Groups and Creativity • 61
alternatives. Special emphasis is on dening the problem and weaving
information and ideas in a way to create something innovative.
70
Logical
Processors focus on specics that are rooted in reality. Everything must
produce tangible results that require taking a step-by-step approach. Being
methodical necessitates having clear, unambiguous directions.
71
Hypothetical Analyzers focus on solving problems by being analytical,
using a methodology or framework. As conceptual thinkers, they look at
the big picture and are open to new ideas and opportunities aer careful
analysis. ey will then pursue a structured, organized approach to com-
plete work.
72
Organizational Engineering can prove a useful tool for encouraging cre-
ativity on projects. Relational Innovators do not like structure and detail,
but like to absorb information from dierent sources and are prescriptive
in orientation. ey prefer brainstorming and role playing. Hypothetical
Analyzers approach a problem through analysis, using detail to populate
a framework and prefer working with texts and numbers. ey prefer a
structural approach. Logical Processors go aer detail. ey seek, how-
ever, to have detail of the highest quality and use that information in a
narrow manner to achieve tangible results. ey prefer statistics, obser-
vation, and simulation. Reactive Stimulators are descriptive, focusing on
what is concrete and the shortest distance between two points. ey prefer
trial and error, involving active experimentation and trips.
73
People Styles Typology
Another model is the People Styles Typology best described by Robert
Bolton. He looks at how people’s behavioral patterns and habits aect their
relationship with others in a typology. What makes this approach relevant
is that it looks at how one’s style inuences the behavior of others, which
can aect the creative output of a team.
A person’s style is exhibited through what he or she does, which in turn
reects his or her traits and how he or she repeatedly acts.
74
Using this
information, his style can then be identied in a quadrant created through
the intersection of two continuums called dimensions of behavior.
e rst dimension is assertiveness, dened as a person’s degree of force-
fulness. A person is less or more assertive. is continuum runs horizontal.
e other dimension is responsiveness, dened as the degree to which
a person is aware of another person’s feelings. A person is less or more
responsive. is continuum runs vertical.
75
62 • Creative, Ecient, and Eective Project Management
Together, these two dimensions create four styles that indicate how
other people see the way that person behaves. A style reects a pattern that
helps predict how a person likes to interact, such as at work, with others.
76
A style exhibits a pattern through the way they communicate, deal with
conict, handle stress, make decisions, and exhibit body language.
Analytical, Amiable, Expressive, and Driver are the four social styles.
Analyticals tend to focus on the task to get done and less on people. ey
eschew emotion as their critical thinking and desire for facts and data
prevail over most people-oriented concerns. ey also tend to be reserved
and taciturn in their dealings with people. As you might suspect, they
are cautious, not being aggressive risk takers. ey prefer structure, order,
and precision. ey also take an organized, systematic approach in what
theydo.
77
Amiables, more so than Analyticals, seek to work with others but in a
congenial manner. ey are friendly, empathetic, and focus on others over
facts and data. Like the Analyticals, they tend toward the cautious side,
not being aggressive risk takers. ey also tend to be indecisive, not out
of having better data but out of fear of causing people to get upset. Hence,
they are people, not task, oriented. ey are the ultimate team players by
getting along with everyone.
78
Expressives are the people who allow emotions to surface. ey are
highly active, excitable people who have a restless energy that does not sit
well oen with people who, like Analyticals and Amiables, are cautious
either because the data are imprecise or because they do not want to upset
someone. Expressives operate on generalities rather than details and are
risk takers, ever mindful of seizing an opportunity. ey are highly com-
municative, albeit not eective listeners. ey like and want others to have
a good time and as a general rule have a preference to avoid the shackles
or order and structure.
79
Drivers are the people who look at the bottom
line, or results. ey, like the Expressives, are very energetic and active.
ey tend to be less abstract thinkers and more oriented toward achieving
goals and objectives. Purposefulness and resolution are two good words
to describe them. Fast paced, they will take a systematic and structured
approach and use what they can and discard the rest. Highly task oriented
and less responsive to the emotional side of people, they recognize the
value of the belief that the shortest route between two points is a straight
line.
80
When using the social styles typology, just about the same guidelines
apply as they do with most other typologies. Not everyone ts neatly in a
Groups and Creativity • 63
style; everyone usually has an alternate style when under stress, and each
style has its positive and negative characteristics. Ultimately, it serves as
another tool to help the project manager deploy people on projects to help
build a synergistic relationship that engenders, enhances, and sustains
creativity. By capitalizing on a style’s strengths and compensating for its
weaknesses, the performance can be enhanced for individuals and the
entire team. As the Boltons observe, no one can be everything to every-
one; each person brings a set of skills that supplements and complements
each other.
81
As with all the other tools described on an individual or group basis,
project managers can mix and match not only people, but also deploy
them at the right point during the project life cycle in general, and more
specically during the creative life cycle. A team can consist of all four per-
sonalities. Expressives can be used to identify opportunities; Analyticals,
to provide a structure and systematic approach; Amiables, to engender
relationship building with the customer and among team members; and
Drivers, to keep the project moving forward until the goals and objectives
have been accomplished.
Six Thinking Hats
Another creative approach that was quite popular but which, for some
reason, has faded in popularity, is Edward de Bono’s Six inking Hats.
is approach involves coming up with a creative idea by wearing dierent-
colored hats for each kind of thinking to develop, evaluate, and imple-
ment an idea. Wearing a dierent-colored hat encourages role playing by
assuming that thinking styles are associated with an applicable color. Role
playing encourages people to take multiple perspectives and apply dierent
sets of rules and techniques, thereby helping people overcome their preju-
dices, and therefore become less reactive in their thinking. e creative
thinking process goes sequentially from one colored hat to another: white,
red, black, yellow, green, and, with possible exception, blue.
e White Hat is concerned with facts and data about a problem or issue.
It is, in many respects, these facts and data—their quantity and quality—
that provide homework for the roles of the other hats leading to a creative
idea to deal with a problem or issue. e general idea is that the White Hat
puts the thinker in a more objective frame of mind.
82
e Red Hat allows the emotional part of people to come forth. is
hat enables people’s feelings to take over, allowing them to rely on
64 • Creative, Ecient, and Eective Project Management
hunches, intuition, and preference. rough emotions, people can look
at the facts and data, for example, and select what is relevant due to the
context of the situation. It allows for greater understanding of the situa-
tion. In the end, the Red Hat enables making choices based upon values
and emotions.
83
e Black Hat takes a negative view of an idea through logic. It requires
being skeptical, even pessimistic, by using logic to shoot holes through an
idea. It is a cold, calculated approach for determining, through criticism,
whether an idea makes sense. Wearing the Black Hat allows people to play
the devil’s advocate to reveal, for example, errors, faults, incompleteness,
inaccuracies, and so on, of an idea. By pointing out the shortcomings,
alternatives, or dierent options, can surface the means to address any
shortcomings or risks associated with the idea.
84
e Yellow Hat is essentially the opposite of the Black Hat. It uses logic
to determine the positive aspects of an idea. Its focus is optimistic and on
the benets of the idea. It is a positive assessment. Like the Black Hat, it
involves judgment, not emotion, to determine the positive side of an idea.
e Yellow Hat also looks at how to make the idea a reality through sug-
gestions and recommendations. However, its primary focus is not being
creative; it is simply being positive about an idea by looking at its benets
and its future possibilities.
85
e Green Hat is where the real creative side of people comes out. It is
about coming up with new ways to bring about change by challenging
and changing patterns of thought; de Bono’s concept of lateral thinking
applies here. Using lateral thinking enables looking at an idea dierently
and using additional ideas to generate even more creative ones. Green Hat
thinking then leads toward movement to make an idea a reality by coming
up with provocations, such as something “weird.” It relies on the illogical
or absurd to provoke ways to come up with alternatives to make an idea a
reality. It is basically using an earlier idea to generate others, perhaps bet-
ter than the previous one.
86
Blue Hat is the sixth and nal hat. It is about control and focus to achieve
clarity. Control and focus go hand in hand to ensure that the superuous
goes to the wayside and that organization becomes the rule rather than
the exception. In other words, it provides discipline by developing and
implementing through good managerial practices. e person who wears
the Blue Hat ensures that the other hats are worn, making sure people fol-
low some type of order as indicated, for example, through an agenda at a
creativity session and clarifying dierences when dierent hats seem to
Groups and Creativity • 65
overlap. Basically, the Blue Hat serves like an orchestra leader, bringing in
the right hat at the right time and making sure that everything ows in a
controlled, focused manner.
87
CONCLUSION
Creative teams share many of the characteristics of creative individuals.
ey embrace challenging the status quo and stepping outside the bound-
aries. ey pursue the unknown even in the face of failure. What distin-
guishes the group from the individual is that the former has a level of
diversity and strength in the face of adversity that individuals do not have.
Project managers, as they do with individuals, have models to help them
harness creativity.
Getting Started Checklist
Question Yes No
1. Which creative characteristics are exhibited the most by your team:
Are synergistic
Have a diverse membership
Are careless about the physical environment
Avoid “noncontributory” activities
Are emotional and logical
Are collegial and nonhierarchical
Have facilitative and supportive leadership
Have fun
Allow individual and group to coexist
Are unafraid to push boundaries
Are small in size
Seek balance among creating, planning, and implementing
View failure as a learning experience
Know the priorities
Share tangible and intangible assets
Are curious
Are true believers
Have high esprit de corps
Adapt
2. Identify ways you can capitalize on the creative characteristics of your
project team:
Way(s):
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