Managing creative people

I receive a lot of management books in the post and the quality is generally poor. Some are simply promoting a consulting business and others are dense or badly written with the kind of diagrams that have more arrows than a Roy Rogers film.

But this week I found a book that was so good it could have produced two columns. Gordon Torr's new book, Managing Creative People, discussed in this column, is well written and stimulating.

Reading his description of genuinely creative people I began to think that they are so much a part of the awkward squad that they would be too hot to handle for the kind of management that exists in most companies today.

Mickey Mouse

He doesn't have too many kind words for the Disney corporation, the supposed home for so many creative types, other than the subversive revelation that Micky Mouse smokes Marlboroughs.

Overall, he left me feeling pessimistic about the possibilities for truly creative people in big companies. I agree with his comment that "There is hardly anything in this world as offensive to most people as an idea they haven't thought of themselves." I've had ideas and I've seen this in reality.

Just occasionally, however, someone likes an idea, and, even better, is prepared to run with it. But the creative individual should never interpret this enthusiasm as "loyalty to self." It is loyalty to the idea. Torr describes this relationship well. It's not cuddly. Sometimes its cruel, but making ideas happen is a tough business. Those that succeed, perhaps, were meant to suffer.

Rare breed

I once spent an illuminating couple of hours chatting with Sir James Dyson at his home in London. After all his success with the Dyson vacuum cleaner he was still angry at the memory of all the difficulties he had to overcome. He is a rare breed, an inventor who is also a businessman. He brought his products to market through sheer persistence and will, negotiating the minefield of patent law and facing down the kind of competition that would gladly have seen his ideas strangled at birth.

Could I have imagined Dyson as a trainee at Hoover? Never in a month of Sundays. They couldn't have contained him, and that's the real issue for creative people, because most managers, shaped by their company cultures and structures will run a mile from great ideas.

Companies say they want to be more innovative, that they want people to "think outside of the box." No they don't. That's what factories and offices are for - they're boxes for people and generally have little more scope for self-expression than a goldfish bowl. Ideas go in the suggestions box. You're supposed to feel privileged that someone will look at your idea.

That's no way to handle creative people. If you know you're brimming with creative talent, take my advice, go your own way.