International Law

Forcing Creativity

By Stan

Since I attended kindergarten, I have had a loathing for cutesy, interactive classroom activities. Perhaps it’s my cold personality (a Chinese colleague, showing off his English vocab, called me ‘cadaverous’ the other day. I just shrugged it off).

However, I do understand the need for multinationals (foreign and domestic) to attempt to jump-start the brains of their staff and get the neurons firing. I’m in support of giving staff more responsibility, fostering creativity, and providing incentives for innovation. I would also expect that anything to do with innovation will be seen favorably here, particularly by the government.

What I don’t believe is that you can force innovation via corporate retreats to some hotel, where you spend the weekend playing childish games, ‘bonding’ with your co-workers, and getting hammered on tequila after dinner. Well, the tequila part is OK I suppose.

Apparently this sort of thing is getting popular here. I had to participate in one of these about a year ago — downright painful, it was. I think that this writeup in the AP does the subject justice (h/t Digital Times):

Amena Schlaijker makes her students cluck like chickens, mimic a toothbrush, jump up and down or pretend to die an agonizing death.

The aim is to make budding business leaders think outside the box.

It may sound extreme, but this is China, where students have grown up on rote learning and the ruling Communist Party has long discouraged creative thinking lest it lead to challenging authority.

"You can tell them to think outside of the box, but some employees don’t even have the concept of a box to begin with," said Roy Magee, an Australian whose training company, AchieveGlobal, has operated in China since 1997. "We just have to go in and start from scratch."

It comes as the government works on the economy’s next leap forward — to transform the nation’s industry from "Made in China" to "Invented in China." Addressing parliament last year, President Hu Jintao spoke of making China a nation of innovators. At the same time, China is recognizing that as wages and land prices rise, it is no longer a cheap place to manufacture other countries’ products, and needs to invent its own to remain globally competitive.

I’m a dyed-in-the-wool skeptic on this issue. Creativity can be encouraged but it is very difficult to foster in adults. I understand that China desperately wants to move up that value chain and have an IP-based economy, but you need patience for that sort of thing. Running around clucking like a chicken just makes everyone uncomfortable.

My suggestion: everyone should start a blog.

OK, obviously I was not being serious with that comment. Blogging, for most people, is even more uncomfortable than acting like a chicken. So if your company is in a bind, perhaps they can try the chicken pantomime initiative for a few weeks to see if there are any positive effects. Think of how much fun you can have telling your clients:

See that guy over there? That’s Xiao Li. Today he is acting like a chicken. It hasn’t helped boost his productivity, but we can sure use the eggs. [Note: I will not respond to any hate mail sent to me because of that joke, so don't bother.]

Full post as published by China Hearsay on January 14, 2009 (boomark / email).