Leadership HR Strategies

Running Head: INNOVATION AND CREATIVITY 1

INNOVATION AND CREATIVITY 7

Creating a Culture of Innovation and Creativity

Professor Dr. Daniels

Laquasha Vardaman

01/16/2021

Introduction

Creativity and innovation are essential in today’s business world. The rampant growth of technology and increasing innovation across the world calls for strategic business management to match the current market requirements and offer maximum satisfaction to customers. The success of any given organization is defined according to the level of innovation and access to technology the company has. Creativity and innovation bring new ideas and production mechanisms, are cost-effective and reliable and enhance the effectiveness in service delivery. Employee creativity and innovation in organizations is essential in ensuring new products meet customer requirements. Companies employ youth staff who are innovative to encourage diversification and risk trying new things never done in the organization (Rothouse, 2018). This essay will, therefore, detail the ideal organizational culture, qualities, and employee characteristics, and leadership attributes required to attain an innovative and creative organization. 

Creativity and innovation of employees enable organizations to gain a competitive advantage over other companies that are yet to establish innovation and technology as primary factors of production. In the essay, I will assume the role of Human Resources manager of Microsoft Corporation, a multinational technology organization based in the United States of America and headquartered in Redmond, Washington. Microsoft manufactures and sells consumer electronics, computer software, and personal computers and the company is well-known across the world for software productions. Among the popular software products include Microsoft Windows, Internet Explorer, operating systems, and Edge web browser. Microsoft is a world market leader because of the innovation and use of technology by employees across the globe. The company has a vast number of qualified, experienced, and technology-conversant employees across its branches located in almost every part of the world.  

Employees Qualities and Characteristics

The ideal qualities and characteristics of Microsoft Corporation employees are exceptional and beyond comparison. As the organization’s mission statement states; “to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more,” Microsoft corporation prioritizes innovation and encourages employees to achieve more by adopting diversification and taking risks to build themselves and help in achieving the organizational goals and objectives. Microsoft values youth empowerment because it reduces the poverty level and builds a nation where everyone is dependent upon themselves. The organization's mission statement: “to help people and businesses throughout the world realize their full potential,” captures the employees by providing an opportunity for them to exploit their creative and innovative potential.

Microsoft’s company employees are exceptional and enable the company to produce quality products and services and serve a large customer base to satisfaction. The characters exhibited by the employees that shape the creativity and innovative culture include adequate knowledge and experience to perform various tasks. All the employees in the company have passed through quality education to acquire the knowledge and expertise required in a technology organization. Vast knowledge of what the industry entails is also of great significance to the company’s management. The employees are quick to learn and open to learning new ideas and techniques every day. Learning never stops and Microsoft encourages employees to diversify ideas and always try new things and introduce new products in the market to match the technology world (Ishak, 2017). 

Creative and innovative employees are assets for any given company because they increase productivity, lower costs, and enhance maximum satisfaction for customers. Microsoft employees have a growth mindset and take every step as an opportunity to knowing something new. The flexibility characteristics enable the employees to learn new things within and out of the line of duty to build the company and personal brands too. Employee responsiveness to customer needs cultivates a culture of innovation and creativity because employees would always want to satisfy the customers. Other employee characteristics that create an innovative and creative culture in the organization include employee accountability, the need to diversify and include new ideas in production and service delivery, and ensuring quality and innovation within the organization. 

Background and Experience for Creativity and Innovation Culture

Innovation is a combination of the environment and intrinsic abilities. Innovations begin with improving what is available within the vicinity but education and specialization play an essential role in attaining creativity and innovativeness from a tender age. Microsoft corporation leaders support the youth by offering attachment and internship programs to nurture young innovators and talents. The company also introduced programs where they sponsor and absorb the most innovative students in innovation competitions in both secondary schools and universities. Adopting a young innovator and a person ready to learn and practice more cultivates a culture of creativity and innovation and encourages people to work hard towards attaining an innovative country. 

Company leaders are experienced and possess the required skills and know-how to run a technology company in the world. The experience to supervise, lead, and direct the employees is a requirement for the company leaders in Microsoft Corporation. The ideal background and experience needed for Microsoft Corporation leaders are that leaders must have a technology-based background and have passed a certain mark qualification. Leaders are the face of any given organization and must portray a good image by encouraging and supporting innovation by introducing innovative programs that allow competition of the workers. Leaders should be able to sell ideas, possess vast knowledge of the field, portray willingness to take risks, and fail and be able to identify serendipitous moments and take the necessary actions. 

Leadership Qualities

The employees should have the self-awareness qualities to be good leaders. Self-awareness characteristics enable people to discover and evaluate themselves depending on what they can do best. People realize their potential and weaknesses and improve their areas of need. The characteristic encourages employees to work hard towards becoming a future leader. The second quality employees should have is proper communication skills. Communication is essential in any given organization and the driver for all organizational activities. Employees must be able to communicate their needs and want to the management and so they would listen to the employee's views and ideas upon becoming managers in the future. Effective leaders must portray proper communication skills and exercise self-awareness.

Organizational Culture

Microsoft’s ideal organizational culture calls for innovation and resilience among the workforce to meet customer needs by manufacturing products that meet the demand in the market. The company culture and tradition is to use technology and innovativeness to move the transform the world and make work easier for everyone in the world. Customer satisfaction and continued innovativeness are the primary aspects of the organizational culture. The organization defines the company’s long-term goals and objectives or realizing a transformed world where technology would play a vital role. Microsoft’s organizational culture fosters creativity and innovation among the employees by providing the necessary environment, resources, and skills. Microsoft supports innovation because it is a technology company that depends on innovation to operate (Liedtke, 2020). 

References

Ishak, W. (2017). Creating an innovation culture. McKinsey Quarterly, 4.

Liedtke, C. A. (2020, September). Shaping Organizational Culture. In Presented at the 12th Annual Advanced Strategic Improvement Practices Conference.

Rothouse, M. J (2018). A Mindful Approach to Team Creativity and Collaboration in Organizations: Creating a Culture of Innovation.