- 17 Sep 2018
- Research & Ideas
Welcome to Retirement. Who Am I Now?
Transitioning from work to retirement can be bumpy, as we wrestle with questions of identity and rebuilding relationships. Teresa Amabile presents preliminary findings on the journey to after-work life.
- 31 Jan 2018
- Research & Ideas
American Idle: Workers Spend Too Much Time Waiting for Something to Do
Workers across the country are spending far too much time doing nothing—and it's costing their companies $100 billion annually. Research by Teresa Amabile and Andrew Brodsky. Open for comment; 0 Comments.
- 22 Jan 2018
- Sharpening Your Skills
Why You Are Unhappy at Work
Sometimes the deck is stacked against you at work. Learn more about how you can overcome toxic co-workers, paycheck blues, and a job set up for failure. Open for comment; 0 Comments.
- 07 Dec 2017
- Cold Call Podcast
Does Time Pressure Help or Hinder Creativity at Work?
Professor Teresa Amabile discusses how managers can create the ideal conditions for employee creativity and success based on her research in three industries, seven companies, and 26 creative project teams. Open for comment; 0 Comments.
- 27 Sep 2017
- Research & Ideas
What Happens When Ordinary People Get Creative?
Move over, creative geniuses. Teresa Amabile says the world needs to pay more attention to the creative processes of everyday people, especially in an age when big ideas often come from the crowdsourced masses. Open for comment; 0 Comments.
- 31 Jul 2017
- Working Paper Summaries
In Pursuit of Everyday Creativity
This paper describes the most compelling research trends around creativity and innovation. It suggests that 1) creative behavior of ordinary individuals is likely to become more important to the development of products and services, and 2) future studies should focus on such creative behavior—and related psychological states and environmental contexts—as it happens.
- 18 Jul 2017
- First Look
First Look at New Research and Ideas, July 18, 2017
The creative habits of ordinary people ... Pursuing innovation at Polaroid ... Do we know how to improve bad working conditions?
- 26 May 2015
- Research & Ideas
Corporate Field Researchers Share Tricks of the Trade
In a panel discussion, several professors shared practical findings and tricks-of-the-trade from recent field research. Among the discoveries: how to prompt employees to get a flu shot. Closed for comment; 0 Comments.
- 02 Aug 2013
- Working Paper Summaries
J. Richard Hackman (1940-2013)
This paper—a tribute to the lifework of the late scholar J. Richard Hackman, a professor of social and organizational psychology at Harvard—recalls his many contributions to our understanding of work design and team effectiveness. As the authors note, Hackman's research changed the face of work design in countless industries, from service and manufacturing jobs, to education, health care, and the performing arts. His theory (with Greg Oldham) of job characteristics, and his evidence about how one could redesign and enrich jobs, made it possible for workers not only to perform well but also to develop and make meaningful contributions through their work. The author or coauthor of 10 books on group effectiveness, Hackman revitalized teams research with his insights into the conditions under which effective collective work processes emerge. Key concepts include: Hackman began studying the impact of work design on motivation at a time when decades of "scientific management" had had the widespread impact of reducing jobs to a few minimum repeatable steps, requiring little knowledge or skill, and experienced as stultifying and dehumanizing by the people doing them. While many scholars focused on pay and rewards, Hackman turned his attention to the work itself, asking: What are the qualities of jobs that make them inherently meaningful, motivating through a sense of accomplishment? His model of groups has informed the design of countless task-performing teams, from cockpit crews and chamber orchestras, to teams leading organizations, performing surgeries, and gathering intelligence - all performing work that matters, in real time. Hackman's focus on context was a fundamental insight into both how to understand complex social systems like groups and how to facilitate their effectiveness. Closed for comment; 0 Comments.
- 19 Jul 2013
- Working Paper Summaries
Helping You Help Me: The Role of Diagnostic (In)Congruence in the Helping Process within Organizations
Coming up with new ideas and solving difficult problems in modern organizations is increasingly accomplished through collaboration and teamwork. Often when people collaborate to tackle a knowledge-intensive project, they still need external help to achieve their goals: advice, assistance with task completion, team coaching, mentoring, and/or socio-emotional support. Yet we know little about the helping process itself. Indeed, sometimes helping attempts are useless, or worse. By conducting a field study of helping in a major design firm, the authors of this paper analyzed how the helping process unfolded. In particular, they focused on aspects of the process, differentiating episodes that employees assessed as successful from those they deemed unsuccessful. They discovered that the key differentiator was whether the helper and the person being helped established "diagnostic congruence" at the outset - a shared understanding of the state of the project and what sort of help was needed. Overall, the study contributes to our understanding of helping in organizations by discovering the interactional influences on the success of a helping episode. It also sheds light on help from a process perspective, highlights the importance of timing in aspects of the process, and uncovers the prominent role of emotion in perceptions of unsuccessful helping. Key concepts include: Receivers of help must be assertively proactive in orienting givers to the project and helping givers understand the kind of help needed. Even when parties agree that an episode should be considered "helping," the boundaries of helping roles must still be negotiated in order to clarify what norms and behaviors are applicable. The timing of certain behaviors is an important determinant of how a helping episode will unfold. When help-givers and receivers quickly establish a mutual understanding of the project and what sort of help is needed, they are more likely to have a successful interaction. Both givers and receivers use two primary cues to understand the extent to which an episode is helpful: their perceptions of progress made during the episode and their emotions during the episode, which can be mutually reinforcing. The presence of negative emotion is sufficient to induce perceptions that a helping episode is unsuccessful even when instrumental progress occurs and/or the client is pleased with the outcome. To the extent that individuals perceive their prior experience with any particular helping episode to have been more or less successful, they will be more or less likely to engage in the discretionary behaviors of either seeking or giving help in the future. Closed for comment; 0 Comments.
- 22 May 2012
- Working Paper Summaries
Componential Theory of Creativity
The componential theory of creativity is recognized as one of the major theories of creativity in individuals and in organizations, serving as a partial foundation for several other theories and for many empirical investigations. It was first articulated by Teresa Amabile in 1983 and has undergone considerable evolution since then. In essence the theory is a comprehensive model of the social and psychological components necessary for an individual to produce creative work. The theory specifies that creativity requires a confluence of four components: Creativity should be highest when 1) an intrinsically motivated person with 2) high domain expertise and 3) high skill in creative thinking 4) works in an environment high in supports for creativity. Key concepts include: Many managers have relied on tools and techniques developed from the theory to stimulate creativity and innovation within their organizations. According to the theory, domain-relevant skills include knowledge, expertise, technical skills, intelligence, and talent in the particular domain where the problem-solver is working. Creativity-relevant processes include a cognitive style and personality characteristics that are conducive to independence, risk-taking, and taking new perspectives on problems, as well as a disciplined work style and skills in generating ideas. The third central tenet is the intrinsic motivation principle of creativity: People are most creative when they feel motivated primarily by the interest, enjoyment, satisfaction, and challenge of the work itself - and not by extrinsic motivators. The social environment can stimulate creativity through offering a sense of positive challenge in the work; work teams that are collaborative, diversely skilled, and idea-focused; freedom in carrying out the work; supervisors who encourage the development of new ideas; and so on. Of the three intra-individual components, intrinsic motivation should be the most directly influenced by the work environment. However, it is also important to note that the work environment undoubtedly has effects on domain-relevant skills and creativity-relevant processes, in addition to its effects on intrinsic motivation. Closed for comment; 0 Comments.
- 06 Sep 2011
- Research & Ideas
How Small Wins Unleash Creativity
In their new book, The Progress Principle: Using Small Wins to Ignite Joy, Engagement, and Creativity at Work, authors Teresa M. Amabile and Steven J. Kramer discuss how even seemingly small steps forward on a project can make huge differences in employees' emotional and intellectual well-being. Amabile talks about the main findings of the book. Plus: book excerpt. Key concepts include: Of all the factors that induce creativity, productivity, collegiality, and commitment among employees, the single most important one is a sense of making progress on meaningful work. Seemingly small signs of progress will induce huge positive effects on employees' psyches. On the other hand, seemingly small setbacks will induce huge negative effects. The catalysts that induce progress include setting clear goals; allowing autonomy; providing resources; giving enough time-but not too much; offering help with the work; learning from both problems and successes; and allowing ideas to flow. Closed for comment; 0 Comments.
- 22 Aug 2011
- Research & Ideas
Getting to Eureka!: How Companies Can Promote Creativity
As global competition intensifies, it's more important than ever that companies figure out how to innovate if they are going to maintain their edge, or maintain their existence at all. Six Harvard Business School faculty share insights on the best ways to develop creative workers. Closed for comment; 0 Comments.
- 22 Feb 2011
- Research & Ideas
The Most Important Management Trends of the (Still Young) Twenty-First Century
HBS Dean Nitin Nohria and faculty look backward and forward at the most important business trends of the young twenty-first century. Closed for comment; 0 Comments.
- 14 May 2009
- Sharpening Your Skills
Sharpening Your Skills: Managing Teams
The ability to lead teams is fast becoming a critical skill for all managers in the 21st century. Here are four HBS Working Knowledge stories from the archives that address everything from how teams learn to turning individual performers into team players. Closed for comment; 0 Comments.
- 14 May 2008
- Research & Ideas
Getting Down to the Business of Creativity
Business leaders must manage and support creativity just as they would any other asset. Harvard Business School professors Teresa Amabile, Mary Tripsas, and Mukti Khaire discuss where creativity comes from, how entrepreneurs use it, and why innovation is often a team sport. From the HBS Alumni Bulletin. Key concepts include: People have their best days and do their best work when they are allowed to make progress. Whenever a firm introduces a truly novel product, suppliers, complementary producers, distribution channels, and consumers must often develop new capabilities, beliefs, and behaviors for the product to succeed, creating a challenge for the innovator. The perception exists that creative businesses can just start up, when in fact it takes a while for an entire ecosystem to actually generate an industry. Closed for comment; 0 Comments.
- 29 Mar 2008
- Research & Ideas
Creativity, Entrepreneurship, and Organizations of the Future
- 20 Sep 2006
- Research & Ideas
The Power of Ordinary Practices
Seemingly mundane things that managers do can have great impact on their workers, says Professor Teresa Amabile. In this conversation with Professor Mike Roberts, she updates her ongoing research on creativity in the workplace by investigating how people's intense inner work lives affect their productivity—and how managers can encourage production. Closed for comment; 0 Comments.
- 31 May 2004
- Research & Ideas
How Team Leaders Show Support–or Not
What does a team leader do so that employees know they are being supported? A Q&A with HBS professor and creativity expert Teresa Amabile about new research. Closed for comment; 0 Comments.
How Managers Stifle Creativity
3QUESTIONS: Teresa Amabile discusses the roots of creativity, how to achieve more of it, and combining it with artificial intelligence. Open for comment; 0 Comments.