On Being Creative

Here's an article written by a participant in our "Certificate in Supervisory Management" programs. The article is reprinted with permission, but the author has asked to remain anonymous. Here, then is some food for thought.

"One factor that helps make a significant contribution to my job is my creativity. This manifests itself in a number of ways, for example:

"Having experience in numerous different industries has allowed me to leverage that experience in this industry. For example, from a past experience in a different industry I am familiar with a certain solution used in spray painting to test the surface tension of the surface to be painted, with surface tension also indicating the cleanliness of that surface. This methodology is totally alien to our industry. I am currently evaluating this method for quantifying the cleanliness of stamped parts where surface oils and oxidation (while a standard part of the metal stamping process) are considered defects by the customer. The main issue is associated with being able to quantify cleanliness - "how clean is clean?" The use of this new (to our process) solution is a potential quantitative method.

"One of the biggest barriers to problem solving is people 'afraid to ask the stupid questions'. I am an 'out-of-the-box thinker' (or creative thinker), and as such sometimes test the theory that there are no 'stupid questions'. This becomes a benefit to me and the company because I like to challenge convention, the way that we've always done things, by drawing on my past experiences. This also helps to get the other team members to think out of the box - when they see a manager, say what may appear to be (and sometimes are) outlandish suggestions, they tend to take the risk and say what they're thinking.

"I also tend to challenge 'Standard Practices'; particularly in my areas of responsibility. As with the problem solving, being creative when dealing with everyday issues can have a positive effect on my colleagues - it tends to rub off on to them in the development of inspection practices and inspection fixturing.

"All of the above benefit my personal and departmental performance because (when they work out), we have a better method and/or process in place; a more robust method/process leads to less issues; less issues lead to less nonconforming product. Less quality issues equate to better performance."

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