Table of Contents

INTRODUCTION: .................................................................................................................. 2
OBSTACLES TO CREATIVITY: .......................................................................................... 2
REASONS FOR OBSTACLES: ....................................................................................... 4
SUGGESTIONS IN ORDER TO FIX THE PROBLEM THROUGH STRATEGIES:..... 4
ORGANIZATIONAL STRUCTURE CHANGE: ........................................................... 5
IDEA GENERATION PROCESS: ................................................................................... 6
SCAMPER: .............................................................................................................................. 6
MINDMAPPING: ................................................................................................................... 7
EMBRACE CONSTRAINTS: .......................................................................................... 8
CONCLUSION: ........................................................................................................................ 9
REFERENCES: ..................................................................................................................... 10
INTRODUCTION:
According to Bode & Villar (2015), creativity is the act of turning imaginative ideas
into reality and organizational creativity captures the principles, concepts and
understanding relating to organizational design, transformation and dynamics
resulting from an exploration of creativity in the organization (Bode & Villar, 2015).
I was working at a recruitment company as a marketing intern and during this time
period I found out about the businesses operations as well as activities of the
management and the company. The marketing firm operates in the highly competitive
industry and tends to make clients through their creative ideas for the marketing plans
and campaigns for their clients. The following report highlights the obstacles towards
creativity that organization is struggling as well as suggestions in order solve this
problem through strategic implementation.

OBSTACLES TO CREATIVITY:
The first obstacle that I found was that the team in the company was under high
pressure as each team had to come up with innovative ideas for the marketing
campaigns for their clients. According to Andrew Tate (2015), one of the major
reasons for lack of creativity in organizations is high pressure on team as when
individuals are under pressure they felt more distracted and unable to focus on the
task in hand (Tate, 2015).
Another core obstacle that I discovered was that there was lack of communication
between the manager and the marketing teams that were working on the project. The
main reason or lack of communication was that manager was on leave for 1 month
and she assigned a supervisor to take control during that time period, however she
was available for communication through email and phone. Manager was responsible
for communication between clients and marketing teams and due to lack of her
availability there was miscommunication with the team and it lead to lack of creative
ideas for the team to build marketing plans. Katz (2014) said that lack of
communication between management and team is one of the major reasons that lead
to issues as well as lack of creativity among organizations (Katz, 2014).
One of the major reasons that I found which limited the creativity of employees in the
organization is that they have to play by the rules of the organization. The employees
had to follow the policies, procedures, organizational structure which is inflexible and
rigid as well as play by the culture of the organization and this stifle the creativity in
the organization. Henrickson (2003) said that most of the time creativity in
organizations Is affected by the policies and procedures developed by the company.as
the organization is small scale and the organizational structure was centralized and
this means most of the organizational decisions were made by the top executives of
the company. This limits the creativity, as only the top executives will finalize the
ideas of the team rather than the teams working out to find out the best suitable idea
for their projects. Therefore, I found this obstacle one of the most important and the
major reason to have lack of creativity and innovation in the organization.
Another major obstacle that was discovered is that there was no process as when
employees have ideas and they tend to share but there was no process that I
discovered through which employees could give their creative ideas to the top
management (Zhang & Bartol, 2010). The lack of process in the organization lead the
teams to have different ideas and opinions which never reached the top management
of the company and eventually the ideas were scarped during the group meetings.
Being one the member in the team, my team was assigned to come up with an idea for
television commercial for a new product to be launched in Sydney. However, our
ideas did not matched and the individual ideas, which might be very creative, were
never reached to the management.
Creativity is critically important for the company because its a marketing company
and to be innovative and creative is the essential part for this industry. Marketing
companies run on innovative and creative idea for their clients and lack of innovation
and creativity with marketing ideas will lead towards decline in the customer base of
the company. As the obstacles are leading towards decline in the productivity of the
company and client goals are not reached the stakes are very high. Lack of creativity
in the marketing campaigns of the company will lead to decline from the clients
perspective as other marketing companies will offer better and innovative ideas for
their marketing activities relating to products. If the teams and the organization is not
able to create creative marketing ideas for their clients, company will lose its
reputation as marketing organization in this industry. This will lead to potential failure
in the future business operations of the company.
 REASONS FOR OBSTACLES:
While working in the organization, I found out that the employees are under high
pressure to perform better and to have innovative ideas for their clients. One of the
reason this obstacle arise is due to number of projects given to same teams as one
team was working on more than one project at one and this lead to high pressure
among them to complete the tasks. Furthermore, lack of supervision and the absence
of manager at the organization eliminated the control over teams as well as their
supervision and this lead the teams to lose their focus on the on-going projects.
Another reason for the obstacles to arise is that there was no processes developed in
order to complete the new projects and the ideas where never discovered during the
brainstorming session and this reflects that there was lack of strategic implementation
in the organization and this was one of the core reason for lack of creativity in the
company.
So far the projects are still on going, however there were quite a few steps that were
taken by the manager after her arrival back to the office. The first step she took was to
check on the work, which has been completed by the team. Furthermore, she met each
of the individual in the team in order to listen too their ideas as well as ensured that
there is no in-formal communication going on among the teams and the management
of the company. A brainstorming session was held by the manager in order to boost
the teams and individuals to come up with creative ideas for the project they are
working on. In order to reduce the load of work and reduce pressure on the team,
management requested the clients to change the dates for their meetings and this
helped to reduce the high pressure among teams.

SUGGESTIONS IN ORDER TO FIX THE PROBLEM THROUGH

STRATEGIES:
In order to fix the problem for lack of effective creativity and innovation in the
organization it would be essential to develop a process. The best suitable strategies
would be to change the organizational structure as it limited employees creativity and
the second stage would be to held idea generation techniques in order to allow the
employees to shout out their ideas as well as listen to other ideas among team working
on different projects.
 ORGANIZATIONAL STRUCTURE CHANGE:
Another strategy that I would recommend is to adopt change in the organizational
structure as the structure of the organization is very important and for this firm the
procedures and policies are limiting the creativity of employees. As the organizational
structure is centralized and this means most of the decisions are developed and
controlled by the top executives of the company and this influence the creativity of
lower level employees or teams. Therefore, it would be an essential strategy to change
the organizational structure of the company from centralized to decentralized as it will
allow the lower level managers as well as team managers to make decisions related to
business and this will enhance the confidence as well as reduce pressure on the
employees (Fiedler & Welpe, 2010). The following diagram shows the difference
between the both organizational structures;

Source: Kortmann, (2012)

The above diagram clearly shows that there is a huge difference between both the
organizational structure, therefore it would be better for the company to change their
organizational structure as it will lead to improved policies and procedures which will
help the teams to have better creative ideas as well as creativity will be improved in
the organization. Kortmann (2012), suggests that these structures are suitable for the
organizations as it requires constant developments and with high competition in the
industry it would be essential to allow the employees to interact relatively freely
among each other. Such organizational structure will allow the teams and employees
to reach the top management easily compared to centralized structure and this will
enhance the creativity through constant communication.
 IDEA GENERATION PROCESS:

SCAMPER:
One of the core strategies that I would suggest to the company is to develop idea
generation process in the organization as it can help the teams to develop and come up
with new ideas. SCAMPER is an idea generation technique, which utilizes verbs such
as stimuli, and Bob Eberie developed it and this idea generation technique allows the
individuals to come up with ideas for both existing and new products. The following
diagram shows the SCAMPER idea generation technique;

Source: Kim (2014)

The above diagram shows the different stages, which are involved in this technique,
and each of the stage can be very important and critical in order to come up with new
ideas. The following are the elements of SCAMPER that could be used by the
organization for develop new ideas and enhance creativity.
Substitute: what are the resources of information that can be substituted in
order to develop better marketing plans.
Combine: what outside information can be combined in order to maximize
the influence of marketing plan about the projects?
Adapt: what else could be added in the marketing plan?
 Modify: what can be added in order to make the marketing plan more
attractive and informative for viewers.
Put to Another Use: How this marketing plan is better than other marketing
activities carried out by competitors?
Eliminate: What parts of the plan should be eliminated?
Reverse: What role or information could be swap or reversed?
The above is the elements of SCAMPER and the explanation reflects on the creative
questions that can be discussed during the team meetings in order to come up with
new marketing plans or to enhance the current marketing plans.
Therefore, this idea generation technique could be essential as well as creative
because it can help the organization to allow their employees to come up creative
ideas as well as it can eliminate obstacles towards creativity.

MINDMAPPING:
According to Jones & Overly (2010), mind mapping is a graphical technique for
imagining connection between different aspects of critical ideas. Each of the idea is
written down and then it is connected through curves to a major fact or information
and this helps to build relationships that can bring creativity in the organizations. The
marketing firm can adopt the process of mind mapping, as it will help the teams to
come up with new ideas as well as enhance the current ideas they have in mind. The
following diagram shows an example of mind mapping process, which can be used by
the organization in order to come up with new ideas;

Mind mapping helps to find out the importance of ideas as it can be linked on the
needs and wants of clients, which can then eliminate the useless ideas of activities that
can influence the idea. Therefore, through the use of mind mapping the marketing
firm will be able to come up with new ideas as well as management will allow to have
better communication between the teams through idea generation processes.

EMBRACE CONSTRAINTS:
Another strategy through which obstacles to creativity can be eliminated is through
embracing constrains towards ideas. As one of the best way to become creative at
work is to create artificial constraints as by embracing constraints it becomes easier
for the teams as well as individuals to focus on the projects and come with creative
ideas in order to complete the project or to solve the problems (Gupta, 2017). By
embracing the constraints that are influencing the teams in the marketing firm will
allow them to be creative as validating against the constraints can be an effective way
to check in on feasibility during the creative process (Say, 2013). Through identifying
constraints it can help the teams to identify the problem space, which will eventually
lead them towards planning ahead. Embracing constraints will let teams to plan ahead
as having scope allows for approach and time to be devised and it will help the
marketing firm to outline the playing field and set scenes for productivity in their
teams and teamwork. Therefore, it would be an effective strategy for the organization
to adopt, as it will lead the teams to have higher focus on creativity (Lau, 2013).
CONCLUSION:
Creativity is critically essential for any organization that tends to operate in
competitive marketing and through working in a marketing firm; I analyzed that
competition in marketing industry is extremely high due to importance of creativity.
At one point in organization obstacles can overcome creativity among teams and this
can influence the overall operations of the company. In the marketing firm, there are
number of factors that act as obstacle to creativity such as high pressure among
employees, lack of effective communication, strict policies and procedures to be
follow as well as the centralized organizational structure. In order to fix the issue of
creativity, it would be essential to change the organizational structure to decentralize,
as it will allow the lower level employees to have better communication and
discussion on idea generation. In terms of changing organizational structure, it would
also be essential to have adoption of idea generation techniques such as Mind
Mapping and SCAMPER and these methods can bring out the best out of employees
and their creative ideas. Therefore, it would be essential and a key strategic change
for the organization to adopt the suggested ways as it can help them to overcome the
barriers as well as obstacles towards creativity.
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