywood sign. Executive offices were close to where everyone else was working and there was quite a feeling of camaraderie in the office. Then we moved into the new building. There, everyone had a cubicle separating each desk from another. The executives were the only individuals with windows, while everyone else sat with no view of the outside world. Although the desks were new, the chairs expensive, and the walls painted different colors, the network had actually succeeded in making this new "creative environment" into a place that made its workers unhappy and less creative. Because of this experience, I began to look for research on this topic. Little has been done specifically looking at the physical world we work in. The physical world is much more than ergonomics and positive corporate slogans on the walls. The physical environment includes how people sit, whether they can move around, and how easily they can gather together.

Davenport supports the importance of organizational culture to organizational success. In his article, "Knowledge Work and the Future of Management", he states that "knowledge work managers need to build company cultures that are in accordance with what knowledge workers want, or the workers will leave… Drawing from Kanter and Bennis, the 'Five Fs' characterize the most desirable knowledge-oriented culture…fast, flexible, focused, friendly, and fun." (Footnote 13) The culture is not only imperative to worker satisfaction but also employee retention, a serious problem with knowledge workers who are known for little corporate loyalty.

THE CURRENT STUDY

My own research supports the importance of the physical environment. An experiment was conducted to measure impressions of a written organizational climate description with undergraduate student subjects (n=99). (Footnote 14) Individuals were given either a description of a traditional organizational environment or a more creative organizational environment. I developed the description to include elements highlighted in the literature as the fundamentals of organizational climate such as location, work area, mobility, extent of common areas, separation of managers from subordinates, and autonomy. As hypothesized, the climate of the hypothetical organization affected many impressions. Individuals in the more open, innovative environment perceived a whole host of additional benefits that might be associated with this environment even though the description did not include these elements specifically. The significant results showed that reading something as simple as an organizational description may sway an individual's perceptions of a work environment. Furthermore, subjects expected that they would derive more satisfaction from the innovative work environment. These outcomes supported the findings of other related research that the organizational climate affects organizational satisfaction (Steiner, 1965, Himes, 1987, Clark, 1980, Amabile, 1988). (Footnote 15) These significant differences begin to hint at how easily organizational views and climate satisfaction can be swayed by changes to the work environment.

SUGGESTIONS FOR MAKING THE CHANGE TO A MORE INNOVATIVE ENVIRONMENT

As the results of the study described above show, it is easy to influence an individual's feelings toward his or her organization by simple changes in the physical environment. As the marketplace quickly moves toward this new organizational structure, physical changes to the work climate are going to be the fastest and most painless place to start making changes. Also, a worker-friendly corporate culture is essential to keeping knowledge workers happy, because their happiness is one way to ensure that they stay at your organization. (Footnote 16)

In summary, three specific changes in organizational environments have the ability to influence worker satisfaction and feelings of creative efficacy. First, the individual work area is critical. A traditional organizational environment has workers sitting in cubicles or desks at desktop computers. There is very little mobility in this traditional structure. On the contrary, when individuals have flexibility in their work environment-utilizing work stations, laptops and common areas-employees feel that the environment is more creative and innovative.

Second, the manager to subordinate relationship can be greatly affected by the location of offices and the manner in which the two are separated. For example, in a traditional organization, managers usually have windowed offices that line the larger work space. This makes subordinates feel insignificant and cut off. This can affect the way in which subordinates feel about communication with managers. And communication is an essential part of the leader/follower relationship in an innovative environment. Davenport describes the changing organization as causing new physical and cognitive relationships for managers and subordinates. "The old model of the manager who sits in an office staring down at toiling workers and occasionally makes a visit to the factory floor is now officially obsolete. . . Rather than sitting at the top of the hierarchy, the new managers must subsume their own egos to those of the knowledge workers they manage." (Footnote 17) This description supports the theory that as the organizational separation between managers and subordinates breaks down, physical office divisions break down as well. Managers should be more a part of the daily work environment and more easily accessible to workers.

Lastly, the organizational office as a whole should create an environment in which workers enjoy spending time. This means that kitchens should have areas to eat lunch and that there are break areas where individuals can mingle. To keep workers happy and communicating with each other, they should feel comfortable in their work environment, and allowing them the opportunity to gather and enjoy the space will add to that process.

Even as the fast paced economy of the 1990's is slowing into a new reality in this decade, the lessons learned from successes of creative organizations hold true. Human capital remains an essential factor for every successful organization, and in these challenging economic times, it is only more important for the corporate world to capitalize on those workers within their walls as well as attract the best new employees.

FUTURE RESEARCH

This area of study has immense opportunities for future research. First, the next step after such laboratory or paper studies is to move the research into the workplace and examine how elements of actual work environments are affecting each other. There is a lack of practical research in this area, especially when one considers that there are so many established creative organizations with unique work environments.

As more and more people enter the working world and are asked to perform creatively, it is key to an organization's success to be able to maximize the creativity of its employees. This study highlights some of the simple ways that adjustment in organizational culture, managerial contact, and physical office design can maximize creativity, innovation, and productivity. I would encourage all organizations to move towards a non-traditional work environment where they will be able to bolster the creativity already within their walls.

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14. Faller, L.M. (2001). Bolstering creativity: The effects of organizational climate and managerial goal setting on creativity. (unpublished thesis, Claremont Mckenna College)

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