Goff insists that everyone
has a creative streak.
"Everyone has creativity; it's a part of everybody's life because everybody has
to figure out answers to problems that you've never faced before," she said. "And
when you have to do that you have to be creative."
Goff, joined by co-author Dr. E. Paul Torrence of the University of Georgia, has
developed a creativity test that can identify four components of a test subject's
creative ability: fluency, flexibility, originality and elaboration.
"To our knowledge, it's the only creativity assessment for adults that's on the
market," Goff said.
The Scholastic Testing
Service publishes the test.
Once the test has identified the components of a person's creativity and the degree
of ability in each area, that employee can be grouped with people whose strengths
complement his or her own, making better use of the company's talent pool, Goff
said.
In addition, Goff provides a compact disk of activities that help employees develop
the four components of their creativity. Those activities can be conducted at an
individual's own pace.
To aid the process,
Goff also conducts workshops that help foster the creative process in a company.
Those sessions help participants experience the skills of personal and collective
creativity through hands-on experience, Goff said. The sessions also focus on the
development of business strategies that encourage creativity.
The McGoff Creativity packet, which includes a book and compact disc, costs $150,
with one packet provided per person. That cost includes the expense of scoring the
tests.
The price of Goff's workshops varies based on the length of the workshop and the
number of people involved.
The test itself, which involves three activities, can be completed in as little
as nine minutes, Goff said. Scholastic can grade and return the test within a week
to 10 days.
The time involved in
the total process varies from company to company, depending on the amount of training
desired and the number of employees involved. Goff said that within three eight-hour
training periods, she can "significantly impact" the creativity of company workers.
Goff said her service helps business owners foster a more "tolerant" atmosphere
for creative people, helping those entrepreneurs determine "ways that people with
creative ideas can contribute."
"Businesses, they're interested in creativity but they really don't know how to
go about it," she said.
By providing tests that
clarify creative ability, Goff said, "it becomes a lot more clear as to what's needed
for people in order to do creative kinds of things."
"An important component in nurturing creativity in the workplace is to increase the
rewards for creativity while limiting the penalties." Goff said.
"There's a lot of failure involved in being creative. But that failure, if it's
gonna be penalized, people aren't gonna do it," she said. "So we have to figure
out a way so that taking chances and taking risks can be rewarded."
She said businesses should offer bonuses, time off or other benefits to employees
who develop creative solutions to problems. And companies often need to reorganize,
increasing the cohesion of different branches of the business, Goff said. Even in
seemingly mundane tasks, the creative energies of people in a wide variety of fields
must be tapped, she noted.
As a result, Goff said businesses are "getting away from pigeonholing and creating
cross-functional teams."
As an example, she cited
all the creative decisions that must be made in a simple manufacturing company.
"If they build a widget that's bigger than what they're shipping now, shipping's
gonna have to have a bigger box. Now is that box standard or are they gonna have
to have it made?" Goff said. "And now you're looking at lab time. And if advertising
has to create a new advertising (campaign) to go on this larger box that you've
made for your widget, well then they're gonna be involved with it. And why are people
gonna change to your new widget? Well, then you have to have your marketing people
involved because they're gonna have to communicate to the clients why this is gonna
be a better one."
Goff said the business
world is undergoing rapid change that requires increased flexibility.
"They're
having to meet customers' needs individually. (Companies are) having to look at
(customers) from unique perspectives and address them as an individual entity,"
she said. "Well, there's no formula for doing that. They're going to have to think
outside of the box and outside of the traditional parameters that we've used."
That means the linear model of problem solving isn't always the best way to approach
a fast-changing situation, Goff said.
"Most of us have been
raised on a linear process. It's step-by- step; you follow these steps and that's
what happens. But there's nothing in life that works that way. Nothing," she said.
"There isn't a cookbook of recipes on how to do anything in life and why we decided
to believe that is beyond me."
Goff admits some professions "lend themselves more to creative input than others,"
noting that lawyers, accountants and engineers prefer linear models of work due
to the type of training they receive to enter those fields. But even those companies
need to assess creativity at times, she said.
"If a company tells
me that they want to hire a top engineer and they want them to be creative, they're
not gonna get that from (the applicant's) GPA," Goff said. "How are they gonna find
a really creative engineer if that's what they need? Well, if they use this creativity
test to identify people for hiring, then it's a valuable tool."
Regardless of profession,
Goff said all people have creative talents, but many have not developed those abilities.
"If you're gonna be a better tennis player, you're gonna have to practice," she
said. "If you're gonna be more creative, you have to practice it."
However, that can be
changed, in part, by using the tools Goff supplies. Those tests and exercises help
people develop their fluency, flexibility, originality and elaboration abilities,
she said. The activities focus on the four creativity characteristics both individually
and in conjunction with one another. The activities can be completed at an individual's
own pace.
She believes creativity
development will be the next big trend in personnel development and warns that companies
that fail to tap the creative reserves of their employees will lag behind their
competitors.
"If creativity isn't encouraged, then people aren't gonna do it because it takes
a lot of courage to be creative. It takes a lot of courage to be the one, the only
one doing it," Goff said. "So in order to have that courage, you have to have support
in your environment."
