The Wordplay Greeting Cards and the Climate Change

Creativeness and uniqueness of the cards and messages were the factors that driven the success of the Wordplay Greeting Cards in the industry. However, the public’s attitude concerning WGC has been changing. Their view of the WGC products is not as positive as before. In fact, many of its former customers describe the current product line as stale. One of the factors identified in the early stages of WGC’s consultation was lack of innovation. Thus, there is a need for a WGC to change its climate as well as its culture and move to one that fosters creativity and innovation.

It’s not easy to shift and change ones climate and organizational culture especially in the creative environment since creative people face pressures everyday that can kill their creativity. Further, creative designers are subject to forces that can inhibit their ability to take the risks that bring out their best work. Nevertheless, design managers and creative workers can increase the chances to produce a truly valuable creative designs and output by understanding and managing the four dynamics of creativity such as motivation, curiosity and fear, the breaking and making of connections and evaluation. Mauzy and Harriman (2003)

Great design ideas require designers who are motivated, especially intrinsically. Motivation is the measure of the emotional investment it takes for people to break their natural inertia. Another factor important to creativity is curiosity and fear. Fear reduces one's ability to take the risks that lead to new thought. It exists to some degree in almost every business climate. Leaders and managers can lessen it by conscious attention. Likewise, a company that promotes curiosity lets people experiment with their work and explores unknown possibilities. It is also a must that managers must provide an experimental, safe environment for people to play with new possibilities since creating something new always incurs risk. Mauzy and Harriman (2003)

Breaking and making connections is where most of the work of creativity gets done. People form patterns of remembered association between connections. Patterns establish themselves as knowledge with sufficient use and trust. One produces nothing new if he follows the same patterns as before. Conversely, new ideas come about after people break out of their reinforced patterns to establish new connections between disparate patterns. Evaluation is the fourth dynamic of creative thought. Companies that excel at creativity use concerns arising in the evaluation process as focus areas for more creative work rather than as reasons to abandon the work. Mauzy and Harriman (2003)

In the case of WGC, the company needs to create a climate that fosters such foundations of creativity. Convincing the corporate leaders to allow the division autonomy in its design process will answer this; thus walling off the Creative Division from the rest of the corporate culture. Managers from the outside division must be included in the process of evaluating concepts to ensure that autonomy will not threaten corporate priorities. Mauzy and Harriman (2003)

The segregation of the creative division will protect it from the rough and tumble larger climate of the entire WGC. Hence, this segregation can fashion a local climate to support, diversify and innovate the brand of creative talent WGC traded upon. Mauzy and Harriman (2003)

WGC must also address the balance of productive and unsown time that is essential to the artists’ productivity. It should allocate the division’s time and resources to recharge the talent of the employee. Employees also must recognize and rewarded for the idea and innovation contributed. In addition, WGC must have a creative retreat center in which any employee can visit and offers classes to enhance the tools of artistic expression. Moreover, the company should maintain a library with magazines around the world, a rotating art collection and sample greeting cards and products of other competitors to have broader ideas on creative designs and getting hints how to improve its own products. Mauzy and Harriman (2003)

The evaluation of new technology with a healthy dose of common sense is also an important factor that WGC must consider. And lastly, the company must seek innovative solutions from the staff and gets suggestion on new ways of doing things better to improve the product and developed new creative designs. (Polilli, 1990)

Generally, WGC needs to build a creative climate inside a results-driven business culture that would nurture a wide range of creative types. It needs a sympathetic environment and a climate that nourishes and protects its people’s ability to be creative from the indifference and hostility of larger climate. Nurturing and protecting the creativity of designers is very important the success of WGC.

References

Harriman, R. & Mauzy, J. (2003, May). Creating a Climate in Which Corporate Designers Can Flourish. Design Management Institute.

Polilli, S. (1990, March 15). Greeting at Hallmark: Use Common Sense in Software. Software Magazine.