This appendix is designed to further hone students understanding of the principles in “Creativity in the workplace” through highlighting the connection of the principles to the four business disciplines: Human Resources, Marketing, Finance, and Accounting.

By Alex Jewell and Oliver Wallace — April 2018

Human Resources

Creativity Will Improve Your Workplace

The principle of creativity improving your workplace is essential to organizational success. Human Resource professionals foster organizational success by selecting, interviewing, and retaining the best employees with traits that allow the organization to succeed. The traits of a successful candidate have the organizational mindset of the organization of course, but also an innovative and adaptive mindset. If you are certain that you were not born with an innovative or adaptive mindset, you are wrong. Creativity can be learned which directly leads to being more innovative and adaptive to external changes.

This image proves creativity in the workplace has no limits.

Source: (Heisler, Y, 2017)

Creativity Is Fun, Communities Best Nurture Creativity, Broaden Your Horizons, Change your Surroundings

Employee retention is a large aspect of any organization to succeed. An organization must remain flexible to retain the best of the best. Human Resource professionals retain employees through “team building” exercises that foster a community. Team building activities such as taking the team out to the Rec-Room or for dinner allow the team to connect in a different environment. A different environment with your team can broaden the team horizons while fostering a creative community. After a team building activity, the team will remain competitive and often generate better ideas in the workplace, as now the members of the team are more willing to listen and help reach the common goal of the team. Human Resource professional team building activities now have set the foundation of the community. Now the team will have a more productive idea generation.

This image shows how changing one’s environment can produce the same result, but in a more unique way that could enhance effectiveness.

Source: (Heisler, Y, 2017)

Explore problems thoroughly, Idea generation, Ranking Ideas

Human Resource professionals encounter problem-solving scenarios in regards to the conflict in many different ways such as when two companies integrate into one and you have to choose which employees to keep and which ones to let go. Cultural differences among the different groups give rise to conflict for Human Resource professionals to handle as well. Human Resource professionals need to explore problems thoroughly to make the right decision. Determining the most relevant variables in a situation is not easy, but can be learned with practice. The best approach for Human Resource professionals is write down all elements of the situation without jumping to a conclusion once you have found one piece of information. Once all info has been written down, one can then rank the most important information to make sure the most relevant variables are considered when making a decision.

Connecting the missing piece of the puzzle can only be achieved by finding the missing piece, therefore, you must generate all alternatives to the problem to come up with the piece that best matches the puzzle.

Source: (EDX, n.d.)

Try finding the most relevant variables in the scenario below:

Scenario: A telephone company is merging with a television provider company. What aspects should be considered when integrating the two companies?

● Did you come up with any of these answers?:

● Duplicate employees

● Duplicate equipment

● Mixing different cultures

● Segregation of employees

● Payroll differences, benefit issues

Leverage Strengths and Opportunities

Human Resource professionals select candidates that would be best suited for the position. They look for transferable skills from previous work experience or school courses that will allow the candidate to succeed in the position. By selecting employees with strengths in this area, the organization can leverage that employee to add more value to the company quicker than hiring an employee that has no previous experience.

Organizations must capitalize on opportunities that can allow companies to further establish themselves in the industry. Human resource professionals assist in employee efficiencies through employee engagement and communication when a company is pursuing a new direction to capitalize on due to new market conditions.

The illustration above represents that you have strengths and need to leverage them to reach your goals and to overcome obstacles.

Source: (Walling, C, 2014)

Finance

Capture and manage all ideas, Creative Process,

Portfolio managers manage money with the intent to meet the goals of the client. When onboarding a new client, any portfolio manager must create a client information statement that outlines the client’s objectives of their investment. Portfolio managers must keep a system to capture and manage all client ideas and document them to be in compliance with regulators. For example, An environmental client may state they do not want any investments in their account that go against their belief, so you cannot buy oil and gas stocks. Thus, a portfolio manager must keep a system to keep track of all their client’s requirements.

The following images show parity of how the creative process can be applied to other disciplines.

Source: (Investec, n.d.)

Source: Creativity in the Workplace

Here is a sample of a client information statement that a portfolio manager must keep track of:

Client: Rod Corbett

Long-term goal: buy a 1969 black Camaro ($45,000) and a condo in Malibu California ($280,000) in 7 years.

Short term goal: pay for his son’s medical school training. ($30,000 a Year)

Constraints: Rod does not smoke cigarettes, nor encourages it.

With the example client statement above, a portfolio manager must always have these goals and constraints in mind to make sure that Rod Corbett can meet his short and long-term goals.

Broad knowledge,

After several Investment banking interviews, I have realized the importance of broad knowledge. Broad knowledge, diversity, and different backgrounds set a strong foundation for a variety of different ideas when proposing a solution for investment ideas. Broad knowledge allows one to see investment ideas differently. For example: when evaluating an oil and gas stock an engineer may only look at information that is consistent with his background and conclude that if the seismic activity indicates high porosity in the area, then it is probable that oil will be in that area. Therefore, buy this oil and gas stock. While a financial analyst may take a holistic approach and believe that the economy is down, therefore, we should only invest in grocery stores during this period because everyone still needs groceries. Combining individuals with various backgrounds allows a process to be evaluated more in-depth and ultimately lead to a better outcome.

No description available.

The more you know, the more insight you have to generate new ideas and to overcome different problems, that’s why employers look for this important creative trait.

Source: (300 Hours CFA, 2018)

Challenge: Learn 1 new thing each day and you’ll have learned 365 new things in one year that separate you from the competition.

Innovations Make Valuable Differences, Change your Surroundings, Broaden Yourself

Finance is an evolving industry, catalyzed by technology. The stock market used to employ hundreds of traders on the floor yelling at the top of their lungs the trade they have to offer to other traders on the floor. Today, all trades are conducted through computers and no personnel is required to execute the trade on your behalf as the computer automatically matches you up with another investor who is willing to take on the other side of that trade. Another example of innovations making a valuable difference in the finance industry is the rapid access to information and calculations. Mount Royal has a Bloomberg terminal available to all students in the EB building. The Bloomberg terminal is a normal computer that has the ability to run the terminal program which allows you to get the fair value of any stock in seconds. Essentially all these innovations allow us to get us the same result, but at a much faster rate which allows investors to make more informed decisions quicker.

Located in the EB building:

This is the modern-day version of the Bloomberg terminal, showing endless amounts of data that can be generated through this machine.

Source: (Nusca, A, 2015)

Challenge Your Assumptions

Heuristics are mental shortcuts we rely on to make our lives easier. Financial analysts and portfolio managers must be careful when it comes to rules of thumb as these can hinder a portfolio managers diligence in conducting research. For example: if you make the assumption that your favorite restaurant (McDonald’s) would be a good investment you could overlook market factors such as ground beef poisoning rates are high this month and the stock is tanking. We must challenge our assumptions to avoid losing money and to ensure creativity is not blocked.

Please try the game below:

This game challenges your senses by having associations with different words.

Source: (Kahneman, D, 2011)

Accounting

Accounting is a pivotal business discipline which is in high demand within any organization. Accountants know how to evaluate a business from the inside out, they can look at financial statements and determine within a matter of minutes if this is a strong company that is worth investing in, and they are deeply trusted by the executive team of any company to produce timely, high quality, and consistent results. Many believe that accounting is an “all numbers” profession, this couldn’t be any further from the truth. Accounting connects to many of the Creativity in the Workplace Principles, and without these principles, the accounting profession would not be where it is today.

Innovations Make Valuable Differences

Innovations in the accounting profession have been nothing less than radical. Technology and innovations have made massive differences in financial reporting. Keeping up and being familiar with the biggest trends reduces the struggle with higher efficiency and a more streamlined approach to managing accounting within a firm (Gerber, 2017). Examples of technological innovation in the accounting profession consist of cloud-based accounting, complete integration, manual entry minimized with OCR, new solutions in tax software, and the ability to have data on a mobile device. Cloud applications have the ability to handle everything from taxes and benefit distributions to invoicing and payroll. Data will be updated immediately as a change occurs and can be monitored in one place (Gerber, 2017). Think about how much time this saves compared to the original method of entering the new data by hand. This also allows management to gain access to this valuable information much more rapidly. Integration solutions are allowing companies to link all of their accounting software so that users from any department can access this at the click of a button (Gerber, 2017). As mentioned above, the manual entry has been minimized significantly. The implementation of optical character recognition (OCR) is reducing manual entry even more. Firms now use this technology to use scanners or even mobile devices to take pictures of printed receipts that immediately translates into digital files (Gerber, 2017). Ultimately, these new technological innovations are very exciting for the accounting industry and have definitely resulted in improved working procedures, production processes, services, valuable skills and proficiencies of employees, and job satisfaction.

Please read the full article to dive deeper into these five accounting technology innovations:

https://www.accountingdepartment.com/blog/5-accounting-technology-innovations-for-cfo

Explore Problems Thoroughly

Accounting is not an easy profession and it is not for everyone. Many problems can occur every day for accountants. They need to be very skilled at exploring a problem deeply before coming to an ultimate solution. Attention to detail is a skill that every accountant needs to have as they are looking at data every single day and need to be able to identify which details are relevant and look for opportunities to capitalize on.

Watch this video to find out how observant you are: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bFL9bEezvSk

Accountants mine data every single day at work to identify historical trends and make projections based on what they have found. It is not uncommon for data to be corrupt, and this means that the accountant will have to put his or her problem-solving skills to work in order to determine what is corrupting this data. They must have the patience to identify all aspects of the challenge, to help lead them to an effective, brilliant, and creative solution. While exploring this problem, the accountant will be able to identify available resources that can be used to help him or her solve this data problem. These resources may consist of internal co-workers or outside friends and other accountants that may have experienced the same problem at some point. While experiencing data problems like this, there is no doubt that the accountant would have to put on all of Edward de Bono’s problem-solving hats at some point, with a focus on the White Hat (information) because the accountant will have to focus the most on considering purely what information is available in order to solve this issue.

Creativity Will Improve your Workplace

Many most definitely believe that there is no room for creativity in the accounting profession and that putting the word “accounting” beside “creative” is just flat out wrong. In some cases, this might be correct, but there is always more room for the creative part of your brain to get to work in the accounting world (Thomas, 2013). Some examples of implementing creativity in your accounting job consist of taking a notebook everywhere, make time for creativity and make your environment creative (Thomas, 2013). Taking a notebook to work every day will allow accountants to record the inspiration that surrounds us every day. Putting thoughts or words on paper may give you that extra motivation to hit that deadline that is rapidly approaching. Making time for creativity is important in any career, but especially accounting. Accounting can undoubtedly be dry sometimes, you can be buried in spreadsheets for days on end while trying to present the financial information in an effective way. Accountants need to make time to be creative in their day, if you want something to be a priority, make it a priority. Even setting aside fifteen minutes per day to get the creative juices flowing has the potential to improve an accountants efficiency (Thomas, 2013). Finally, making your environment creative at work, in an accounting job, is vitally important. Posting motivational quotes, pictures, or even some nice artwork in your office is essential in being the best you can be every single day at the office. To conclude, even though the accounting profession is very strict and rules must be followed, do not be intimidated to broaden your horizons and step away from those rules for a certain amount of time each and every day. Work on looking at the numbers, the spreadsheets, and the reports, and seeing things that nobody else sees. This will set you apart from the herd and ultimately set you up for continued success.

Please read the full article to help yourself understand that there is room for creativity in the accounting profession and that it will improve your workplace: http://goingconcern.com/there-room-creativity-accounting-job/

Broaden Yourself

Accountants can get stuck in their career and only focus on the numbers and what needs to get done. I believe that accountants have the power to continuously move up in organizations and that they have the skills to operate large companies successfully. Broadening yourself as an accountant is very important, the more skills, knowledge, and experiences you have allows you to draw ideas, plan them, and successfully implement them. As mentioned above, accountants are equipped with the skills to analyze a company from the inside out and find indicators that either prove a company’s strength or prove that they are covering up financial data that tells a different story. This is a very valuable skill. If accounts can combine this skill with the skills of communicating with people, making connections, and networking, the career possibilities are limitless. To conclude, accountants should always be working on their communication skills and expressing themselves. They are the backbone of organizations and understand how the company operates the best. If accountants can broaden themselves and master the communication skill, they will find themselves in executive positions very quickly.

Please read this article to realize the importance of accounting: https://www.globalfinanceschool.com/blog-post/importance-accounting

Please read this article to understand the importance of effective communication in accounting: http://smallbusiness.chron.com/importance-effective-communication-accounting-3169.html

Good Health Powers Creativity and Performance

Many of us take our good health for granted and do not realize what good health provides us with. We do not realize that if our good health is taken from us, we are essentially left with nothing. Being healthy powers creativity and performance in an accounting position. Creativity is an essential part of accounting and accountants need to allocate time every day to focus on this. Without your good health, it is impossible to focus on creativity in the office because your mind will be focused on feeling ill and not being creative, effective, and efficient. Accounting can be very demanding and can consist of very long days, working on weekends, and limited time off. It is very important to take adequate time to sleep and rest, get enough sleep, eat healthy, exercise, and have a healthy variety of activities in your life. I have worked in accounting positions before and felt run down and worked out. One thing that I have found very helpful is preparing meals for your week every Sunday. This allows you to save money, eat healthily, and allocate time during your week to other things rather than worrying about making your next meal.

Read this article about staying healthy through the busy tax season in the accounting profession: https://www.accountingweb.com/practice/team/how-to-stay-fit-and-sane-through-busy-season

Marketing

Marketing is another essential business discipline that must have creativity and that is vital to any organization. Below we connect the principles of Creativity in the Workplace to marketing.

Communities best nurture creativity

Creative communities can be very valuable to support significant learning and it can also be further developed to successfully support and nurture creativity. In the marketing world, this principle is firmly held. For example, in marketing, the adaptation to branded communities is genius and it creates an opportunity for the customer to participate in the decisions in regards to products and services of companies (Brenner, 2017). Companies are using branded communities to perpetuate a “we” experience — a community — for the consumer instead of an “us-them” relationship, which can sometimes be unhealthy and ineffective for the organization (Brenner, 2017). Brands now have the opportunities to truly listen to their customer and they can use what they learn to help develop the next focused marketing strategy, or potentially the next product. This aligns directly with communities nurturing creativity. These branded communities now have the ability to brainstorm ideas and get immediate feedback which further propels the marketing creativity within an organization.

Please read the full article to learn more about branded communities: https://marketinginsidergroup.com/content-marketing/5-examples-brilliant-brand-communities-shaping-online-world/

Great Ideas Come From Many

Developing a solution to a problem, or in the case, a marketing tactic involves the generation of hundreds and hundreds of ideas before one is decided upon and implemented. Brainstorming is an effective method for idea generation that can be done alone or with a group. Marketing departments have very long and intense brainstorming sessions to come up with ideas for marketing implementations. Marketing efforts are a significant driver of sales, if your ideas are poor, then your sales may drop as an effect. This proves that marketing is an essential component of any organization and should not be taken lightly. Marketing brainstorming sessions are all about idea generation and the goal of these sessions is to produce as many ideas as possible in order to come up with one great one. These steps are an effective way to brainstorm with marketing:

1. Gather a group for the brainstorming session. Choose people who are confident and eager to suggest fresh ideas.
2. Set up a whiteboard or large piece of paper to keep track of the ideas the group generates.
3. Announce the goal of the session, and write it at the top of the board. For example, if you need a marketing slogan, describe what qualities must be emphasized, such as the product’s quality or low price.
4. Encourage participants to let loose. Brainstorming sessions should generate off-the-wall ideas if only to get people thinking outside the box. Novel approaches to marketing catch the attention of consumers.
5. Warn participants not to criticize suggestions. You don’t want people to filter themselves. Otherwise, the marketing ideas the group generates will be stale and unimpressive.
6. Write down everything said — you never know what might stimulate a better idea later. When a promising suggestion occurs, circle it and ask the group to focus on that concept for a few minutes.
7. Employ free-association techniques if progress slows. For example, describe an attribute of the product you’re marketing, and ask participants to yell out the first word or phrase that comes to mind.

Not all the suggestions will be helpful, but someone might strike upon a fruitful concept not considered before.

(Mack, 2017)

Full article here: http://smallbusiness.chron.com/brainstorm-marketing-22752.html

Collaboration magnifies creativity

Teamwork divides the task and multiplies the success! Being creative with others can help you complete challenges more effectively and efficiently. Collaboration with others who share the same objective is very important for marketing departments all over the world. Having a marketing team to collaborate with will ensure that the best idea for the marketing implementation is derived, selected, planned, and implemented in the best way possible. Marketing teams are constantly evaluating and adapting to different markets and demographics, which is a challenging feat. Teamwork is an essential part in marketing communication and good coordination of the team will most likely lead to convincing messages being sent to the consumer which in turn, will end in making sales and the conversion of the receiver if the messages to the client (Ramb, 2011).

Read this article to better understand why teamwork is an essential part of marketing communication: https://bigeyeagency.com/blog/teamwork-is-essential-in-marketing-communication/

Read this article to learn about 25 collaboration tools to power your marketing team: https://www.wrike.com/blog/top-collaboration-tools-to-power-your-marketing-team/

Judge ideas carefully

After the prolonged brainstorming sessions and idea generation within marketing departments, comes the time to select several ideas (out of the hundreds generated) to consider implementing. This period is referred to as the judging period, where ideas are carefully judged and ranked. Two factors to keep in mind when judging these ideas are selecting the idea that will produce the most benefit in completing the challenge of solving the problem, and you will also want to select the idea that is the least costly to implement. Marketing implementations usually come with a high cost, such as TV commercials, and therefore the ideas for commercials must be reviewed over and over again and judged very carefully in order to implement a successful marketing tactic.

Plan Your Implementations Well

Implementing an idea or an effective strategy requires effective planning. The process of planning projects discussed in the Creativity in the Workplace textbook can be directly related to implementing a marketing strategy. These steps consist of:

1. Identify the tasks to be completed.
2. Determine the best sequence in which the tasks should be completed.
3. Determine the milestones and due dates for each task.
4. Select who should complete each task.
5. Identify the resources that will be required.

The implementation phase of the marketing strategy also consists of focusing on the following points:

Facts: This phase requires the addressing of the who, where, when, and how of reaching the objectives of the business. It also requires the allocation of specific tasks and timelines to individuals within the marketing group (Lorette, 2017).

Features: Implementation also translates into various procedures and policies for areas within the organization. In most cases, in each successful implementation, there is a visible leader, such as the CEO communicating the message that has been worked on for months (Lorette, 2017).

Needs: Trained people must be prepared to use their skills and abilities to implement the plan. Time and money are also needed to complete the project implementation (Lorette, 2017).

The image above is taken from the Principles of Creativity in the Workplace textbook. It explains that when one is implementing an innovation, they must attempt to locate the low hanging fruit by choosing the idea that has the largest benefit and is the easiest to implement. Marketers face a similar challenge when implementing advertisements and marketing strategies for their selective firms. They need to find that “sweet spot” of something that is smart and different from what consumers have seen before. This helps them break through and the solid strategy motivates consumers to take immediate action.

References

300 Hours CFA. (2018). Key skills to land an investment management job. Retrieved March 23, 2018, from https://www.300hours.com/articles/7-key-skills-to-landing-a-job-in-investment-management#.Wrahy-jwaUk

Brenner, M. (2017). Marketing Insider Group. Retrieved March 24, 2018, from https://marketinginsidergroup.com/content-marketing/5-examples-brilliant-brand-communities-shaping-online-world/

The Brand Leader. (2017). Beloved Brands. Retrieved March 25, 2018, from https://www.slideshare.net/GrahamRobertson/judging-creative-advertising

EDX. (n.d.) Professional Certificate. Retrieved March 23, 2018, from https://www.edx.org/course/ma-professional-certificate-part-6-new-york-institute-finance-ma-1-6

Gerber, B. (2017). Accounting Department. Retrieved March 24, 2018, from https://www.accountingdepartment.com/blog/5-accounting-technology-innovations-for-cfo

Heisler, Y. (2017). Network World. Retrieved March 23, 2018, from https://www.networkworld.com/article/3163229/careers/googles-crazy-cool-offices.html

Investec. (n.d.) Wealth & Investment. Retrieved March 23, 2018, from http://www.investecwealthandinvestment.ie/private-clients/Investment-Management/bespoke-portfolio-management.html

Kahneman, Daniel. Thinking, Fast and Slow. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2011.

Lorette, K. (2017). Small Business Chron. Retrieved March 25, 2018, from http://smallbusiness.chron.com/implementation-phase-strategic-marketing-process-5042.html

Mack, S. (2017). Small Business Chron. Retrieved March 25, 2018, from http://smallbusiness.chron.com/brainstorm-marketing-22752.html

Nusca, A, (2015). Fortune. Retrieved March 24, 2018, from http://fortune.com/2015/09/12/bloomberg-terminal/

Ramb, J. (2011). Big Eye Agency. Retrieved March 25, 2018, from https://bigeyeagency.com/blog/teamwork-is-essential-in-marketing-communication/

Thomas, S. (2013). Going Concern. Retrieved March 23, 2018, from http://goingconcern.com/there-room-creativity-accounting-job/

Walling, C. (2014). HVACR Business. Retrieved March 24, 2018, from http://www.hvacrbusiness.com/find-and-leverage-whats-right-in-your-workplace.html