Creativity and NGOs

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ATHENS UNIVERSITY OF ECONOMICS AND BUSINESS

Creativity and NGOs: AIESEC

Authors:

Livia Ditu

Mirela Stefan

ATHENS

2013 - 2014


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Introduction

The paper has the aim of presenting the connection between creativity and NGOs, why creativity is

so important for their development and how new ideas can be generated in NGOs, everything being

exemplified on AIESEC, a non-governmental, not-for-profit, student organization. The topic is

considered to be of relevance for research due to the growing importance of NGOs in the everyday

life, as well as the increasing competition on the market. Because of the high number of NGOs

activating nowadays, in order to survive and to succeed it is required to be different, which is why

creativity is crucial for NGOs.

The paper begins with an explanation of creativity and what streams of literature defines it. We

chose to talk about five theories that explain what is creativity, how it works and exemplify the

process of being creative. In the beginning of creativity research, the scientist Ellis Paul Torrance

developed a series of tests to measure peoples creativity. This was only the beginning, many other

scientists creating their theories based on his work. Another important character in this field was R.J.

Sternberg with his Creativity Research Journal Collection. His research resulted in defining the eight

types of creativity, explaining the connection between intelligence and creativity, the importance of

motivation in the process of being creative, as well as the role of environment in the creativity

process. This topic was also approached by Amabile in one of her papers (Creativity under the

gun), the conclusion being that it depends from person to person: for some people, a relaxed

environment is the best, while others need pressure in order to be efficient. This is why the leaders

have a vital role in the process of creativity, the project managers being the ones that should

discover the best way of work for their members, what motivates them and what difficulties are

they facing in the process of generating creative ideas.

The next subsection of our paper introduces the non-governmental organizations, what differentiate

them of other international organizations and their importance in our society. Furthermore, we will

present the connection between creativity and NGOs, why creativity plays a vital role in their

development and how the process of creativity in an NGO can be improved. In order to see what is

required for the process improvement, we will create the theoretical framework by presenting

several generating ideas methods, together with advantages and disadvantages for each technique.

In the last part of our project, we will introduce the results of our quantitative research through

which we want to see how is the working environment in AIESEC, whether the leaders encourage

creativity or not and what are the methods used for generating ideas. In the end of our analysis, we

will present some suggestions for improving this process of finding new ideas.

Our quantitative research is based on a questionnaire applied in two local committees (AIESEC

Bucharest and AIESEC Athens), the answers coming from members, middle management and top

management. We tried to see what are their opinion about creativity (from an inside point of view,

being members of an NGO and having to deal with creative solutions everyday), what drives them


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towards their goals, what methods of generating ideas are using and whether the leaders succeeded

in creating a favourable environment for creativity development or not.

Creativity

Creativity is the phenomenon where something new and valuable is created, when you bring new

and imaginative idea into reality.

It is also the process of transforming ideas into something that you can see, hear, touch, smell or

taste. Michael Mumford is the one that defined creativity as the process of producing something

that is both original and worthwhile or characterized by originality and expressiveness and

imaginative. But this is just one of the many explanations that were given for creativity.More than

that, it is very discussed also the topic of creativity being something that you are born with or

something that you can develop, topic that is going to be discussed in this paper as well.

In different theories there are more models that can help us define creativity and the creativity

process. For example, Grahame Wallaspresented the model with 5 stages:

-preparation (when the individual prepares his mind the explores the problems dimensions)

-incubation (when you leave outside your mind the externalities and you focus on the problem)

-intimation (when the person know that is on the right way)

-illumination or insight (when you become aware of the creative idea)

-verification (when you verify the idea, elaborate it and the apply it)

Also, Wallas suggested that creativity is an evolutionary process which helps humans to adapt to the

changes.

Another model that defines creativity and creativity process is the four C model by Jamea C.

Kaufman and Beghetto: mini-C, little-C, pro-C and big-C. The first one is the transformative learning

or hoe humans interpret experiences, actions or insights. The second one is about everyday problem

solving. Pro-C is expressed through people that are creative because of their profession, but they are

not necessarily eminent. And the last one, big-C, is when someone is great in a given field, in respectto the creativity.

Other theories about the creativity processes include also the convergent and divergent thinking, by

J.P. Gauliford. The first one is when you refer to a single, correct solution to a problem and the other

one involves creating more answers to a set of problems; you can also call it flexible thinking.

Finke came out with the Geneplore modelwhich says that creativity has two phases: a generative

phase (when humans construct mental representations called preinventive structure) and

exploratory phase (structures are used to come up with creative ideas).

Explicit-Implicit Interaction (EII) theoryby Helie and Sun relies on: the relationship between explicit

and implicit knowledge, the simultaneous involvement of implicit and explicit process, the


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redundant representation of these processes, the integration of the results and the iterative

processing.

Arthur Koestler introduced in The Act of Creation the concept of bisociation (when the creativity

comes as a result of the interaction of two different frames of reference). This leads to conceptual

blending. (The Act of Creation, 1964, Arthur Koestler)

With all these theories about the creativity process, we also need to measure different levels of

creativity. There were developed several tests in order to measure creativity. J.P. Gaulifords group

reviled in 1967 the following: Plot Titles(when the participants had to find and original title for a

story), Quick Responses (a word-association test), Figure Concepts (participants had to find the

similarities between two drawings), Unusual Uses (finding unusual uses for common objects),

Remote Associations (participations had to find a word between two given words) and Remote

Consequences (when participants had to say a list of consequences to unexpected events). Building

on these testes, Torrance developed Torrance Tests of Creative Thinkingin 1966.

This Tests scored creativity on four scales:

fluency;

flexibility;

originality;

elaboration.

Torrance also grouped his tests in three main categories, each one with different tasks:

1. Verbal tasks using verbal stimuli (impossibilities task, consequences task, just suppose task,

situations task, common problems task, improvement task, imaginative stories task, cow

jumping problems)

2. Verbal tasks using nonverbal stimuli (ask and guess task, product improvement task, unusualuses task)

3. Non-verbal tasks (incomplete figures task, picture construction task or shape task, circles

and squares task, creative design task)

Critique on the Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking Cramonf Bonnie, 2002

Further we will discuss about the association of creativity with the intelligence. Some believe that

creativity is the outcome of intelligence, it is like a consequence of it. A know theory here is the

threshold hypothesis proposed by Ellis Paul Torrance. He sustains that a high degree of intelligence

is necessary for a high creativity, but it is not sufficient. There are also other studies that sustains

that there is no correlation between intelligence and creativity.

The paper ofR.J. Sternbers(Creativity Research Journal, The Nature of Creativity, Robert J.

Sternberg, 2010)talks about the investment theory of creativity and about the propulsion theory

of creative contribution. The last one suggests that there are eight types of creative contribution in

order to end up with a result: replication (confirmation that the given field is in the correct place),

redefinition (where the field is and how you see it), forward incrementation (contribution that

moves the field in the direction it is supposed to be moved), advance forward movement (advancing

the field), redirection (when you move it in a new direction), redirection from a point in the past

(when you move the field back in order to see another direction), starting over/re-initiation (moving

to a different starting point) and integration (combining two to more fields intro a dingle way ofthinking).


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The first four types of creativity accept current paradigms and attempt to extend them, the next

three reject current paradigms and attempt to replace them and the last one synthesizes current

paradigms.

Also the Journal of Sternberg about the nature of the creativity talks about the intelligence and how

it is important in order to be creative and also about knowledge: it is important to have the

knowledge about the subject and about the field in order to have a creative thinking about it. The

personality is another aspect that should be taken into consideration. It happens sometime that a

person is creative and he comes with a lot of new idea, but these ideas are not taking into

consideration because they are against the beliefs of the organization/NGO.

Motivation is another fact that should we should talk about when we refer to creativity. Both

Sternberg and Amabile claim that the importance of the motivationis crucial. People dont really do

creative work unless they really love what they are doing and focus on the work rather than the

reward. Of course, a reward should always exist, either an intrinsic or extrinsic one. Some believe

that the intrinsic motivation is stronger and this makes you love your job, your work and you care

work more, better and more creative. For example, in an NGO, since it is an unpaid job, you dont

have material recognition, but knowing that you can help the others and you can develop yourself

help you to continue working.

Furthermore, the text of Sternberg sustains that environment is important as well. You cannot be

creative in any kind of environment, you need something that suits your personality and your way of

thinking and working. Some would say that they work better in are relaxed environment, others

would say that they work better if they are under pressure.

(Creativity Research Journal, The Nature of Creativity, Robert J. Sternberg, 2010)

We can find the same topic in Amabiles paper: Creativity under the gun, published in 2002. She

sustains that you are more creative when you are free, and not under the gun. The article also

presents the Time-Pressure/Creativity Matrix which shows how time pressure can affect creativity in

accordance with the environment and other stimulus for people. But to sum up the idea of the text,

we can affirm that you can protect your creativity and use it only if you give it the right environment,

a little bit of pressure, space and time. It should be a mix of all of these and this mix is different from

person to person.

This is why in an organization it is really important the roles of leaders. They are the ones that

command and help the members to develop, they are the ones motivates and make the others work

for the mission and vision of the organization. So, in order to work effectively and bring results,

leaders should analyse their members and see which work style fits to which member. They should

also bring rewards and present that advantages and what can a member get or loose as a

consequence of his work. It is even harder when they have to find the intrinsic motivation in

members and make them follow it. But this is what a good leader should do in an organization.

Talking about encouraging motivation, there are six managerial practices that can do this:

challenge (matching people with the right assignments);

freedom (giving autonomy in order to achieve goals);


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resources (there should be a balance between resourcestime, money, spaceand

people);

work group features (supportive teams with members that share their experience);

supervisory encouragement (recognitions);

organizational support (information sharing, collaboration).

Another aspect that can help persons to become more creative is to think about creativity and to

believe that you are creative and you can use your craft to achieve goals and new ideas. This is what

Bruce Kasanoff sustains in a paragraph in Forbes (Why People (Incorrectly) Think They Are Not

Creative, Bruce Kasanoff, Forbes, 2014). He says that normally people sustains that they are not

creative, when, in fact, they dont have the craft. Craft is how to do stuff and you can acquire it by

learning a skill. If you want to develop your craft, you need time and creativity is the way you use

your craft.

Regarding the issue of people thinking they are creative or not, we can say that only 1 in 4 persons

believe that they are living up to their creative potential. This data is from an Adobe Study made in

more countries like United States, Japan, Germany, France. This study also reveals that 75% from

people that were interviewed said that they are under pressure to be productive rather than

creative at their work place and only 39% of global respondents described themselves as being

creative. (Creativity at Work Blog)

Another aspect that we should take into consideration is if creativity can be taught. Tests show us

that yes, you can practice your creativity, but not by sitting in a lecture, but by learning and applying

creative thinking processes in practice. And as George Land discovered in 1968, it is easier to

develop creativity to young people that to the old ones.

So, creativity is a skill that can be developed and a process that can be managed. There are three

components that you should take into consideration: expertise, creative-thinking and motivation.

You have to combine all of these and also to experiment, explore, question, use imagination and

synthesize information and your brain will start to generate new ideas, which will lead to new

discovers, projects and development of an organization. (Creative at Work Blog, Can Creativity be

Taught?)

In the end of the paragraph, we will present the seven habits of highly creative people presented by

Linda Naiman in an article in 2011, published inA Hopeful Sign:

First you should prepare the ground, to find your place and to arrange your environment. You also

have to give time and space. Then you plant seeds for creativity, you have to focus on what you

want to create.

The third one is to live in the question: only by questioning and finding answers you can develop.

The next one is to feed your brain, be curious, combine ideas and make connections. After that you

have to experiment and exploreand then replenish your creative stock.

And the last one is to liberate your creativity, remember how you acted as a child and give passion

in what you do.


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Non-governmental organizations

Todays society is saturated with concepts such as corporations, companies, intergovernmental

organizations, NGOs and so on, each one of them being different, but in the same time acting in

similar or common fields.

With a history dating back to at least 1839, NGOs are unique organizations through their structure

and practices, being set up by ordinary citizens and funded by governments, businesses or

foundations. These NGOs are often the most effective voice for the concerns of ordinary people in

the international arena, being the most outspoken advocates of human rights, the environment,

social programs, women's rights and more. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-

governmental_organization)

Intergovernmental organizations on the other hand are organizations composed by primarily

sovereign states, being an important aspect of the public international law. Their main purposes are

peace, economic development worldwide or in a certain region, encouragement of trade or to endextreme poverty (i.e.: World Bank). Sometimes in this group are also included INGOs - such as

internationalnon-profit organizations,andmultinational corporations - known as profit driven,

being criticized for taking advantage of developing countries instead of helping them.

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intergovernmental_organization)

Besides the fact that most NGOs are not-for-profit, there are other characteristics that differentiate

these organizations of other associations, foundations and companies.

First of all, NGOs are very dependent of volunteers, both the small ones and the largest

organizations. They might have some paid employees (we are talking here about the internationalorganizations, with several branches around the world), but most of the projects are implemented

with the help of volunteers. Driven by their desire to do something useful, the volunteers enter in

the not-for-profit field due to the development opportunities that it offers to them, both on the

professional and personal level.

Secondly, NGOs are inclined to favour organizational ideologies and tend to be more driven by their

mission than FPOs. The mission and the vision are used as a driver and a motivation for the

volunteers and also for finding new projects to implement.

Thirdly, NGOs are characterized by a lack of bureaucracy which offers a higher degree of flexibility

and freedom to be more creative to the volunteers.

Furthermore, NGOs may conceive their projects from ideas that vary with their particular support

group or even with the society at large. On other words, NGOs accept ideas from everybody, from

their volunteers or from outsiders and they are also very adaptable in terms of project orientation.

Another difference is that NGOs are constraint by funding. Because of this, the staff is not rewarded

through monetary recognition. Even if in other organizations financial rewards are an important

motivator for the people, the NGOs that work with volunteers offer other types of rewards, more on

a personal and emotional level. (Nikolaj Hoojgard, 2012)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nonprofit_organizationhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multinational_corporationhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multinational_corporationhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nonprofit_organization


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NGOs are difficult to define and, as a result, there are many different classifications in use, the most

important being byorientation and level of operation.

By level of operation, we have:

Community based organizations: arise out of people's own initiatives; City-wide organizations: include organizations such as chambers of commerce and

industry, coalitions of business, ethnic or educational groups;

National NGOs: include national organizations, some of them having state and city

branches and assisting local NGOs;

International NGOs: range from secular agencies to religiously motivated groups, being

responsible for funding local NGOs, institutions and projects and implementing projects.

By level of orientation, we have:

Charitable orientation: involves a top-down paternalistic effort with little participation by

the "beneficiaries";

Service orientation: NGOs with activities such as the provision of health, family planning

or education services in which the programme is designed by the NGO and people are

expected to participate in its implementation and in receiving the service;

Participatory orientation: characterized by self-help projects where local people are

involved particularly in the implementation of a project by contributing cash, tools, land,

materials;

Empowering orientation: aims to help poor people develop a clearer understanding of the

social, political and economic factors affecting their lives, and to strengthen their

awareness of their own potential power to control their lives.

Another way of classification is by activities:

Operational: these NGOs seek to "achieve small-scale change directly through projects";

Campaigning: these NGOs seek to "achieve large-scale change promoted indirectly through

influence of the political system";

Public relations: needed by NGOs for achieving their goals and raising funds.

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-governmental_organization)

Besides these criteria, there are other classification of NGOs, such as students, social or

environmental oriented organizations and not-for-profit or non-profit organizations. In this paper,

we are going to focus more on students, not-for profit NGOs with a service, development and

community orientation.

Called by U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan the worlds new superpower, NGOs and their

importance in our society grew rapidly in the last 15 years to the point when various governments

agreed that without people and NGOs involvement in the solution of problems, their nations may

deteriorate to the point of disintegration. Governmental Organizations have a unique role to play in

the constructive management of a nation, but at the same time, NGOs of any kind have the

sacrosanct duty to make substantial contributions toward the creation of a better and more stable

global community. In order to achieve this goal, volunteers are giving their time, energy and

expertise to help make the world better and everything they receive back is a pleasant and flexible


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work space, open to innovation and creativity, where they can develop their ideas for helping the

people.(Mercieca, 2006)

As David Miliband said in an interview in 2013, one of the main attractions of the NGO sector is that

it really can be at the cutting edge of innovation because however much decent societies need good

government and a dynamic private sector, it's often in the NGO sector that you find the most

dynamism, the most innovation.

Another important role of NGOs is that they can facilitate communication upward - from people to

the government, downward - from government to the people, and horizontally - networking

between other organizations doing similar work.

To conclude, an NGO has a vital role in our society due to its ability of using peoples creativity for

finding different ways of doing things, of solving problems, of pushing the boundaries of what is

possible or not.

Creativity and NGOs

Creativity is based on the ability to view things in a different perspective and to generate new

alternatives for problems (California State University, Northridge). In order to reach a high level of

creativity inside an organization, the management has to offer open and flexible conditions and to

find the right things that motivate the staff. This is why a non-governmental, not-for-profit

organization is the best environment for bringing up the creativity hidden in people.

Creativity represents an important part of the processes that take place in an NGO being the one

that determines creation of new projects (NPD projects) which will attract further funding for the

NGO. Because an NGO does not have a large cash flow and resources like commercial firms or

intergovernmental organizations have, it needs innovation and creativity for fund raising, for

expanding their reach and implicitly for delivering their mission. (Grant, Crutchfield, 2007)

As I said before, creativity plays an essential role in the creation of new development projects (NPD).

Even if the basis of NPD projects consists in the innovation of the members, this is not enough.

Within a market saturated with organizations, an NGO needs to be original so that it can

differentiate itself of others competitors. In order to achieve this uniqueness, the members of the

NGO have to be creative in the process of innovation ofnew products and programmes. (Grant,

Crutchfield, 2007)

Since reaching to other people is the best way to become a high-impact organization and working

outside themselves leads to more success and improvement in their field, encouraging creativity

inside the organizations became one of the main goals of the top management of the NGOs.

Research has shown that peoples perception of the work environment created by their team

leaders relate to their creativity. Consequently, the leaders have an important role in creating a

flourishing environment for creative ideas; they can do this by offering their trust to the volunteer

and by empowering others to lead. Even if the basis of a creatively-friendly environment is difficult

to illustrate, it is well known that the leader(s) should have a positive behaviour towards the


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members of the organization: valuing individual contributions, providing constructive feedback,

supporting the work group, being open to new ideas.(Amabile, 2004)

But this environment should not take the form of scheduled meeting, because - according to a team

of researchers from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in New Yorkmost of the great ideas that

launched companies came by accident (Tucker, 2011). However, both companies and NGOs are

using scheduled sessions of idea generation, using certain techniques for this. In the next section, we

are going to analyse various methods of generating creative ideas.

Generating Creative ideas in an NGO

Subsection references:

http://www.mindtools.com/brainstm.html

http://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newCT_96.htm

http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2013/12/16/using-brainwriting-for-rapid-idea-generation/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/6-3-5_Brainwriting

http://www.joe.org/joe/1984march/iw2.php

http://sloanreview.mit.edu/article/brainstorming-electronically/

Faced with complex, ever-changing challenges, organizations realize that constant, ongoing

innovation is critical to stay ahead of the competition. This is why they are searching for people who

can generate new ideas. But sparking creativity within a team is not that easy as it sounds. Our brain

cannot access innovation at a specific click or according to the schedule created by the managers. By

contrary, this is happening on the spur of the moment, which is why brainstorming sessions are not

as productive as we wish them to be.

Lately, managers and team leaders began to use various methods of generating ideas, combining

them and trying to use them ongoing, not only sporadically. This section will introduce four idea

generations techniques, presenting the advantages and disadvantages of using them.

1. Brainstorming

When a group wants to generate ideas for a new product or to solve a problem, whether it is

happening in an NGO or in MNC, the first method considered is brainstorming. Developed by the

Madison Avenue advertising executive Alex Osborn back in 1963, brainstorming is a group orindividual creativity technique used for finding a solution for a problem by gathering a list of

spontaneously ideas from each member.

During a brainstorming session, a group of people sit together and generate and orally share ideas,

by respecting four basic rules:

Focus on quantity: the assumption is that the greater the number of ideas generated, the

greater the chance of producing a radical and effective solution;

No criticism;

Wild ideas are welcome;
http://www.mindtools.com/brainstm.htmlhttp://www.mindtools.com/brainstm.htmlhttp://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newCT_96.htmhttp://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newCT_96.htmhttp://www.smashingmagazine.com/2013/12/16/using-brainwriting-for-rapid-idea-generation/http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2013/12/16/using-brainwriting-for-rapid-idea-generation/http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2013/12/16/using-brainwriting-for-rapid-idea-generation/http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2013/12/16/using-brainwriting-for-rapid-idea-generation/http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2013/12/16/using-brainwriting-for-rapid-idea-generation/http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/6-3-5_Brainwritinghttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/6-3-5_Brainwritinghttp://www.joe.org/joe/1984march/iw2.phphttp://www.joe.org/joe/1984march/iw2.phphttp://sloanreview.mit.edu/article/brainstorming-electronically/http://sloanreview.mit.edu/article/brainstorming-electronically/http://sloanreview.mit.edu/article/brainstorming-electronically/http://www.joe.org/joe/1984march/iw2.phphttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/6-3-5_Brainwritinghttp://www.smashingmagazine.com/2013/12/16/using-brainwriting-for-rapid-idea-generation/http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2013/12/16/using-brainwriting-for-rapid-idea-generation/http://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newCT_96.htmhttp://www.mindtools.com/brainstm.html


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Combine and improve ideas: there is no room for criticism, all ideas should be kept and

combined to find the best solution.

Osborn claimed that group brainstorming is more effective than individuals working alone due to the

team members diverse background, the open-minded environment, without criticism and the fact

that it allows participants to build on existing ideas. Despite these advantages though, Michael Diehl

and Wolfgang Stroebe found several factors that contribute to a loss of effectiveness in a group

brainstorming, such as: blocking, collaborative fixation, evaluation apprehension, free-riding,

personality characteristics, social matching or influence of power relations.

A variation of this method is reverse-brainstorming, a technique which combines brainstorming and

reversal techniques. In other words, it solves problems by exploring multiple factors in reverse. The

rule is that instead of asking How do I solve the problem?, you ask How do I cause this to be a

problem?. The solutions found for the second question are then reversed into solution for the

initial problem.

2. Brainwriting

Brainwriting is an alternative to brainstorming and it often produces more results than a traditional

session of brainstorming due to the fact that some disadvantages (blocking, personality

characteristics or influence of power relations) are excluded. The rule is basically the same, the main

difference being the way of expressing ideas: instead of yelling them out, the participants are writing

down ideas and then passing their papers to others who will develop the ideas from their point of

view. Once everybody is done writing, ideas are discussed and combined in solutions.

A variation of this method is 6-3-5 brainwriting, method developed by Bern Rohrbach in 1968 and

used in marketing and advertising. Similar with the brainstorming method, this technique focus ratheron quantity than quality, its purpose being to generate 108 new ideas in 30 minutes.

3. Electronic Brainstorming

EBS is basically idea generation happening electronically. Participants type their ideas directly into a

software problem where all team members can instantly see them. This method is good for both

small and big groups, for a variety of topics, being considered a better way to generate ideas than

traditional brainstorming and NGT due to several benefits:

Space and time constraints:it is not require to all participants to be present at the same time

and place; Cost savings;

Documentation: ideas are recorded electronically and they can be accessed at any time.

Comfort:participants can reflect on the problem in the comfort and privacy of their desks

and even their homes.

4. Nominal Group Technique (NGT)

NGT, a variation of the Brainwriting technique, is a group method which consists in problem

identification, solution generation and decision making. Developed by Delbecq and VandeVen and

applied to adult education, the process of idea generation is as follows: participants individually

write down their ideas without being shared until everybody is done; then they are presented with


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the purpose of eliminating similar ideas and clarifying the rest; the next step is the individual ranking

of ideas: people rank or vote for the ideas they like the best and ideas are prioritized in accordance

to this.

This method outperforms brainstorming because it provides more unique ideas and more balanced

participation between group members. Other advantages are: avoids problems caused by group

interaction, eliminates the effect of dominant personalities. Despite these, a major disadvantage of

NGT is that it lacks flexibility and spontaneity and it requires a certain amount of time for

preparation.

AIESEC

AIESEC is an international organization, an youth network the impacts the world through leadership

development experiences. It facilitates these international internships and volunteer experiences for

over 65 years and in 124 countries and territories. The vision of the organization is peace and

fulfilment of humankinds potential and as a scope, AIESEC is a non-political, independent, non-profit

organization with members that are students or recent graduates. The values of the organization are

the following: Activating Leadership, Demonstrating Integrity, Living Diversity, Enjoying Participation,

Striving for Excellence and Acting Sustainably.

The name is a French acronym for Association international des tudiantes en sciences conomiques

et commerciales (International association of students in economic and commercial sciences)

AIESEC offers annually 24 000 leadership positions and delivers over 500 conferences to its members

of over 90 000 students from 2 400 universities across the globe. The organization is supported by

over 8 000 partner organizations. The conferences organized by the organization focuses on:

international trade, management education, sustainable development, entrepreneurship, innovation

and corporate social responsibility.

There are four main programmes that AIESEC develops in people:

1. Member programmeyou can be a member of the organization in one of the departments.

Every Local Committee has a slightly different structure, but the basic department remains

the same: Finance, Human Resources, Sales, Communication/Marketing and the Exchange

Areas that manage the exchange of the participants.

2. Leadership programmeit develops you at a different level, it learns you how to manage ateam and a project, how to communicate with you member and your top board, how to

motivate others and how to work with them effectively and in a creative way. Middle

management of an organization is an important part for the development of the NGO.

3. Global volunteering programmeevery local committee develops volunteering project like

fundraising, teaching, promoting HIV/SIDA awareness, working in human rights, working

with children, environmental sustainability, leadership development, etc. Through this

project, volunteers all over the world are making exchanges, getting to know new cultures,

new people, new places. Participants become more open-minded, more tolerant and they

have the chance to use their creativity to help others. In the end, they have experience and

knowledge, tools that can help them to develop new idea, new businesses.


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4. Global internship programmeit is a paid internship in a company, in the business sector

usually. It is longer than the volunteering programme and divided in three types:

Marketing/Management, Technical and Educational.

Since AIESEC is an international organization, its members have an international environment with

people all over the world. They can communicate with them, share ideas, aspects about life, about

differences and cultures. This way, they start to think outside the box and implicit they become

more creative. They use their intelligence to create new things in an environment which allowed

them to be who they want. They can also travel for different conferences or through AIESEC

exchange projects.

The organization is a platform where you can develop your skills by developing others. Whenever

you have an innovative idea, you are supported and helped to develop it. You can do mistakes and

you can learn from them, being supported by all the members because all of them are young and at

the beginning of their career, so no one expect you to be perfect. Being part of an NGO is a good

start for your future, an NGO being a good place where students can learn by doing and can apply in

practice what faculties try to teach them in theory.

Creativity in AIESEC

None of the above idea generation methods can be said to be perfect and they all have room for

improvement. In this section we are going to introduce an analysis based on the NGO chosen by us,

AIESEC, and prove whether the case reinforce or contradict some of the theoretical perspectives

presented earlier.

Most of our respondents linked the concept of creativity with terms such aspassion, act, have fun,new things, desire, colours, unpredictable, beautiful or unique which is in concordance with our

definition of creativity (Creativity is a phenomenon whereby something new and valuable is created:

such as an idea, a joke, an artistic or literary work, a painting or musical composition, a solution, an

invention etc.).

As we have said before, it is well known that creativity influence in a high degree the development of

an NGO and that it is crucial for the survival of the organization on a market full of competitors.

Besides all the research carried on this topic, the results of our questionnaire filled in by AIESEC

members from two different committees (Bucharest and Athens) reinforced this idea, 75% of the

respondents agreeing that on a scale from 1 to 5 (where 1it doesnt help, 5- it helps a lot),creativity has an importance of 4 for the development of the NGO. They also agreed that creativity is

not only a skill that you are born with, but also something that you can learn and develop in time,

which is why an open-to-creativity environment created by the top management is very important

for the success of the organization.

According to AIESEC members, idea generation sessions do not take place on a regularly basis and

they do not have a certain structure, most of them being organized ad hoc, when new ideas for

solving a problem are needed. If we take into consideration the contextual factors about AIESEC -

medium NGO, run by volunteers with diverse backgrounds, who encourage thinking outside the box,

achievement of their goals, but also enjoying participationwe can appreciate that the mostsuitable idea generation method for this NGO is a combination between social-oriented and task-


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oriented techniques. The results showed that all four idea generation methods presented are used

in the two committees, but brainstorming and brainwriting have a higher frequency over the others,

despite the general opinion (80% of the respondents) according to which NGT is the most efficient

method. The brainwriting technique is a good choice for AIESEC because it provides more solutions

than a normal brainstorming session and it avoids the situation of a dominant personality, but as a

throwback, the ideas provided are not flexible. An improvement to this would be small breaks from

the session during which the chair of the meeting can redefine the problem. Moreover, since

everybody considered NGT as the most efficient method, a good enhancement would also be adding

an element of NGT to the session.

The questionnaire showed us that the members are motivated by the final purpose and the mission

of the project, as well as their dreams and the passion and the appreciation of the others.

Consequently, a good strategy would be the following: in the beginning of the meeting, the project

manager should remind to the participants the AIESEC mission, the goals and purpose of the project

and how the meeting can help to achieve all these.

Another possibility is to use divergent thinking, a method used in conjunction with convergent

thinking to generate creative ideas by exploring many potential solutions. This way of thinking is

applicable in AIESEC because it typically occurs in a spontaneous manner, followed by unexpected

connections, characteristics similar to the way of being of an Aiesecer (Smith, 2012). Another

suggestion came from one of the members was to put up a What if... boardin the offices where

the members can write outrageous what if questions. This transforms the process of generating

ideas in an ongoing process, maintaining in the same time the spontaneity of people, encourages

wild ideas, it does not respect a schedule (which implies more natural creativity) and preserves

anonymity.

There are many combinations of the methods introduced earlier, with different variations, our

suggestions representing only some possibilities of improving the process of generating new ideas in

AIESEC.


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Conclusion

The purpose of this project was to present the connection between creativity and non-governmental

organizations, the process of generating creative ideas and how this process can be improved inside

the organization. As we presented earlier, creativity is crucial for the development of an NGO

because without creative volunteers, NPD projects cannot be developed, so the mission of the NGO

cannot be achieved. In other words, the core reason of the NGOs existence, helping people and

improving nowadays society, cannot be fulfilled.

Motivation of the members and the leaders were shown to be of great importance in the process of

being highly creative and implementing crazy ideas. Since in an NGO we cannot talk about paid

employees, the intrinsic motivation is crucial for making the volunteers giving up their time and

energy for developing new projects. This is why the leaders have even a more important role.

Without their capacity of creating an environment where members creativity can flourish, a work

environment suited for each members personality, where the mistakes are encouraged and

outrageous ideas are appreciated, an NGO cannot succeed on a market where everyday a new

organization is born.

This is why we think AIESEC is a good example of an organization where creativity is appreciated and

you can found it everywhere. The international environment which characterizes this organization is

one of the reasons for which members can develop more easily their creativity. However, from the

point of view of the members (as the questionnaire showed), there are still some gaps in the process

of generating ideas inside the organization.

To sum up, creativity is indispensable for the NGOs survival. The process of generating new ideas

should be modified and adapt according to each company/organizations mission and culture, as

well as volunteers/employees personality and work style.


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APPENDICES: Questionnaire Creativity in AIESEC

1. Your age:

2.

Gender:

3. Which is your Local Committee (LC):

4. What is your position in your LC:

5. What is your department in your LC:

6. Write 3 words that define creativity for you:

7. Do you think that creativity is something you are born with or you can learn it in time?

a. Something you are born with

b. Something you can learn in time

8. Do you think that creativity helps the development of an NGO?

9. If your answer is Yesto the previous question, specify which is the degree that the

creativity helps an NGO? (1-it doesn't help; 5-it helps a lot)

10. How creative do you think your LC is? (1-not creative at all; 5-very creative)

11. What methods of idea generation are used in your LC?

a. Brainstorming

b. Brainwriting

c. Electronic Brainstorming

d. Nominal Group Technique

12.What is in your opinion the most efficient method (from the methods presented earlier)?13.Can you give some suggestions of generating ideas methods that can be more efficient?

14.What motivates you?

15.Are you more creative under pressure or in a relaxed environment?

a. Under pressure

b. Relaxed environment

16.Do you think that Top and Middle Management (Board + Team Leaders) encourage the

creativity of the members?

17. If you answered Yesto the previous question, give us an example:


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Creativity and NGOs