Last updated: 3/5/03
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Reading Questions
AGS 3340

Reading questions will be posted for each of the AGS 3340 texts. My goal is to post them for each book before you are scheduled to start reading that book. The questions posted today (1/5/03) cover The HP Way and Innovation and Entrepreneurship. Reading questions for Flow were added on 3/5/03.

The Quizzes and the Final will be taken from the reading questions. I have two purposes in posting these questions.

  1. To guide your reading
  2. To give an opportunity for discussing the reading questions and their answers on the computer conference.

All questions are to be answered on the basis of the readings. Also, the questions generally require that you integrate material from throughout the book. In other words, these are not generally questions that can be completely answered on the basis of small sections of the books.

Reading Questions for The HP Way

First, Hewlett-Packard has been a very successful and profitable company for many decades. Their products were, and are, innovative, even in the fast-moving world of electronics. It has succeeded in re-inventing itself several times, so they weren't just following a single recipe for success. The most recent reinvention was dominating the field of high-resolution computer printers, and one of the low-cost producers of these.

So, whatever Hewlett and Packard did, they had something right. And since Hewlett-Packard grew to be a very large company, Hewlett and Packard obviously developed a management style that encouraged innovation and creativity on the part of their employees.

Reading Questions

  1. List some of the product successes of Hewlett-Packard.
  2. Innovation at Helwett Packard
    1. Describe several sections of the book where Packard writes about the need and value of innovation.
    2. Describe several new types of products that Hewlett-Packard developed.
  3. It often happens that the founders of a successful company are forced out of the leadership, after the company is established. Frequently, this is supposed to be because the forceful, aggressive, even egotistical management style that many company founders have is not conducive to getting a lot of people to work together. How did Hewlett and Packard avoid getting kicked out?
  4. How are the following characteristics of creative individuals made evident in this book?
    1. Fundamental expertise, without becoming locked into the existing theories and methods
    2. Commitment to the creative work
    3. Having a broad conception of the creative work
  5. What management techniques does Packard feel contributed to the company's ability to innovate and thus to its success?
  6. In Corporate Creativity you will read about the methods listed below, for running a creative and innovative company. Which of these methods were used at Hewlett-Packard?
    1. Corporate alignment; the real goals of the corporation must be widely known and consistent from unit to unit
    2. Self-initiated activity must be encouraged or at least tolerated
    3. Unofficial activity must have sources of support
    4. Serendipity -- it is impossible to tell who wil be creative, or when, or in what area
    5. A wide range of stimuli help
    6. Good communication within the corporation is needed
    7. Extensive experience in creative field is necessary
    8. Initial ideas need substantial improvement
    9. Corporate resources available at critical times
    10. Intrinsic motivation, not extrinsic (e.g. grades, salary, promotion and other extrinsic motivators often decrease creativity and innovation)
  7. What do the descriptions of the childhoods of Hewlett and Packard contribute to an understanding of their success?
  8. What is "The HP Way"?
  9. The importance of personal, informal communications within the corporation, and within units within the corporation, is referenced several times throughout this book. Summarize these references and describe what was done at each of these times to keep this type of communication going.
  10. Repeat question 9 for personal responsibility, innovation and creativity (instead of personal, informal communications).
  11. Repeat question 9 for alignment (instead of personal, informal communications). Note: ansering this question requires a good understanding of what corporate alignment is or means.
  12. Describe the following terms as used in this book:
    1. MBWA
    2. MBO
    3. Open door policy
    4. Selecting and training your own successor

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Reading Questions for Innovation and Entrepreneurship

Peter Drucker, author of Innovation and Entrepreneurship, has long been one of the best-known writers on business and management. "Innovation", of course is a word that is closely related to creativity. Clearly, there can be no innovation without creativity. An innovation is something new. Normally, it is used to indicate a new business product or a new business process, although its use is spreading to other spheres. Generally, it is still not used in the sphere of the arts and sciences. When it is used in the arts and sciences, it generally indicates a lesser degree of creativity than does the word "creative" itself.

"Entrepreneurship" means being an entrepreneur; an entrepreneur is someone who starts a new business. Even if the new business has a product that is not new, the business itself is new, and so starting the business is at least somewhat creative. Some businesses are highly creative; Henry Ford's assembly line resulted in massive economic and changes.

Many entrepreneurs are not primarily motivated by economics or making money. (If they were, perhaps the failure rate of new businesses would be less than its present 90% or so.) They are more often motivated by a desire for independence, and by feeling that they have a great product or service that deserves to be widely available.

Very often the situation is different for established businesses, especially if the founder leaves or is forced out. (Hewlett and Packard were very unusual in running their company as long as they did.) If the company "goes public", very often the stockholders have little interest or commitment to the business, except for the dividends and the stock price. However, in order to get employees to help the business innovate, a shared internal purpose must be established. Salaries and wages cannot people to be creative if they don't feel the enterprise has a worthy goal. Here I am not necessarily referring to "corporate citizenship" goals such as protecting the environment or not victimizing others. Making a product or service avialable that meet human needs, at a good price, and beating the competition, are worthy goals that can inspire creativity.

Reading Questions

  1. Comparing types of risks
    1. Creativity researchers often say that creative artists and scientists and similar creative people are risk takers. What type(s) of risk would a creative artist or creative scientist be subject to? What can happen if you exhibit a painting or publish a theory that is very different from others?
    2. What can happen if you start a business or promote a product that the public emphatically rejects? Is this a risk that an entrepreneur can be subject to? What if you start a business and it fails? Leaving aside any financial loss, what other losses can result? Can these losses be similar to those that a creative artist or scientist is subject to?
    3. When Drucker writes that entrepreneurs are not risk-takes, what type of risk is he referring to?
  2. Describe some of Drucker's case histories that show similarities to other cases of creativity. For example, do any of Drucker's case histories illustrate incubation, or the creative idea needing improvement?
  3. What value does Drucker say that innovation and entrepreneurship hold for society as a whole?
  4. Drucker mentions several cases in which expectations blocked or inhibited growth an innovation. Give some examples. What principal of general creativity does this type of situation illustrate?
  5. Where does Drucker describe specializing or focusing as enhancing innovation and growth?
  6. If innovation, like creativity, involves something new that meets a need or solves a problem, sometimes the need can be widely evident, while at others it is perceived as a problem only by the innovator. Describe some of Drucker's cases in each category.
  7. Drucker lays out a systematic program for entrepreneurs; find your area of activity, set up an organization, and pay attention to the long-term considerations. Is there a similar program for artistic and scientific creativity? Why or why not?
  8. Are there any cases in this book where the need to love the innovative / creative work is evident?
  9. Today, we often assume that innovation involves technology, i.e. computers and the Internet. How does Drucker feel about this?
  10. Can you describe any successful recent businesses that are not computer businesses?
  11. Why does Drucker feel that an innovation within an existing company must be split off and run as a separate company, or at least a separate unit? Does this have any parallel with artistic and scientific creativity?
  12. In Creating Minds we read about "Big C" creativity. In Innovation and Entrepreneurship, is there a range of innovation, from small to large, or is the range restricted to one part of the range of sizes? Describe case studies to support your answer.

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Reading Questions for Flow

Mihalyi Csikszentmihalyi has been concerned with the happiness of ordinary people for a long time, as he describes in the audiotape version of Flow (two-cassette version, Simon and Schuster Audio, 1994). He describes growing up in Europe at the end of World War II (he was about ten years old) and say many people around him destroyed psychologically by the war, but a few managed to retain sanity and courage and were able to give a sense of purpose and meaning to those around them. How do you get to be a person like this? That became his central concern. He made different attempts to find the answer - writing fiction, exploring Eastern religions, and so on. At the age of sixteen he came across the writings of Carl Gustav Jung, which provided the first sustainable clue. After reading Jung and other psychologists (including Freud), he came to the U.S. where the study of psychology was more developed than in Europe. His Ph.D. at the University of Chicago, after many delays, was on artistic creativity - how do artists come to create original work?

  1. How does Csikszentmihalyi describe consciousness, and what does consciousness have to do with Flow?
  2. Describe Csikszentmihalyi's concept of Flow. What does the author mean by optimal experience? What does Flow have to do with enjoying the moment as it goes by?
  3. What are the conditions of the Flow experience? Describe these conditions. Give some examples of actual people from the book to illustrate the conditions.
  4. What are the differences between Flow and Creativity? How is Flow involved in Creativity?
  5. Describe Csikszentmihalyi's experimental method in studying Flow.
  6. Describe the difference between instrumental and expressive skills. What does this difference have to do with Flow? Give some applicable examples of actual people from the book, Flow.
  7. What does Csikszentmihalyi mean by an autotelic personality, and how does this affect Flow?
  8. Why is complexity involved in Flow?
  9. For Csikszentmihalyi, what is the difference between pleasure and enjoyment, and why is it relevant to Flow?

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