Article Review: How to Kill Creativity, by Teresa Amabile

How to Kill Creativity, 5/5 Sparks

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Teresa Amabile is a Professor of Business Administration in the Entrepreneurial Management Unit, and the senior associate dean for research, at the Harvard Business School in Boston, Massachusetts.  Dr. Amabile received her Ph.D. in psychology from Stanford University and has produced over 150 scholarly publications. Additionally Dr. Amabile has published two books, Creativity in Context (1996) and Growing up Creative: Nurturing a lifetime of creativity (1989).  [Harvard bio]

Main Points

• Creativity is not a fluffy or abstract force, rather, it is the capacity to develop novel and useful ideas and results from the combination of three distinct influences; expertise, creative thinking skill, and motivation.
• Management can improve the creative output of their employees through actions and procedures that enhance the effectiveness of these three influences.

Review

How to Kill Creativity is a must read for any manager or executive who desires to increase the number of novel, appropriate and actionable ideas generated by their employees. In her article, Dr. Amabile successfully disperses the mystified disillusions surrounding creativity and then provides concrete procedures and practices management can undertake to improve the creative output of their employees.