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Employees and companies can take steps to increase
personal creativity and corporate creativity. Here are some tips
for doing both as well as some information regarding some common
myths about creativity.
Employees
- Broaden your horizons. Look outside your own
world and start networking with people who aren't
in your field.
- Reading new kinds of literature or nonfiction can help make you
a bigger thinker.
- When you have a good idea, bounce it off coworkers and ask for
feedback.
- Be brave enough to pitch your idea to your
boss or at a meeting. If you work in a creative culture, enjoy
yourself! But if you work for someone who doesn't tolerate suggestions or innovations,
you might consider moving on. Studies show that employees are happiest
when they're creating.
Employers
- Some of the best solutions come from the "craziest" ideas
so let your employees brainstorm without fear of censorship.
- Even if a system for accomplishing routine
work seems just fine — encourage
employees to think about ways to do it better. A small change in
a daily routine multiplied by hundreds of days can save hundreds
or thousands of dollars.
- Pull together people from different departments
to work on problems — the
resulting cross-fertilization may yield some great ideas.
- Reward managers who encourage feedback and
employees who are the most creative rather than those who've
been with your organization the longest.
A long-term study of working people by Teresa Amabile, a Harvard
Business School Professor, has debunked several myths about creativity
in the workplace. Here are some of the more cherished myths she refuted
in a FastCompany on-line article.
- Money Is a Creativity Motivator. Of course, people need
to be fairly compensated, but bonuses and pay-for-performance plans
can be problematic. If employees feel that every move they make
is going to affect their compensation, many tend to get risk averse,
which puts a damper on creativity.
- Time Pressure Fuels Creativity. Actually,
people are the least creative when they're up against the
clock. People need time to incubate an idea, to wallow in it
for a while in order to understand it thoroughly. Only then can
the ideas start bubbling up.
- Fear Forces Breakthroughs. When people are happy and
excited about their work they are far more likely to come up with
a creative idea. Anger, fear and anxiety stifle creativity.
- Competition Beats Collaboration. Not so. Competition tends
to discourage the sharing of ideas, yet sharing information is
key to innovation. Rarely does a single person have all the information
they need to complete a puzzle.
- A Streamlined Organization Is a Creative One. Creativity
actually suffers during downsizing. People's fears about
their own jobs or the future of their company can lead them to
disengage from their work. The effects can last as much as five
years after a down-sizing or even more.
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