Autonomy
and Freedom
In the book, “TeamWork: What must go right/what can go wrong”,
Larson and Lafasto defines creativity as "the abandonment
of normative thinking" (1989, p.49). In other words, creative
individuals do things differently than noncreative people. They
like to think outside the box, push boundaries, explore possibilities,
and take risks. Bennis and Biederman in "Organizing Genius:
The Secrets of Creative Collaboration" describes the tendency
of creative as follows:
In ‘Great Groups’ the right person
has the right job…too many companies believe people are
interchangeable. Truly gifted people never are. They have unique
talents. Successful groups reflect the leader’s profound,
not necessarily conscious, understanding of what brilliant people
want. They want stimulus, challenge, and colleagues that they
can admire. What they don’t want are trivial duties and
obligations, successful leaders strip the workplace of non-essentials.
(Bennis & Biederman,
1997, p.36)
The nature to defy conformity is the foundation
of creative minds. There is an inherent need to find ways to make
room for these individuals within the organizational structure
so that the illusive "creativity and innovation" can
materialize. Given such a situation, Larson and Lafasto stress
the absolute necessity of systematic and procedural autonomy for
a creative team to function. So what is autonomy? (Burke
1997, p.7) in presenting a "new agenda for organization
development" defines autonomy as having the "freedom
to perform their work responsibilities as they see fit, yet execute
these responsibilities within reasonable organizational constraints."
Although Burke’s definition does not go into detail of what
are the reasonable organizational constraints, it uses the key
word "freedom". “Freedom” seems to be essential
to the understanding of autonomy. From this definition and understanding
the nature of creative minds, it only makes sense that a creative
team needs freedom to make a difference and contribute to the
organization in an effective way.
 
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