How to inspire productive creativity in your team. [For team leaders]
By: Mike Cisar
Tags: Leadership, Team Building, Creativity, Productivity, Professional Development

Creativity shouldn’t be left solely to the ‘creative types.’ Creativity is an essential activity in all facets of the business, not just product design or marketing. Yes, creative people are generally drawn to those areas of the company, because there’s an obvious creative outlet, but that’s not to say that creativity shouldn’t be inspired and encouraged in other departments.

Creativity and problem-solving often times go hand-in-hand for successful companies. Your team doesn’t have to be directly responsible for creating new things to benefit from the power of creativity throughout the day.

Consider Play-Doh. It was originally created in the 1930s to help clean wallpaper. Then, the sister-in-law of a company employee saw it and ‘created’ a new use for it: a kid’s toy. The rest is history, and now Play-Doh is one of the world’s best-selling products.

Basic creativity is much more prevalent and productive than the creatively charged tasks of the company. Managers that desire to lead productive teams need to help their employees observe problems and connect the dots for new solutions.

In December 2018, Gallup published their findings from a research project they conducted with 16,500 employees regarding the power of creativity in the workplace.

Only 29% of workers strongly agree that they’re expected to be creative or think of new ways to do things at work. While we’re all capable of finding new ways to help our company succeed, we may not put in much effort, or feel welcome to, unless creativity is expressly required.

How to inspire productive creativity in your team.

Open-ended creativity can be a huge waste of time. As a team leader, it’s your job to make sure the proper guardrails are in place to help your team tap into their creativity in a way that produces results for the company. The ideas and tactics listed below are pulled from the research conducted by the team that built the Clarity assessment.

Managing a creative team

When your team values creative expression, you might notice that a majority of your team strongly desires to be creative. This plays out in their unique perspective and insight during discussions around product or service improvements. These people tend to embody the voice of your company’s brand. They’ll naturally envision your brand as a living, breathing entity and ascribe personality traits to help them consider the emotional response of your stakeholders. To ensure that your creatives are impacting the rest of your team in a productive fashion, keep them laser-focused on the “voice” of the customer.

In December 2017, Forbes published an article that featured 15 tips from their Coaches Council about how leaders can promote creativity in the workplace. It’s worth a read. Below is #11 from LaKesha Womack, Womack Consulting Group:

We often get consumed with the “how” and forget the “why.” There can be 20 ways to get from your home to your office, but because we have always traveled one route or everyone travels that route, we go in the same direction every day. If you provide your team with the endpoint and allow them to craft the route, you are more likely to receive creative solutions.

Complementing your creatives

There are two types of people that tend to work very well with creatives: people who keep the balance and people who manage plans.

People who keep the balance are going to connect your creatives to the reality of the business and the industry in which you operate. Put them on internal task forces to test the limits of the current business model against innovative models for future growth.

People who manage plans will be a great practical help to your creatives. Their ability to develop logical and effective strategies will put a strong business case behind the innovations that your creatives introduce to the business.

Attracting more creatives

For creatives, the thrill is in bringing an intangible vision to life in a tangible way. Consider making your application process a little different from the crowd by having applicants create (theoretically) the next amazing product or service offering for your company. This works for all departments that play a role in delivering, maintaining, or improving products/services to customers.

Along the lines of attracting more creative people, consider this advice from Alison Quirk, EVP at State Street, in her 2016 HuffPost article titled Fostering a Culture of Creativity in the Workplace: