Tudor Rickards: about creativity, leadership and president Trump
On 7 and 14 November, 2016, the ISSEK second-year Master’s students had a chance to walk across a “creative bridge” between Moscow and the UK: to attend online lectures by one of the world’s creativity leaders – Tudor Rickards – Emeritus Professor of Creativity and Organizational Change at the Alliance Manchester Business School, Alex Osborn Visiting Professor at the State University of New York at Buffalo, the author of numerous books and articles on creativity, and the co-founder of the academic journal “Creativity and Innovation Management”. The online lectures took place within the course “Managing Creativity and Innovation” by Dr. Mikhail Gershman.In the context of today’s environmental and societal threats, creativity becomes a means for survival. Professor Tudor Rickards is sure that crisis is one of the main stimuli for creativity. He argues that American culture is dominant today but its way to this dominance began in 1957 – the year when the Soviet Union launched its famous “Sputnik”. Since that time the USA has completely changed its education policy. One of the key changes was enabling pupils to be creative and very open with everyone including their school teachers from the early childhood.
During the last several decades one can observe a shift from “creative capitalism” towards “humanitarian innovations”: innovations should not be “above” human needs but they should serve society. In support of this thesis of general democratization of innovations Professor Tudor Rickards gives the example of “lead users” (people who invent new products earlier than companies do) first introduced by Eric von Hippel in 1986.
A lot of time during both lectures was devoted to the discussion of leadership behaviors. Professor Rickards, being a pioneer and advocate of the “Manchester Method” (the system of creative and applied learning championed by Manchester Business School), came to the conclusion that leadership provides benign structures which transcend established norms. Smart leaders also know that creativity cannot be stimulated just by money, but is driven mainly by intrinsic motivation of people. A good leader has to be creative by developing a so-called “mask of command” to deal with different audiences simultaneously.
According to Professor Rickards, successful politicians demonstrate such creative behavior. By avoiding over-simple and precise answers, they prefer to resort to “creative maybes”. This is in line with “positive psychology” and a desire to secure win-win solutions. In such a way, creativity allows the emergence of good points, even for Trump’s idea of building a big wall to keep out Mexicans.
Prepared by
Anastasiia Popova, ISSEK Master’s program student,
Mikhail Gershman, ISSEK
Students' comments:
"Listening to such an inspiring person as Sir Rickards has made me feel really privileged and honored. I personally loved his concrete approach in explaining his theories, and I have especially put a lot of attention at the explication of the “Creative Maybe” one. Moreover, I am an active supporter of his other theory, the one of the “Positive Approach Attitude” to face problems. To conclude, my feedback on this session is totally positive and I would be more than glad if there are other sessions with him".
Nicolò Manni
"We are lucky to live in such advanced time, when during our classes at HSE in Moscow we were able to participate in live lectures with one of the most renowned experts in the field of creativity – Tudor Rickards. The ideas of professor Rickards about the crisis and creativity are very relevant at present. I agree that crisis is an opportunity, and it is indeed significant to stimulate employees’ creativity to find new markets and present new products. But above all, a leader has to be the engine of creativity in the company".
Daria Kuzmina
"In his lecture Prof. Tudor Rickard’s mentioned that in order to promote and respectively implement creativity and innovation it is necessary to look for people who look for the new while appreciating the past/old. This has never occurred to me, and keeping this in mind especially helps in entrepreneurship to be more innovative/creative. Secondly, I have never come across the term "lateral thinking". Since I am a more practical person, I see those techniques useful, as I may apply them in the future".
Marc Vedder
"I really enjoyed the lecture by Prof. Tudor Rickards, who we had the honor of listening to in our "Managing Creativity and Innovation" course. The talks fit into the course schedule really well and enhanced my understanding of the topic. One could really notice, that Professor Rickards has a a passion for Creativity Management, that he is able to transfer onto his listeners. He introduced us to important personalities in the sector and clarified concepts by using great examples. In the end I even had the chance to ask him a question personally about one of the topics. I am glad NRU HSE provided me with the opportunity to listen to a such a great scholar".
Wiebke Meyer