Managing the personnel

The first thing I would do if I were a manager would be to implement a code of conduct.
I believe that there should be limits within the company in terms of behaviours, expectations regarding work or schedule and once all the workers are aware of this code they will know what is expected from them. The example of Andy´s behaviour in Sarah Cliffe's article "What a star, what a jerk" and the difficulties for Jane, the manager of the department, to control and punish Andy's attitude are a good example of the benefits a code of conduct could have.

A relaxed environment at work and flexibility with the working hours can be good measures to improve creativity in my opinion. I think that employees should feel as well in their offices as they do at home and that everything should be done to facilitate their life so that they can concentrate only on work and not worry about other things. For example, having a nanny to take care of the employees´children, hiring a person to buy the groceries or take of the people´s laundry can be good measures to make the employees stay longer at work or at least make sure they have time to just relax while they are not working.
Being flexible with working hours is also important according to me. Some employees might prefer to start working later than 8 a.m and stay at night while others will prefer to start early and go home sooner to spend time with their family maybe. Some will prefer to work intensively on a project for a period of time until it is finished and take holidays after that to relax whilst other would rather do only their obligatory working hours and have their weekends. A manager should be aware of these needs and try to find the best solutions for his employees.
The Google company is a good example to illustrate the measures I mentioned above in this paragraph. At Google everything is made to facilitate the life of the employees and the success of the company cannot be contested. I am not saying that this is the only factor behind the company´s success but I think it plays an important role.

In his article "Improving the creativity of organizational work groups" , Thompson suggests that a flatter organizational structure encourages creativity. I agree with this point to some extent because I also believe that a completely flat structure might end up in a total chaos and in the end ineffectiveness. The manager should also make sure that the guidelines he gave to the staff are respected and that everything is being done to achieve the goals he set. When it is not possible for him to be present at the office he should delegate these responsibilities to someone he trusts in order to make sure there is always someone "ruling" the place.

References:

Cliffe, S., "What a star, what a jerk" Harvard Business Review, (2001)

Google official web page, retrieved on the 13th September 2008 at: http://www.google.com/support/jobs/bin/static.py?page=benefits.html

Thompson, L., "Improving the creativity of organizational work groups" Academy of Management Executive, (2003), vol. 17, No 1.