Moving Outside Your Network Sparks Creativity

 

January 2010

Organizations have challenging, complex business problems. Those managers, whose current contributions shine with innovation and creativity, and whose ability to devise novel, appropriate and valued solutions to business challenges and problems, will fair far better in preserving their corporate worth, says Jill Perry-Smith, assistant professor of organization and management at Emory University’s Goizueta Business School. “Creativity is critical in solving the more difficult and challenging problems” firms face in these tumultuous times, she says.

To cultivate creativity, people often use either the recluse or the group approach, Perry-Smith observes. “One idea is that in order to be creative…people tend to be isolated with minimal social skills,” she says. “They tend to be in their caves working on something, and then they come up with some creative breakthrough.”

An opposite alternative is to forego the strategic seclusion and work as part of a corroborative team, she says. With the group approach, “These people come together to solve [certain] projects,” Perry-Smith says, and often this same group is tapped for other assignments.

But Perry-Smith argues both of these extremes can actually hamper creativity. At one end, the recluse limits creativity-inspiring interactions, while the group that works together frequently will bond amongst themselves—but often have limited contact with others.

Instead, both groups could benefit from what Perry-Smith calls “the diversity that weak relationships render.” These are relationships with people outside your inner circle, with whom you have infrequent contact. In her research on social networks in the workplace, Perry-Smith has observed that these interactions can provide an opportunity to get a different perspective, which can actually help kick-start new ideas.

“These are people you’re not as close to,” she explains. “These are not your very close friends or your friends. [They are] people you don’t interact with frequently—not once a day or once a week—maybe just once a month. They’re not what you might think of as being very meaningful at providing any sort of social support or friendship.

“Although these are weaker relationships, they are more along the lines of an acquaintance versus a stranger. Also, typically the conversations helpful for creativity would involve some work-related component, although the conversations may not necessarily be within a person’s workplace or necessarily be very detailed or specific. So, it is less likely this would happen with a parking attendant, for example, assuming these relationships have not moved beyond a polite hello/goodbye.”