Tudor Rickards
Encyclopedia
Tudor Rickards PhD is an author on creativity and leadership in business and management. He is based at Manchester Business School
in the UK, where he is Professor of Creativity and Organizational Change.
Rickards is an influential figure in the study and application of creativity, particularly in Europe.
By the mid-70s he had established international contacts. A collaboration with Horst Geschka at the Battelle Institute in Frankfurt, Germany, lead to a joint publication comparing practices and deficiencies in the application of creativity techniques in the UK and in Germany. Furthermore he participated in most of the European creativity conferences as a speaker or active participant. During this time he intensively worked on the development of networks enabling European creativity practitioners to work together and explore alternatives to the dominant US models.
He co-founded the academic journal, Creativity and Innovation Management, in 1991 and is Alex Osborn Visiting Professor at State University of New York, Buffalo, a lifetime position offered to scholars who are deemed to enrich teaching at the University’s Centre for Studies in Creativity.
Rickards is regularly quoted in the British media. He is a pioneer and advocate of the ‘Manchester Method’ – the system of creative and applied learning championed by Manchester Business School – on which he has written widely.
He was an early promoter in Europe of the TRIZ
system of creativity and idea generation, inviting TRIZ pioneer Dr Phan Dung to speak at EACI (European Association of Creativity and Innovation) conferences and publishing some of the first papers in English by Dr Phan Dung on the subject in Creativity and Innovation Management.
Challenging traditional models of creative thinking, leadership, problem solving and team building, Rickards’ research has been described by The Financial Times as non-traditional. The influences and inspirations for his insights and research are diverse, and include chess, poetry, sport and politics. The world of nature has also been a powerful source of inspiration, with well-publicised work on intelligent horsemanship and the lessons it offers for the workplace, and profiling management and leadership styles using animal behaviour. His work has been criticised for attempting to learn lessons from studying animal rather than human behaviour.
Rickards was educated at Pontypridd Boys’ Grammar School and went on to study chemistry and radiation chemistry at The University of Wales at Cardiff (now Cardiff University
). Following post-doctoral research at New York Medical College in the 1960s, he returned to the UK to work in the R&D department of Unilever
Laboratories, based in Port Sunlight, Merseyside, UK. It was there that he became interested in creativity and its role in structured problem-solving systems, and from there that he joined Manchester Business School in 1972.
Rickards contributed as keynote speaker at the 1st National Medical Leadership Conference of the Mersey & North Western Deaneries, Reebok Stadium Bolton, March 10th 2011.
In August 2010 Rickards contributed to an eBook collection of political poems entitled Emergency Verse – Poetry in Defence of the Welfare State edited by Alan Morrison
Rickards has been appointed to the board of international advisors to the Institute for Creative Management and Innovation, Kinki University
, Japan.
Manchester Business School
Manchester Business School is the largest department of the University of Manchester in Manchester, England. According to Bloomberg Business Week's ranking of the world's best business schools the MBS MBA is ranked third in the world...
in the UK, where he is Professor of Creativity and Organizational Change.
Rickards is an influential figure in the study and application of creativity, particularly in Europe.
By the mid-70s he had established international contacts. A collaboration with Horst Geschka at the Battelle Institute in Frankfurt, Germany, lead to a joint publication comparing practices and deficiencies in the application of creativity techniques in the UK and in Germany. Furthermore he participated in most of the European creativity conferences as a speaker or active participant. During this time he intensively worked on the development of networks enabling European creativity practitioners to work together and explore alternatives to the dominant US models.
He co-founded the academic journal, Creativity and Innovation Management, in 1991 and is Alex Osborn Visiting Professor at State University of New York, Buffalo, a lifetime position offered to scholars who are deemed to enrich teaching at the University’s Centre for Studies in Creativity.
Rickards is regularly quoted in the British media. He is a pioneer and advocate of the ‘Manchester Method’ – the system of creative and applied learning championed by Manchester Business School – on which he has written widely.
He was an early promoter in Europe of the TRIZ
TRIZ
TRIZ is "a problem-solving, analysis and forecasting tool derived from the study of patterns of invention in the global patent literature". It was developed by the Soviet inventor and science fiction author Genrich Altshuller and his colleagues, beginning in 1946...
system of creativity and idea generation, inviting TRIZ pioneer Dr Phan Dung to speak at EACI (European Association of Creativity and Innovation) conferences and publishing some of the first papers in English by Dr Phan Dung on the subject in Creativity and Innovation Management.
Challenging traditional models of creative thinking, leadership, problem solving and team building, Rickards’ research has been described by The Financial Times as non-traditional. The influences and inspirations for his insights and research are diverse, and include chess, poetry, sport and politics. The world of nature has also been a powerful source of inspiration, with well-publicised work on intelligent horsemanship and the lessons it offers for the workplace, and profiling management and leadership styles using animal behaviour. His work has been criticised for attempting to learn lessons from studying animal rather than human behaviour.
Rickards was educated at Pontypridd Boys’ Grammar School and went on to study chemistry and radiation chemistry at The University of Wales at Cardiff (now Cardiff University
Cardiff University
Cardiff University is a leading research university located in the Cathays Park area of Cardiff, Wales, United Kingdom. It received its Royal charter in 1883 and is a member of the Russell Group of Universities. The university is consistently recognised as providing high quality research-based...
). Following post-doctoral research at New York Medical College in the 1960s, he returned to the UK to work in the R&D department of Unilever
Unilever
Unilever is a British-Dutch multinational corporation that owns many of the world's consumer product brands in foods, beverages, cleaning agents and personal care products....
Laboratories, based in Port Sunlight, Merseyside, UK. It was there that he became interested in creativity and its role in structured problem-solving systems, and from there that he joined Manchester Business School in 1972.
Rickards contributed as keynote speaker at the 1st National Medical Leadership Conference of the Mersey & North Western Deaneries, Reebok Stadium Bolton, March 10th 2011.
In August 2010 Rickards contributed to an eBook collection of political poems entitled Emergency Verse – Poetry in Defence of the Welfare State edited by Alan Morrison
Alan Morrison (poet)
-Overview of works:Morrison's work belongs to no particular school, but owes some debt to fairly unconventional influences such as John Davidson and Harold Monro, as well as Welsh poets Alun Lewis and Dylan Thomas....
Rickards has been appointed to the board of international advisors to the Institute for Creative Management and Innovation, Kinki University
Kinki University
, or , is a private non-sectarian and coeducational university based in Higashiosaka, Osaka, Japan with campuses in five other locations: Nara, Nara; Ōsakasayama, Osaka; Uchita, Wakayama; Higashihiroshima, Hiroshima; and Iizuka, Fukuoka....
, Japan.