Partner Article

How to Foster Creativity in the Workplace

Do you think that you are encouraging creativity because you have a colourful sofa and a casual dress code? Think again.

A creative culture within a workplace hits you as soon as your enter the space; you can sense the energy and buzz in the air. Many workplaces across the country boast incredibly creative individuals and while their occasional quirky and out of the box ideas are welcomed, the business hasn’t taken an active approach to cultivating creativity.

David Dews from creative agencySpeed comments, “A culture without creativity is dull and this can include almost anything! For us a creative culture involves making employees or in our case speedsters a top priority. They constantly bring you new ideas and add value here at Speed.”

A creative culture is key because some of the best ideas come from the Speedsters that aren’t specifically here for their creative thinking, but rather from an entirely different position. if you encourage a creative and collaborative environment then breed a culture where people can share their thoughts and ideas easily… this naturally sparks more value and deeper thinking. The result- high quality work!

To take this step requires employers to put honing their teams observational and inventing skills on the agenda. It is generally assumed that these creative skills are exclusive to those working in art or design roles, but when observation and invention are aligned with your businesses core systems – the creative process is suddenly reinforced.

So how do you suddenly go about fostering a culture of creatviity in your business? We put forward some ideas below.

A Positive Environment

An environment with no energy will crush any hint of creativity. Employees that are stressed or worried about work will be unable to break out of the negative mind-set, and it comes down to science – neurons that fire together, wire together. If your team are in a perpetual cycle of negativity when it comes to work then creativity will never see the light of day.

An open, positive mind is far more flexible in its thinking ability; seeing situations and processes from different angles; the more positive we become, the more willing we are to further explore alternatives. Incorporating team activities, bonding sessions and rewarding hard work goes a long way. But so does truly supporting your team, is there anything you can do to elevate the stress and worry they are experiencing? Figure out a way to have their backs without micromanaging.

A simple, “Are you ok?” or “Can I help?” goes further than you may think.

Support Risk Taking

Don’t expect employees to take risks if you haven’t previously encouraged it, or have previously reprimanded others – please remember that it’s extremely rare for someone to take a risk with the intention of it failing. If you are serious about increasing the creativity within the business then support risk taking.

It’s true that every mistake is a learning curve.

Guide your business towards the direction in which it becomes clear that creativity is supported; for this to begin – you need to make your intentions known and be receptive to ideas that the team may have.

You won’t develop a creative culture immediately, but management that are open minded and not judgemental will certainly act as a catalyst.

Embrace Diversity

I feel ‘diversity’ has become a buzzword and businesses have panicked with the recent spotlight, ending up just paying lip service to the nationwide initiative.

But actively recruiting team members from all walks of life is going to enhance the creative powers within a team because it creates a homogeneous. People from the same background and life experiences will probably bond, but creativity never arose from a pleasant, agreeable and uniform group.

Varying backgrounds, education, experience and qualifications will mean that creativity breeds as different perspectives, observations and thought processes produce breakthrough ideas.

Beth Comstock from General Electric concurs, “You may be surprised by how much you learn, and also by how thinking about a problem from a different perspective can refresh and energize your own ideas.”

Create ‘Innovation’ Teams (or Times)

Tasking teams to form ideas for a task, project or process is a more focused way to bring creativity into the workplace. As a start-up, it’s likely you are operating with a small number of employees, having pre-planned creative breakout sessions can break up the daily grind and provide some light relief.

Whilst introducing a degree of spontaneity underpins the way you value creativity, the time bracket provides order; creativity in its very nature is organised chaos. To make sure the time is used wisely and objectives are achieved, split the time into 30 mins of research and initial ideas that can be brought to the table and the remaining 30 to expand them and formulate a final idea.

Encourage Mindfulness

The mindfulness trend has swept the nation, no – the world! It’s fair to say that many haven’t really grasped the true nature when it comes to being mindful and have confused it with thinking they need to be perpetually positive.

On the contrary- not dealing with your feelings means you are on a one way street to frustration city.

Mindfulness is about learning to acknowledge your thoughts and feelings, being wholly observant of items or situations and being fully conscious to your surroundings. By focusing internally, you are able to become more aware of your thoughts and you are able to think without imposing judgement or values.

The brain has 4 creative stages; preparation, incubation, illumination and verification. We use both divergent and convergent thinking throughout the stages, by practising mindfulness we increase our awareness and boost divergent thinking, resulting in the mental clutter being pushed to one side and a clear and focused mind ready to formulate ideas.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Rebecca Moore .