Promoting a Creative Work Environment

Creativity is Today’s Competitive Weapon

Innovation is quickly becoming the word du jour despite being around as a concept since the beginning of man. For the longest time, it has simply been called creativity. The other day I noticed that on almost every TV commercial, the word innovation was mentioned at least once. And it’s not just commercials, it manages to creep its way into articles, books and now even job titles, like Chief Innovation Officer. This has got me thinking…

Who’s in charge of creativity (spotting problems and identifying new and different solutions) at your organization?

Ideally, your answer should be “everyone.”

Up until recently, creativity and innovation were typically viewed as the responsibility of a small number of people, usually those residing in the R & D department. Today, it is widely felt that those organizations that will be the most successful are those which expect, value and reward creativity throughout the organization. These organizations will work hard to create an environment where creativity thrives, leading to even greater employee engagement, motivation, productivity and ultimately, a stronger bottom line.

We live in exciting times. The speed of innovation is moving so fast that no one can afford to be complacent. Sitting on the sidelines will guarantee only one thing . . . obsolescence. Read on for tips on how to create and nurture creativity in the workplace:

1. Create an atmosphere that is conducive to creativity. In today’s highly competitive workplace, we need thinkers, not just doers. It’s more important than ever to attract and retain highly talented people. In order to do that, you’ve got to provide a work environment that is challenging, values creativity and is fun.

   To foster creativity, you must show your employees that you have a high level of trust in them. In our Employee Opinion Survey Benchmark, only 69.9% of employees reported being encouraged to take the initiative to improve the quality in their area. When employees are not given power to take initiative, they will feel that management doesn’t trust them and will be significantly less likely to provide valuable input. Without showing your trust by empowering employees, you are likely to miss out on many brilliant ideas on improving your business.

   Support employees by providing them with the right resources at the right time, and understand that creative pursuits are often not initially the most time efficient path to a conclusion or result. Creativity cannot thrive in a stifled bureaucratic corporate environment – some rules will have to bend to foster creativity.

   Open communication, brainstorming, dialogue and debate are essential to an environment that promotes creativity. Even in this 24/7 connected world, time constraints diminish creativity because people need down time to wrestle with all aspects of a problem and create ideas for a solution. It may feel against our nature at first, but sometimes it is okay to disconnect and just sit and think.

2. Expect your employees to be creative. Most research on the topic of creativity indicates that everyone is capable of doing some degree of creative work. Creativity depends on prior experience, technical skills, ability to think outside of the box and a positive vision of success. Whether or not people contribute creatively depends on their boss’ expectations.

   As a leader, it is important that you let employees know that creativity is everyone’s responsibility. Make sure that all your employees know that you expect them to participate in brainstorming activities, contribute thoughtful, constructive feedback and be on the alert for opportunities to make changes or improvements. Create an environment where employees are encouraged to come to you with not only problems, but potential solutions. Each time an employee shares a problem, get in the habit of saying, “How do you think we should handle this?” Or, “What should we do so this doesn’t happen again?”

3. Be comfortable with messing up. It’s a fact of life: sometimes it takes a lot of bad ideas to finally end up with a great product or outcome. James Dyson, creator of the bagless vacuum cleaner said, “I made 5127 prototypes of my vacuum before I got it right. There were 5126 failures. But, I learned from each one. That’s how I came up with a solution. So I don’t mind failure.”

   When you are sailing in uncharted waters, mistakes happen. Strive to make risk taking safe, but not comfortable. Saying, “failure is not an option” sets unrealistic expectations and puts tremendous pressure on employees. Acknowledge mistakes. They are a sign of progress. When mistakes are made, ask these questions: 1) What do we need to do to fix it? 2) What did we learn? 3) What will we do differently next time so that this doesn’t happen again?”

   A sign saying “Make Mistakes Faster” hangs on the wall at Menlo Innovations, a software design and development company located in Ann Arbor, MI. In their creative environment, they are proud to say that with the strength of the collaborative ideas generated, the Menlo team has not yet faced a problem they could not successfully solve together.

4. Bring together diverse team members. Blur organizational lines to ensure the widest range of talent contributes to problem solving leading to creative solutions. Include new and seasoned employees; employees from a variety of levels within the organization; employees with different expertise and technical backgrounds; and employees working closest to the customer. Sometimes the people furthest removed from the current challenge will contribute the best ideas by seeing the problem through a different lens. A cross-functional team will generate greater synergy and will typically speed the creative process.

5. Change what you reward. Too often, reward systems don’t keep pace with our rapidly changing business model. People are rewarded for longevity and compliance, not innovation. Change what you reward. We recently worked with a client who told us that that their operating system had gone down, as the result of an employee making changes that caused it to crash. The system was quickly restored, but everyone expected the employee to be fired. Instead, the CEO went directly to the employee and said, “Do you know what happened?” The employee acknowledged her error. The CEO then said, “Thanks for alerting us to this weakness in our system. Now, we need to figure out how this will never happen again.”

   Look for opportunities to recognize and reward creative thinkers, those that challenge status quo and champions of improving quality. Often, we can’t pay people more for their contribution. But, when people are doing work that they love, and they’re allowed to deeply engage in it, and their work itself is valued and recognized, creativity will flourish, even in tough economic times.

Innovation, creativity, originality or ingenuity — whatever you prefer to call it – it is about empowering employees and allowing them to use their unique talents and insights to make your organization an even better place to work and an even better place to do business.

Image by Gelle.dk from Flickr creative commons.

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