Corporate America is a hub of cutthroat competitiveness and rapid innovation, making creativity an invaluable asset for the employee, the team and the business. In a research by Bendzsa (2010), more than 60% of CEOs believe that Creativity is the most crucial skill set for success. When I was interviewing for product designer jobs I was not too surprised that the one standard question was always, “Tell me about a time when you had to be creative at work?”. Employers are always on the lookout to hire candidates who have innovative ideas and can put them into practice.
Creativity, Innovation, Failure, Diverse Teams, Productivity, Disruptive Innovation
Business creativity can be defined in several ways but as mentioned in Kao (1997), creativity has its grammar: it's a process associated with knowledge management because innovation is the process of achieving enormous leaps forward in understanding. It's not just about creating new products and services, it's about developing new strategic processes and reevaluating the business climate such that the organization encourages the employees to innovate constantly. There are several ways in which one can harbor creativity in an organization and if I was in a leadership position, I’d have the following values to boost creativity in my team-
One of the main reasons why one does not take the risk to be creative is because they fear rejection from the organization and team. Employees thrive in an environment where people are encouraged to take calculated risks and are allowed to fail. Being given the room to fail gives the team confidence and security. At the same time, they learn from their mistakes and end up making better decisions for the company. Creativity can only flourish if creative people feel safe experimenting with new approaches. The best way to promote creativity is by rewarding failure, rather than punishing it.
A growing number of companies recognize the need to not only create a no-blame culture but also celebrate mistakes, thus encouraging more innovative thinking. Celebrating failure is a principle value of several tech giants in silicon valley such as Google and Intuit because every failure teaches something important that can be the seed for the next novel idea.
Several minds can naturally generate more ideas than one, which is why diverse teams are far more creative than any single one. To be most creative, teams should have people of differing skills, talents and backgrounds, but with similar values and motivations. Hiring individuals with multiple talents and skill sets motivates the team and encourages the team to learn from each other. This in turn boosts productivity and brings more vibrancy and innovation to the whole organization. The ability to put together a team with just the right chemistry, diversity, and supportiveness can be difficult, but research (Amabile, 2014) shows that such a team can be extremely powerful.
In this age, almost all companies are trying to hire from diverse backgrounds not just to give opportunities to ones that don’t but also to inculcate a sense of acceptance of different points of view and perspectives. Introducing employee resource groups, mentoring programs and incorporating diversity and inclusion initiatives into every aspect of work is what Johnson and Johnson, one of the world's most renowned companies, does to hire diverse workers. According to Mumford (2000), innovation is not only dependent on knowledge of methods, but also on the ability to apply them. Consequently, when building new initiatives, businesses often seek out candidates who have proven their implementation skills in the past.
An innovative company's most valuable asset is its people, not its products. By providing extrinsic motivation and celebrating the wins regardless of how small, employees are motivated to do better. Those who experience this feeling more frequently will be more productive in the long run. This is known as the progress principle. The same holds true for small victories. The simple act of celebrating minor milestones throughout the day or week can make your team feel like they are gaining momentum. Positivity definitely fuels progress and productivity.
Studies (Tanner, 2020) show that employees who feel appreciated and are shown signs of gratitude can be up to 50 per cent more productive. In today's day and age, all companies offer a peer nomination system and reward anyone who nominates someone. Additionally, they ensure that employees who have gone above and beyond are recognized in company-wide meetings.
We are currently part of an industry that is superfluid, where there are innovations made every day and there are leaps of technological advancements happening every second across the globe. New trends and requirements arise frequently. Organizations need to be prepared to come up with strategies that not only involve deductive reasoning where they are aware of the past experiences but also understand the present with inductive reasoning and prepare for the future with abductive reasoning (Martin, 2009). In the words of Chief Innovation Officer at Citi, Vanessa Colella- Businesses need to behave like an organism rather than an organization. Disruption is a process because it is not a single product or service, but the evolution of a product or service (Christensen et al., 2015). Hence cultivating a mindset of disruption within employees and encouraging that behavior results in innovation.
Companies lately have had the constant need to shift from reacting to creating and back. Teams need to think iteratively to turn ideas into reality. As technology advances, what we think is different today may not be the same in a few months. By staying focused on customer problems and empathizing with them, companies will be able to find the answers they need, this is where having a design thinking culture (Martin, 2009) would help industries be creative rapidly.
Bendzsa, C. (2010, May 20). IBM 2010 Global CEO Study: Creativity Selected as Most Crucial Factor for Future Success. IBM. https://www.ibm.com/news/ca/en/2010/05/20/v384864m81427w34.html
Kao, J. J. (1997). The art & discipline of business creativity. Strategy & Leadership, 25(4), 6–11. https://doi.org/10.1108/eb054590
Mumford, M. D. (2000). Managing Creative People: Strategies and Tactics for Innovation. Human Resource Management Review, 10(3), 313–351. https://doi.org/10.1016/s1053-4822(99)00043-1
Amabile, T.M. (2014). How to kill creativity. Harvard Business Review. [online]. Available from: https://hbr.org/1998/09/how-to-kill-creativity
Tanner, O. C. (2020, December 10). The Psychological Effects of Workplace Appreciation and Gratitude. Emergenetics. https://emergenetics.com/blog/workplace-appreciation-gratitude/
Christensen, C. M., Raynor, M. E., & McDonald, R. (2015). What is disruptive innovation? Harvard Business Review, 93(12), 44-53.
Martin, R. L. (2009). The Design of Business: Why Design Thinking is the Next Competitive Advantage (Third Edition). Harvard Business Review Press.