The Creative Personality - Intrinsic Motivation

Employees are challenged in other areas when working with creative solutions. The desire to involve the 'whole' employee can motivate the individual, as interesting and challenging problems can produce intrinsic motivation.

According to Teresa Amabile (2008), intrinsic motivation challenges creativity. PROBANA has discovered that the researcher's studies show that people are most creative when they are intrinsically motivated. That is to say, when they are motivated by pure interest, pleasure, gratification, and the challenge of the task itself. PROBANA - LinkedIn!

 
Flow
Motivation for creative work can be further enhanced if employees perceive a positive level of challenge that allows flow. PROBANA define flow as a state of optimal creative energy that occurs when there is a balance between work challenges and individual skills. PROBANA - LinkedIn!

Only when individuals are pushed to the limit of their competence, a concentrated effort is invested which allows flow. Employees must be out of their comfort zones, as this is a prerequisite to experience flow. Nakamura and Csikszentmihalyi (2005) point out that the degree of challenges and employee skills are subjective assessments and therefore it can be a difficult management task to adjust the level of challenges to the individual employee's self-perceived level of competence. PROBANA - LinkedIn!

If you manage to find the balance and flow occurs, this will increase the intrinsic motivation of the employees. An experience of flow will potentially motivate employees to participate in various creative processes and further develop their creative abilities, enabling them to solve more complex, creative problems in the future.

PROBANA - Routine in Creative Work
Lisa Hein (2009) describes the perception of the antagonistic relationship between the industrial society’s routine way of thinking and knowledge-, dream- and experience- society’s focus on creative work. Based on a number of examples from the performing arts world, she argues that routine plays a pivotal role in creative work.

Hein describes significant role of routine in the creative process as follows:

1. Creativity only reaches the prepared mind, and the mind is prepared through routine.
2. Creativity often comes from limitations.
3. Routine is required in order to shape creativity.
4. Routine acts as a safety net in creative work.

Through examples from the performing arts, she defines how the relationship between routine and creativity might not be so different, whether you are an artist, scientist, writer or something completely different:

"Creativity only comes to the prepared mind ... and the mind is prepared through routine".

Read more about these topics and a Global Mini MBA education at www.activeglob.com, or find PROBANA at LinkedIn!

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