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"Inspiration is tamed by rules, and leaders are domesticated by bureaucrats"- Max Weber Organizations, including civic institutions,
benefit when the creative participation architecture is broad, enabling input
from as many areas and individuals as possible. February 17, 2006 "Dare to dream. Dare to fail." Creativity Inside and Outside of Government by Michael McAteer Creativity and innovation in government are needed but shouldn't be expected. Bureaucrats and politicians, representing myriad constituencies at once, many diametrically opposed to one another but deserving of equal consideration, must refrain from spontaneity and risk. But creativity demands spontaneity and risk taking. No problem or its context, outside of mathematics, is exactly like another, or one that went before. Therefore, all problem solving requires some original creative thinking. Most problems in society fall outside the narrow scope of risk taking allowed to bureaucrats and politicians, who must, while doing their jobs, conduct a constant rear-guard action to protect them. No job receives closer scrutiny and constant critiquing than the political one. No job must expend more of its energy and time responding to critics than the political one. Consequently, none is more conscious of or inhibited by criticism than the political one. This is the doing of the very body politic government must serve. To the honest degree that politicians are creatively limited by the nature of their positions, perceptive citizens respectfully form their opinions. Society's problems require ever evolving creative applications, and the people freest to be creative are those outside of government. Therefore, creativity is one important civic responsibility among many. It is the public servant's duty to respect and seriously consider the creativity of those outside of government, to pardon and understand the risks, foibles and false starts inherent in the creative process, and appreciate its associated failures in the same spirit as its successes.
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