How To Be An Engaging Leader: Why Bother With Creativity and Connectivity?

How To Be An Engaging Leader

 Why Bother With Creativity and Connectivity?

Depending on which perspective, many experts and academicians would arrive to nearly a same conclusion about much has changed with technology encroaching positively into the workplace in every corners of the earth. As  networking devices enter the work environment, Kevin Kuske on April 29, 2013 wrote in an online article Creativity and Connectivity Key to Productive Workplace about "Technology is fuelling the ability to work anywhere. Our world is urbanising with soon to be 50-75 percent of the world's population living in cities. Huge demographic changes are in play. The boomers are leaving the workforce, and GenY is entering in record numbers and reshaping the workplace. We are seeing the early signals of carbon footprint actually driving decisions and behavior. Women and minorities are finally taking more and more significant leadership roles. We no longer can afford to go to work and come home less healthy" (Source).

In the research paper Welcome to World 2.0:The Age of Creativity, Connectivity, Collaboration, Convergence and Community by Dr. Fahri Karakas from The Open University, Business School
IMPEL (International Management Practice, Education, and Learning) Centre in United Kingdom in 2009 wrote about FIVE ELEMENTS OF WORLD 2.0  in the Journal of Business Strategy, Vol. 30, No. 4, pages. 23-30.(Source) (Source).These five elements found by the author propose "five shifts that characterize and describe World 2.0: a) creativity, b) connectivity, c) collaboration, d) convergence, and e) community. These shifts define the new global landscape of business, technology, and innovation. Practical implications – The article provides managers and professionals strategies for innovation in the World 2.0 ecosystem."

The same research paper noted about "Originality/value – The concept of World 2.0 provides managers and professionals a fresh perspective and an integrative vision of the 21st century business and innovation landscape.".(Source) (Source). Indeed, the "world of technology, communications, and business is undergoing extensive transformations. The paradigm shift we witness in the Internet, telecommunications, and mobile technologies deeply influences the business world around us" .(Source) (Source). And with this, Kevin Kuske on April 29, 2013 remarked "Co-creation is ascending as the new dominant model of innovation, creativity and differentiation."(Source).

With reference to Welcome to World 2.0:The Age of Creativity, Connectivity, Collaboration, Convergence and Community three main changes highlighted by Dr. Fahri Karakas may be singled out to link with CREANIVITY methodology as timely and fitting in the context of work in this times.

Shift 1: Creativity
Quoted from Dr. Fahri Karakas was the premise of "Organizations have been trying to introduce creative ways of organizing and work, such as building connections through networked organizations, utilising swarm intelligence or creating collective intelligence in cross-disciplinary work teams" All these elements carry well on the platform of CREANIVITY's collectivity architecture, as seen in the screen shot below:

An example would refer to the research paper's description about "Pixar attracts the best
creative talent and utilizes a peer-driven process for fostering “collective creativity” or
“group genius” to come up with artistic and technological breakthroughs in the computer
animation movies industry", which as note by Catmull in 2008 (as cited in Fahri Karakas, 2009)(Source) (Source).


Shift 2: Connectivity

In relation to the first shift of creative needs, this second shift is connectivity; that was defined in Fahri Karakas's article in 2009 as the "ability to link or connect to the Internet - the global brain - providing access to world-wide online information resources just by sitting in front of and clicking on your computer, laptop, or mobile device". In addition to CREANIVITY methodology, the visual screen shot below exactly positioned an collective architecture of "Connectivity is a technological infrastructure and a mindset", which  in this research paper "links geographically remote resources to increase access to information resources. Connecting to the wider global network and information society involves the negotiation of many barriers, such as the digital divide" as mentioned by Crenshaw and Robison in 2006 (as cited in Fahri Karakas, 2009). (Source) (Source).





Through expansive technological infrastructure support systems, vast "knowledge, brains, resources, and computing power of over one billion people online worldwide are self-organizing into a
massive collective force; which is also denoted as the “global brain” explained by Tapscott and
Williams in 2006 (as cited in Fahri Karakas, 2009). (Source) (Source) . Nowadays, it is usual for "Millions of people [to] collaborate in diverse ways on joint projects, write blogs and wikis, communicate with Skype, chat and use e-mail, work concurrently on Google documents, and share songs via Kazaa. Never before has collaboration across time and space been so fast, easy and cheap."

On this note, the author continued to state that " These millions of connected individuals can now actively collaborate and participate in innovation to advance arts, culture, science, and education. This has been called mass collaboration, open source, crowdsourcing, or crowd wisdom." With reference to main factors influencing collaboration, CREANIVITY connects creativity with the characteristics of networking connectivity to establish a workable model in various online and offline learning, performance,and development situations.


Shift 3: Collaboration 

Combining creativity and connectivity, Fahri Karakas in 2009 (Source) (Source) acknowledge on fostering "a positive climate to nurture group genius and collective creativity. Design
flexible, positive, global virtual platforms for people to collaborate."  Further from this idea is the collaboration aspect in CREANIVITY methodology that may "Encourage non-traditional thinking,
creative thinking, visualization, metaphors and analogies. Encourage the love of learning and boundless curiosity. Invite top professionals and best minds to your company. Design seminars, webinars, and e-learning modules to enable your employees to brainstorm and learn together."  The role of collaboration in CREANIVITY in conjunction with the research findings may be observed in the screen shot below:

Based on the same screen shot in the section above, it is clear to indicate that creativity leads a linear line to actionable collaboration as an catalyst to drive team change engagement. Correspondingly, it may lead to "Think on how to build a sustainable creative organizational culture. Try to design flexible virtual platforms to stimulate advances and to adapt to new technologies" as written by Fahri Karakas in 2009 (Source) (Source) In all, CREANIVITY methodology may "Orchestrate positive change to become a better innovator and to create an innovative peer culture. Construct an environment that nurtures trusting and respectful relationships and unleashes creativity." Unsurprisingly, all interactive CREANIVITY sessions, no matter on site or offsite delivery would ensure that "It must be safe for everyone to offer ideas regardless of their positions or backgrounds.
People at all levels should be fully dedicated to helping and supporting each other everyone else to excel", all suggested by Fahri Karakas in 2009 (Source) (Source).


Transformation of change engagement in teams at the workplace would mean the efforts to "Encourage your colleagues to be involved in lifelong and boundless learning in the

digital web 2.0 platforms. Design e-collaboration and e-learning opportunities for your 

5 employees to develop new skills for the 21st century. Utilize Office 2.0 collaborative

tools and social networks to harness collective intelligence"Fahri Karakas in 2009 (Source) (Source). Whether with technology or without it, c-suites and senior management would achieve better engagement when the respective organizations are tasked to "Encourage your colleagues

to develop, experiment with, and use the new competences for the global digital creative

era, such as hypertext reading or non-linear thinking" even when the CREANIVITY methoddology is structure in a linear fashion to facilitate clear and ease of guiding participants either in online or offline environments.The visual snapshot below displays elements of this section.






With regards to the diagram above, the creativity generation activities may be enabled and nurtured when organizations "Invest in intellectual capital and skills of your employees through continuous learning, training, and development programs. Establish on-the-job training and development programs for your employees. Reinforce the mind-set that you are all learning and it is fun to learn together" , as found in notes by Fahri Karakas in 2009 (Source) (Source).

At this point , it is also important to note that two other shifts highlighted by Fahri Karakas in 2009 (Source) (Source) as they do exert different degrees of impact, even when the CREANIVITY model does not literally contain texts related to specific terms. For example, shift in community which may be defined as the participants of CREANIVITY session while the final convergence would refer to more online setting to aggregate information that can also mirror CREANIVITY's scope of focus to data based problem definition to plan to productivity delivery flow.


Moreover, Fahri Karakas in 2009 (Source) (Source) also cited on "witnessing a blurring of the distinctions between learning, work, fun, and leisure as mobile computing devices are ubiquitous, and an “always on” culture is enabled by broadband Internet connectivity." Taking account these elements of connective technological advancement that fits well into creative needs of an organization, many learning ,performance, and development activities may b arranged to achieve a desired goals through the use of CREANIVITY methodology as a collective platform to aggregate creativity, connectivity through collective platforms (which may include online or offline interactive sessions).