Creativity in the workplace: The creativity professional\u27s perspective

The purpose of this grounded theory study of eight creativity professionals was to answer the grand tour question, What are the beliefs and strategies of creativity professionals in the business world? A creativity professional may be defined as a person who makes public presentations on the topic of creativity or facilitates, trains, educates, or consults for creativity and/or creative problem solving. A qualitative methodology was utilized in this research. Eight respondents were purposively selected and chosen on the basis of their access, reputations, and willingness to participate. Data were gathered by systematic open-ended interviewing. Data were analyzed concurrent with data collection and continued after data collection was completed. As a result of interviews, observations, and a literature review that focused on the creativity professional and creativity intervention, the research questions formulated for this study were answered. (1) How do creativity professionals perceive intervention for creativity? Creativity professionals described creativity intervention as a complex issue that was found to be dependent upon three key causal conditions: client demand, the need to develop a natural ability, and the professional\u27s own need to share information about creativity. (2) What do they consider effective? The respondents believed they were effective when they developed the creativity of individuals in a business workplace. (3) What do they do to be effective? The professionals employed a number of strategies to be effective, including marketing, negotiating, program planning, delivery, and follow-up. The key strategy that became the focus of this research was assessment. (4) What barriers to creativity intervention do they identify? The key barrier with respect to individual creativity was organizational climate, and a second barrier was creativity itself. (5) How do they address those barriers? Assessment made it easier to communicate with client contact persons about the value of creativity in the workplace. (6) How do creativity professionals perceive their role in the intervention situation? The professionals saw themselves as catalysts for change