Increasing Creativity in Your Organization: Six Ways to Spark Innovative Thinking

You cannot discover new oceans unless you have the courage to lose sight of the shore.” — André Gide, French author (winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1947).

An idea that is not dangerous is unworthy of being called an idea at all.” — Oscar Wilde, Irish playwright and poet.

Increasing Creativity in Your Organization: Six Ways to Spark Innovative Thinking by Laura Stack #productivity

While the business environment requires a certain level of built-in routine in order to maximize productivity, that doesn’t mean you can’t have creative fun at work. Remember what Peter Drucker taught us: “The business enterprise has two—and only two—basic functions: marketing and innovation.” So what does that have to do with creativity? Just this: when you reduce it to its essentials, innovation is creativity.

Innovation facilitates the agility and flexibility all organizations require to survive. So how can you increase innovation in your organization? Let’s look at a few possibilities.

1. Foster an open, creative work environment. To foster creativity, some companies provide workers with snacks, games, and “time off” during work hours. Google allows developers to work on their own projects one full day per week. Among other things, this has resulted in nifty services like Google News—so obviously, the approach works. You may not be able to offer that much freedom, but at least you can encourage communication, a positive attitude, and a low-stress environment. All these can support the greater mental flexibility and unshackled thought that result in profitable innovation. Team bonding events like retreats can also work, as long as you don’t make them competitive or stressful.

2. Motivate your team. Positive reinforcement in the form of rewards, bonuses, special privileges, comp time, and prizes will keep people on their toes. Not everyone will participate, but many will when they see their efforts have clear benefits.

3. Encourage diversity. A wide range of working styles, thought processes, and viewpoints is essential to avoiding groupthink, where a homogenized team loses the ability to see solutions obvious to outsiders. Innovation can only grow in a well-fertilized field. Rather than stunt its growth, find ways to encourage interaction and the exchange of ideas. Break down information silos between teams by getting them together to exchange ideas. Bring in speakers from outside to offer alternate perspectives. The cross-fertilization that results will blossom into ideas you can profit from.

4. Provide the proper tools. Carpenters can’t do their jobs with hammers alone; they also need saws, levels, planes, drills, and miter boxes. Make sure your people get the tools they need: computers, software, education, or training.

5. Create innovation teams. Build teams comprised of members with diverse working styles, experience, and skill-sets, whose primary purpose is to get together to innovate. I’ve seen this done as a full-time role or one or two days a week. Although some claim spontaneity goes out the window with such teams, solid communal thought, bantering, and brainstorming can result in surprising innovations.

6. Don’t penalize. To be truly innovative, you must risk failure. That’s just part of the creative mindset, since you fail more often than you succeed. If your team members fear punishment if their initiatives fail, why should they even try? Always provide a suggestion box, so employees can contribute anonymously. Even in an open environment, some people prefer confidentiality.

Hold That Line!

While you may be doing fine without innovation right now, at best you’re in a holding pattern. Someday, a more innovative player will knock you down a peg…and possibly out of the game altogether. You’ve heard the saying “grow or die.” Nowhere does this hold truer than in the business arena. Even if you provide an absolute necessity, like toilet paper or chocolate, someone can nibble on the edges of your market share with innovative marketing style or new ideas. Don’t let them! Get out there and innovate like crazy.

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Comments

  1. This article is right on point. Without innovation we cannot succeed in today’s environment. We must stay open and try new things. Thanks Laura for another great article.

  2. Today, in a much competitive market, creativity is one of the major assets for an organization. The propagation of creativity and the facilitation of its development in the boundaries of an organization, is not an easy task and requires a radical change in the way, a lot of companies, doing business. But it must. Because only an organization or company with a creativity culture can produce really amazing outputs, results, products and services.

    Excellent insights, Laura and totally agree with your suggestions. I’m afraid though that most companies are not really ready to embrace an internal change in their culture.

  3. Elizabeth says:

    It like the FIFA Football now in progress. Eleven players in a team. Each team aspiring to win.
    Player #1 Focus on the field
    #2 Manage your empoyees
    #3 Recruit a balanced playing team
    #4 Concentrate on training
    #5 Bring out the best in your employees
    #6 Get them to work as a team
    #7 Set a style of play
    #8 Work out flexible tactics and formations
    #9 Rigorously review performance
    #10 Keep the score
    #11 Earn respect, instill pride and cret meaning

  4. Skype has launched its web-structured consumer beta on the world, after establishing it generally in the United states and You.K.
    previous this month. Skype for Web also now can handle Chromebook and
    Linux for instant messaging communication (no voice and video but, all those require a connect-in installation).

    The expansion of the beta provides support for
    an extended list of languages to help you strengthen that overseas usability

  5. Uzma Bashir says:

    Today”s pandemic corporate era requires new ways to make money: and so these simple tips sound big help and reminder to foster creativity in a work culture. More so a routine once a week momentum can help bring talents and creative minds together to build business for high growth.

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