Idea generation and the psychological environment
It is broadly accepted in the literature that the psychological environs has a huge effect on the happiness of employees, their ability to generate lots of ideas, many of which may be very fruitful if explored further, accepted and implemented, i.e. diffused into the domain within which the employees operate.

However, the environments within which these people work is fraught with problems when it comes to generating new ideas. However, some environments are ideally tuned to what is needed and the people who operate within them churn out new ideas and concepts that become immediately popular.

We, as human beings, have an inbuilt ability to be very creative. We were born with it. As we tend to live out our lives; playing at home, then going to school, going out to work or going into third level education and then out to work, we become closed in by what we experience from the world around us and in particular, by the other people within it. We are continually told what we cannot do, what we cannot achieve, how to do these things and what to think. We get little chance to apply our inventive thinking to these things by finding and implementing better way of doing them. Our behaviour is always checked, in some cases rightly so, as be must learn to behave ourselves properly. The only problem with this is that our imagination is choked as boundaries are also built up around it.

What drives creativity?
People have insatiable appetites for new things. We want new and updated software, faster and more exciting games, new kitchen appliances that will make life in the kitchen easier, new means of watching TV (VHS, DVD, digital TV, recording programmes on digital TV); we want new things and the more of them and the faster they are, the better. As a result, there is an unrelenting progression, a constant evolution of new things. Advancement is happening all the time. Nothing stands still, or as the great philosopher, Heraclitus, once said “You cannot step into the same river twice” – meaning that the world is in flux, a constant flux of change. The river is never the same river the next time you step into it as water has already flowed by.

We seek new knowledge, challenge, wealth and happiness. We need change, it revitalises the world and gives tomorrow a reason to exist. Although, having said all of that, our mental processes (building reinforced patterns in our minds as we continue to experience the things in our lives) make us ever more set in our ways and eventually we tend to dislike change, especially when it instigated or directed from someone else. We tend to resist change especially when we get older.

The question is, what stops a lot of us from coming up with new ideas that brings about this change, what stifles our own creativity, what is it that prevents us from making it happen? Even more importantly, what makes us stop other people from doing it???


The Killers of Creativity – Their Profile
People tend to be busy at work. They are very concerned with productivity and managing the everyday activities of their work and are often quite preoccupied with themselves and their own personal advancement. New ideas seem to just get in the way of this. Managers become annoyed because: “People who talk all of these new ideas are just distracted from the activities that they should be occupying themselves with; the important things, i.e. keeping the current show on the road”. It is precisely this attitude that stifles creativity at work. As a result ideas are just shut down.

So, what are the characteristics of these people who kill creativity? Well, this is a difficult question to answer as none of these people are of any personality type, in any particular type of career, and can be from ‘any walk of life’. They are just ordinary people with closed minds. However, they can be identified, as people who typically, when approached with new ideas, say something like this without it costing them a thought:

· “We really don’t have time for this – have you scrap figures for the morning shift done yet?” “No.” “Well, why not?”
· “What would you want to do that for?”
· “We have tried it before.”
· “It’s really not what we are looking for.”
· “That’s too unrealistic, we will never be able to achieve that”.
· “Nobody would want that”, or “ What would you want that for”.
· “You do your job, and we will do ours and that how we do things here!”
· “The market is not ready for something like that”.

These statements are almost blurted out automatically by people, as if the idea, if listened to, might infect their minds and distract them as well.

A classic example of “Nobody would want that” or “It’s really not what we are looking for” is the number of publishers who turned down J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter book, The Philosophers Stone, which became an international phenomenon in its own right. I bet the ‘rejecters’ of this book were feeling well nauseous after its roaring success.

If people answer you with these dismissive type statements, then you should have a chat with them about learning a bit more about innovation and what drives it, as innovation is based on great ideas and the acceptance of these ideas and their subsequent diffusion out into society through commercialization. If they don’t listen, then get another job and interview your new employers while they interview you. Are they more open minded that your last employer?