Innovation and creativity

8.6 Innovation and creativity

Once we have identified individuals who function well in teams and offered them an opportunity to work in an innovative and creative environment, there are still the wider organisational constraints that might limit the ability of the team to function effectively. It has been suggested that one of the major threats to innovation is a sense of job insecurity and lack of safety at work (see Frederick Hertzberg’s work on ‘hygiene factors’). In production teams, if all the members feel that they are truly part of the team and are participating in the production process, there is much evidence to suggest that the project will be more successful. A good project manager who gives continuous feedback and fosters a sense of belonging in members of the team will have a powerful effect on improving the team’s performance. Here we reach a conundrum. Many of the texts that deal with motivation and the actions of an entrepreneur could be seen to be at odds with the requirements for an innovative environment. An entrepreneur is a risk taker. However, this might explain why we need a director and a producer to bring

a production project successfully to its conclusion. The entrepreneur could

be seen as the individual who manages the risk on behalf of the creative team.

It might be suggested that the role of the entrepreneur/producer or the proxy, the project manager, in fostering innovation is:

1 To identify the staff who are likely to be innovative

2 To establish an innovative climate

3 To promote innovation amongst all staff

4 To promote innovation among teams

5 To promote innovation within the work organisations.

Made in Japan

In his book Made In Japan 12 , Akio Morita suggested that he created an

atmosphere in Sony that allowed people to fail. He says: ‘Once you have a staff of prepared, intelligent and energetic people the next step is to motivate them to be creative’. He goes on to say:

Our brilliant researcher, Nobutoshi Kihara, came up with the system that did away with the blank spaces between the bands of recorded material on regular videotape. These empty bands (called guard bands) were placed there to avoid interference or

Behaviour in media organisations and organisational behaviour

spill over as each band of programme material is recorded and played back. This meant that half the tape was going unused . . . Why not record onto the empty spaces, greatly increasing capacity and avoiding interference by using two recording reading heads and angling the heads at about 90° from each other, so that each head could not read or interfere with the recording track next to it? A new revolving head drum had to be designed and a different mechanism developed, but after many months of testing, his group produced a new system that worked beautifully, and we have built a brand new video system for home use with the picture yet attainable.

Sony called this Betamax, because ‘beta’ is a brush stroke in painting or calligraphy, and it is also is similar to the Greek letter beta and sounds scientific. In engineering terms, Betamax was far superior to and came out before VHS. However, due to clever marketing the VHS format swept away Betamax in the domestic environment. Again creativity came to the fore in Sony; with some modifications the Betamax quality was considerably improved and it became the first true broadcast- quality cassette videotape recording format. Sony has dominated the world of professional video recording ever since.

By creating a working environment in which people could fail, Sony allowed them to succeed. In doing so, Sony fostered an environment in which enormous leaps in technology were possible. Current wisdom suggests that innovation and creativity is possible if the following factors are taken into account:

a balanced team, as recommended by Belbin, is formed 䊉 individuals are trained and developed

䊉 the team is given a clear goal – the making of a television programme or

a film certainly focuses the mind 䊉 tasks and targets are clear – most jobs in the television industry are very

clearly identified 䊉 the team has a motivating piece of work to do, such as a film or a

television programme; this gives the team a sense of cohesiveness 䊉 members of the team feel they are part of what is going on

䊉 there is a high level of participation, which also ensures a high standard of work and quality of innovation

䊉 challenges to the team are made within a safe environment 䊉 the crews’ opinions on work are canvasses

Managing in the Media

䊉 the production manager, director or producer has good communication skills, which will bring the best out of the members of the crew

䊉 individuals are respected and given a great deal of autonomy in the work they do.