3.2. WHO ARE THE INVENTORS AND INNOVATORS?
Individual capabilities, availability of resources to pursue research and development, and the ethos of a scientific community are all relevant to understanding inventors and innovators and the milieu in which they are likely to create and invent. The following are some ideas related to creativity and the characteristics of inventors.
3.2.1. Creativity
To invent or to innovate requires creativity. A very good account of creativity is given by Barron (1969), who discusses the majority of the tests that are available that purport to measure creativity. These tests do not specifically focus on R&D personnel; however; the attributes are those that Barron and others have discovered in their research with creative people. In doing the study, Barron and others obtained nominations of creative people from different professions and studied these individuals. They found a number of attributes frequently associated with creativity. Of the more than 30 attributes, the significant ones are:
Conceptual fluency (that is, being able to express ideas well and to reformulate the ideas as one proceeds)
The ability to produce a large number of ideas quickly
The ability to generate original and unusual ideas
The ability to separate source (who said it) from content (what was said) in evaluating information
The ability to stand out and be a little deviant from others
Interest in the problem one faces
Perseverance in following problems wherever they lead
Suspension of judgment and no early commitment
The willingness to spend time analyzing and exploring
Genuinely valuing intellectual and cognitive matters
Research on creativity (Freiberg, 1995) indicates that the most creative scientists are those who had creative mentors. For example, most Nobel Prize winners have studied under previous laureates or had people around them who inspired them. Native intelligence is important, but it must match the scientist's social world.
Psychologists argue that the larger the talent pool from which a person comes, the higher the intelligence. Thus, we can expect that the most intelligent people would be found in China (population 1.3 billion) and India (with 1.1 billion). But these countries have relatively few Nobel Prize winners because the social environment is not optimal. To be creative, one must be surrounded by creative people.
A study of creativity in molecular biology laboratories found that social interaction was a major factor. Psychologist Kevin Dunbar, who did that study, put it this way: "One person might provide one premise, another might provide another premise, and the third person might draw a conclusion from the two premises" (Freiberg, 1995, p. 21). An additional factor was the extent that people in the laboratory used analogies and metaphors. Laboratories that use these devices a great deal had the most creative scientists.
Finally, research finds that to be creative one must think differently from the way others think. That means that the more one uses past knowledge—for example, spending a lot of time examining the literature—the less likely one is to be creative. One could even say, without too much exaggeration, "Expose yourself to the literature only superficially, to make sure that you are not reinventing the wheel. Then work on the problem first, try to solve it without looking too much at what others have written, and after you solve it read the literature very thoroughly to place your solution into a scholarly context."
Sternberg and Lubart (1995, p. 2) ask the question, What exactly is a creative person? They argue that it is a person who generates many ideas that are relatively novel, appropriate, and of high quality. Creativity is domain-specific. Research has shown that children who were unusually good at one domain (writing, art, music, crafts, science, performing arts, public presentations, and so on) were usually not especially good in others. In a study of 2,400 eminent Western creators in various fields between the years A.D. 850 and 1935, there were few examples (17 percent) of eminence in more than one field (e.g., painting and sculpture) and only 2 percent of examples of eminence in unrelated fields (painting and philosophy).
Age is related to creativity rather differently. For example, mathematicians make their major contributions early in their careers; social scientists do so much later, and philosophers are usually quite late in reaching their peak.
Older people are not as creative as younger scientists, but that is not because they are no longer able to generate new ideas, but because they are distracted by competing activities—administration, writing letters of recommendation, attending ceremonies where they get awards, giving large public lectures, and so on. They also are not inclined to take risks to the same extent as younger scientists.
What is valued as creative in one historical period or in one culture is not always seen as creative in other historical periods or cultures. For example, Confucius defined creativity as taking what is already known and improving it a little. In the West, on the contrary, we value revolutions and major shifts in perspective and would not call Confucius' recommendations creative.
3.2.2. The Creative Person and Creative Work
The attributes of the creative person include doing what others think is impossible; being a nonconformist; being unorthodox; questioning societal norms, truisms, and assumptions; and being willing to take a stand. The creative person questions basic principles to which everyone subscribes.
Sternberg and Lubart (1995) argue that there are six personal resources necessary for creative work:
Knowledge. One needs to know what others have done on the subject, but one does not have to know everything. In fact, if one tries to know everything, one is likely to spend all available time reading the literature rather than coming up with new insights.
Personality. To be creative, one must be willing to take chances. One must also be willing to be ridiculed, because many creative ideas strike ordinary people as stupid or crazy. They also shake the status quo. For example, before the theory that bacteria cause infections was developed, Ignaz Semmelweiss, a Hungarian physician-researcher, suggested that patients in maternity wards might be dying because of germs on the unwashed hands of physicians. This idea was ridiculed even after he had demonstrated that by his strict hygiene measures he had reduced maternity ward mortality rate dramatically. It also helps not to be arrogant, because arrogance reduces the chances that others will accept the idea. Another attribute is that creative people like to create their own rules for getting things done.
Motivation. Creative people have high energy and produce a lot. They are task-focused and absorbed in what they do. They are in love with what they do. They are not 8-to-5 employees; they work night and day on their problem. Since they produce a lot, some of what they produce has some chance of being valuable. People who produce little have a very low chance of producing something valuable. It is only by trying a lot of experiments that it is possible to determine how they will come out.
Be in the Right Environment. We already made that point above. Creative people need supervisors who leave them alone or who help them find the best work conditions. For example, some people are more creative when they are with others, but the majority are most creative when they are alone. A wise supervisor can detect what conditions are best for the particular scientist and will arrange for those conditions to occur most of the time.
These six attributes have to have a minimal value for a person to be creative, but every one of them does not have to be at an extremely high level. People can compensate for being low on one by being high on another aspect.
3.2.3. Can Creativity Be Developed?
Sternberg and Lubart (1995) argue that creativity can be developed. They recommend teaching people a few principles:
Learn to redefine problems. Don't just accept what you're told about how to think or act (p. 285).
Look for what others do not see. Put things together in ways that others don't; and think about how past experiences, even ones that may initially seem irrelevant, can play a part in your creative endeavors (p. 286).
Learn to distinguish your good from your poor ideas, and pay attention to their potential contribution (p. 286).
Don't feel that you have to know everything about a domain in which you work before you are able to make a creative contribution (p. 286).
Look at the large picture.
Persevere in the face of obstacles, take sensible risks, and be willing to grow (p. 287).
Do what you really love.
Find environments that reward you for what you love to do (p. 288).
You can compensate for what you do not have. For instance, a person who does not have all the knowledge might be able to compensate by being extra-intelligent or by being in an extra-helpful environment.
Learn that the major obstacle to creativity is not the environment, but the way you look at the environment.
3.2.4. Creative Phases
Creativity has phases (Sternberg and Davidson, 1996): first preparation (the problem is defined and goals are diffuse, but there is a general direction), then incubation (different ideas float in one's subconscious until they join together in a new way of thinking), and finally production (one generates a lot of ideas, does a lot of experiments, and thinks of many different ways of looking at a problem). An insight that suddenly provides a new perspective may come after the incubation. At some point in this sequence, one has to switch from generating ideas and insights to criticizing them. One has to select the idea that is to be sold to the scientific community. That means that criticizing, improving, extending, condensing, sifting, combining, correcting, and testing are all important ingredients of creativity. It is just that they must come at the right time, after the ideas have been generated. During the criticism phase, it is important to talk with others to see how acceptable the insight or ideas will be to different audiences.
As mentioned briefly in the previous chapter, an interesting study by Isen and colleagues (1985) suggests that people can become more creative if they are in a "good mood." Subjects were randomly assigned to experimental groups (where manipulations of good mood were provided) and to control groups (where a neutral or negative mood was created). The mood manipulation was achieved by asking the subject to give associations to specific words. For the positive mood, the words were positive; for the negative mood, they were negative. The experimenter then scored the extent to which the associations were "unusual." Previous work has shown that creativity is higher when people make unusual associations. Standardized norms were available to obtain an objective measure of "unusualness" (e.g., if a response is frequently given by similar samples, it is not unusual). Thus, if the study were generalized to R&D laboratories, it would seem that managers in such laboratories must be particularly concerned when their subordinates suffer from poor morale. Such a condition may be particularly detrimental to creativity.
3.2.5. Characteristics of Inventors and Innovators
Views on characteristics of inventors and innovators naturally vary. Commenting on inventors and innovators, McCain (1969, p. 60) has suggested that the amateur scientist is nearly extinct and that formal training is almost a prerequisite for inventions and new scientific concepts. The individual normally has spent a very substantial amount of time and effort absorbing existing knowledge in his or her particular discipline while obtaining a graduate degree. These individuals tend to be above average in intelligence, as measured by ordinary testing methods.
However, even these highly trained, intelligent individuals with backgrounds in a scientific discipline are not very likely to make any substantial new contributions. Armstrong (1994) posits the reason for this is "the PhD paradox," which points out that engineers and scientists obtain their PhDs and, while doing so, become overly specialized.
Education and aptitude then form the first signaling mechanism in identifying inventors and innovators. Among this select group, however, only a small proportion will produce many inventions and innovations. Empirical studies (Charpie, 1970, pp. 7, 17) further suggest other characteristics that contribute to innovation. Focusing on the individual, some characteristics of a successful inventor and innovator are as follows (Charpie, 1970, p. 7):
Strong technical background
Able to deal with things rather than people
Fluency in discussing ideas rather than handling processes in a formal organization
More at home with technical products than with marketing problems
Inclined to be disdainful of the professional judgments of others
Committed to innovative concepts and product notions
Recall, as discussed earlier, the distinction between inventors (basic research) and innovators (applied research). At the University of Sussex, United Kingdom, 29 pairs of similar innovation projects were examined. In each pair, one project was successful and the other less so. There were clear differences within pairs that fell into a consistent pattern of successes. The characteristics of a successful innovator and the related organization structure that was implied can be summarized as follows (Twiss, 1992):
Successful innovators are seen to have a much better understanding of user needs.
Successful innovators pay much more attention to marketing.
Successful innovators perform development work more efficiently than those who failed, but not necessarily more quickly.
Successful innovators make more effective use of outside technology and outside advice (even though they perform much of the work in-house).
The responsible individuals in their successful attempts are usually more senior and have greater authority than their counterparts who fail. This could be because of the successful individual's previous record.
None of these factors can be taken in isolation, but clearly, individuals working together on a research and development project who exhibit these characteristics are likely to show a higher degree of success. In rare instances, however, key people are able to successfully bridge the gap between fields such as science and technology by possessing the characteristics of key inventors and core scientists (Sternitzke, Bartkowski, Schwanbeck, and Schramm, 2007).
Characteristics of inventors and innovators discussed here cannot be measured precisely, and they represent a rather subjective evaluation of human capabilities, behavior, and accomplishments. Consequently, any rigid formalization of these characteristics is likely to lead to their misuse and thus be counterproductive. For example, many individuals without extensive formal education or other characteristics mentioned here have made important contributions to inventions and innovations in the past and they will continue to do so in the future.
Wainer and Rubin (1969) studied 51 technical entrepreneurs who founded and operated R&D companies. They checked whether the personality of these entrepreneurs predicted company success—that is, company growth. They found that those who were most successful were high in need for achievement. Such people like to compete with a standard of excellence, and they have many fantasies in which they accomplish something especially important. They usually take moderate risks, they are high in taking individual responsibility, they are interested in the outcomes of what they do, and they are able to delay immediate rewards so as to get larger rewards later. In addition, the researchers found that the most successful of the entrepreneurs in this sample were moderate in need for power (wanting to be the boss). Those who were moderate in need for achievement but high in need for affiliation (wanting to be with people) were also relatively successful. This suggests that an entrepreneur who is good in getting help from others can also succeed, even if his or her need for achievement is not extremely high.