An advanced trick (not sure why, it seems easy enough) is to point someone in the general direction, wait a day, then sit down with them for 60 minutes and ask/talk to them about what they're planning on doing. Then you get the creativity without the surprise. Maybe even check in on them a few times as work goes on.

The bad engineering managers I've seen seem to suffer from anthropophobia when they aren't giving orders in a meeting room.