236 REFLECTIONS ON CHARACTER AND LEADERSHIP
creative behavior, although in an interview with a Swedish television
channel in 2004, he admitted that he found his own work depressing,
saying, ‘ I don ’ t watch my own fi lms very often. I become so jittery and
ready to cry. ... and miserable. I think it ’ s awful. ’Creative management
Creativity, whether reactive or constructive, is not limited to the world
of the arts. It extends to the natural and the social sciences: the con-
struction of the fi rst automobile, the discovery of quantum physics, and
the design of the Eiffel Tower undeniably involved creative genius.
Business, too, has its share of creative characters, although major con-
tributions to the corporate world do not generally create the same
excitement. Creativity in organizational design tends to be of a much
more subtle nature. Does anyone remember the inventor of double
bookkeeping? And what about the fi rst designer of the divisionalized
organizational structure or the matrix organization? All of these were,
in fact, creative steps.
There is another reason why creativity in business is less recognized.
Artists and scientists often work in splendid isolation but this is rarely
practical in a business setting, since organizations are composed of
groups. And with groups come group dynamics. The much touted
ideal of team spirit in organizations can create problems, particularly
for more creative types who do not easily conform. A kind of
Gresham ’ s Law of Creativity might apply: not bad money driving out
good, but conformists driving out creative people. In many organiza-
tions creative people are seen as troublemakers, and as a result get into
trouble and leave.
So how can one manage these mavericks and avoid the loss of
potentially valuable people? What can organizational leaders do to
attract, develop, and keep creative people in their organizations? Perhaps
they need to begin thinking in terms of creative management (Robinson
and Stern, 1998 ; DeGraff and Lawrence, 2002 ; Byrd and Brown,
2003 ; Mauzy and Harriman, 2003 ; Shavinina, 2003 ). This involves
translating the maverick ’ s spontaneous and impulsive behavior into
constructive organizational action. Just as parents should encourage
their children ’ s imaginative play, senior executives have to develop
conditions that stimulate innovation and unorthodox methods in their
organization.