The Apprentice 18.3: The Creativity Exercise

This week's episode required creative thinking. The product the teams were asked to build required creativity. And so did the brand design and promotional elements. Even the pitch component needs a creative approach to building an engaging proposal.

So, I want to talk about creativity as a team exercise

The challenge, of course, is that there are no rules to creativity. We all have a creative spark. But some of us can more readily fan it into a flame.

Dunning-Kruger

There is also a comparison with the Dunning-Kruger effect for knowledge. In that, people with a little bit of knowledge fail to recognize how very little they have. Some believe themselves highly creative and over-value their own creative input.

Team Creative Thinking

Team creative thinking is not about your creativity stars. You may have some in your team - and you may not. If you don't you can still produce great results.

The role of a team leader is to harness all the talent in the team - not just the creative experts. And certainly not just the D-K creative wannabes.

Dialectic

We saw the same thing (in different ways) in each team. There were several examples of one person dominating the process. These included shutting out others with contrary opinions. Clearly, some of the candidates are not fans of Hegel:

Thesis + Antithesis = Synthesis

Philosophical joking aside, this is just a waste of good people's ideas. And, what about those who, for whatever reason, chose not to push their ideas forward at all? Lost insights.

Facilitation

In a creative task, a team (or sub-team in this context) needs to be led by a facilitator. Their role is to ensure everyone's ideas get in front of the group. And more... Eaxch idea needs respect and consideration. The team should be looking for good ideas and building on them. But instead, we saw too much competition for ideas to win out.

But, what if the team leader has a brilliant idea?

It's possible. But, the role of the facilitator is a privileged one. 'They who control the marker pen control the outcome.' So, in that case, they should ask someone else to step forward and facilitate. And, they should give the specific brief that they - the team leader - should get no preferential treatment.

Is this possible?

Yes, of course it is. Facilitation is a skill, like any other. You need to learn it. I have a video on my YouTube channel called How to Facilitate a Meeting for Project Managers.

Indeed, one of the services I offer is facilitating meetings within organizations. I bring tools, skills, and critically, detachment.

Both teams were criticized for failing to deliver a truly creative product. And the reason was simple. It was not because some team members were unfamiliar with the context. And it was certainly not because of any lack of creativity in either team. It was simply because each team failed to harness all the creativity they had available.

Sophia's Take

Here is my daughter's take on what she noticed in the episode. As usual, her take complements mine nicely, even though we don't discuss the episode!

This week I saw examples of an issue that comes up very regularly in The Apprentice.

A large part of the challenge of the game is working together as a team. This week, like many other weeks, I observed people’s ideas not being heard. Others were not inviting contributions. The tasks in The Apprentice are team-based. So, it seems necessary that all people can share their ideas. This is especially so, when they may be penalized for not sharing, when it comes to the boardroom.

I do understand that some tasks can play to people’s strong suits. In those weeks, they are likely to share more and that is great. It’s how the real world works. My issue is when people having something to say are not listened too, or are overpowered by other voices. This often happens and teams will sometimes suffer from not hearing a good idea or listening to a useful criticism.

______

Once again, the boardroom took a toll and the remaining candidates went forward. Next week is the familiar scavenger hunt episode. Always funny, but what will we be able to apply to the real world of work? Good luck to all the candidates, those remaining in the show, and those who have left it.

Amina Khan, Dr Asif Munaf, Florence Edwards, Foluso Falade, Jack Davies, Maura Rath, Noor Bouziane, Oliver Medforth, Onyeka Nweze ACG, Paul Bowen, Dr. Paul Midha, Phil Turner, Rachel Woolford, Raj Chohan, Samantha Saadet, Steve Darken, Tre Lowe, Virdavinder Singh G.