The Creative Impulse

This article focuses on how engineers prize creativity, and for good reason. Innovation powers corporate success. Henry Ford’s low-cost mass production line, the Wright brothers’ airplane, and Thomas Edison’s phonograph all launched new businesses and created fortunes for their developers. The same is true for such creative breakthroughs as personal computers, biomedical implants, composite aircraft, and cell phones. Engineers may work at individual desks and workstations, but teams almost always create the vision that guides their work. Teams have grown increasingly diverse. In large companies, in particular, few designs make it into production without early input from manufacturing, purchasing, finance, marketing, and sales. There are ways to improve team creativity, although much of it sounds like common sense. Team members should spend time getting to know and trust one another and learning how to share information. Managing creativity is not always easy. The predilection of creative thinkers to stray outside corporate boundaries, their willingness to fail while trying something new, and the uneven quality of their output make them hard to manage in corporations that thrive on control.