Creativity at Work

I haven’t met one so far who says that creativity is not important. It seems like it is recognized but is not given the due recognition that it deserves. Creativity comes naturally to few people and to others it seems like a mighty insurmountable challenge and is usually followed by a ‘that’s not for me’. When we say that creativity is not for me we forget that we are all born creative. We see children being creative at all times. However, creativity that comes naturally to them, mostly gets lost through the process of growing up.

People often ask me if creativity is intrinsic or acquired. I find that it is both. We are naturally born to be our creative best, in observing, learning, applying and living. As we grow and learn from the world we have a greater potential for creativity. Its a different story though that that seldom happens.

Most of the time, it is our belief. We create our belief and it creates us. When we believe we are creative, it just comes naturally and we can surprise ourselves with it. As children we all have outdone ourselves in being creative. So much so that, the reminder of the very same things we did brings an effervescent joy when, as we grow up, we see other children being creative. Most of the times, we betray our own creativity by barricading it with the gates of our disbelief in our own capabilities.

Quite often we value the opinion of others greater than our own judgement. Descrates said, “I think therefore I am”. The mantra for the modern man in a corporate outfit has become – ‘I am what my boss and my colleagues think of me’. When someone says it’s a bad idea to do this or that, a kind of paralysis takes over that subdues our own belief in an idea. Dark clouds of doubt creeps and soars above the light of our imagination. Challenging the conventions is termed rogue behaviour and extremist.

Creativity is within everyone, but not all of us are actively creative. The difference is in making use of the creative faculty as often as possible. Just like any other muscle, our brain’s creative function drops rapidly if not used often. Use it or lose it is the basic principle. A routine job that offers no creativity can benumb the mind. When the strings in a guitar get weakened, you just can’t play music as you used to. Similarly, you can’t generate ideas instantly if you were not in the practise of active creativity. However the capacity of our brain to learn is outstanding. If one isn’t actively creative, then he is not doomed forever to be that way. The plasticity of the brain is high to develop its faculty given the right orientation and spirit.

There might be many situations when one feels that nothing much can be added on to what already exists. If it ain’t broken, don’t fix it right. So we don’t mess with the order, we don’t challenge the paradigm, don’t break the conventions. But history has taught us that the greatest inventions began by challenging what is possible. The first step to developing creativity is to challenge the construct, our own construct made of self-limiting beliefs.

Creativity has no boundaries. It flows freely and without limits. Conventional form of thinking is in bits, yes and no, right or wrong, either/or. However creativity operates on possibilities. In the creative world, anything is possible. While a right or wrong kind of thinking has only two avenues, world of possibilities have many. An idea judged prematurely takes away from it the potential of what it can achieve if explored in true spirit. We have many successful entrepreneurs today who were once banking on their belief in an idea which the world saw as too risky or outlandish. Those with heart and a belief in their idea, with courage and determination to see it through to whatever end, have shown that exploring an idea can lead you somewhere rather than being glued to a seat of doubt and uncertainty.

The power of an idea is latent unless explored or expressed. Of what use is a ship if it is only docked in the yard, as that is not what it is designed for. We all have an amazing capacity of being able to generate ideas. Every major challenge that we have faced as a race, we have been able to overcome with our determination and the strength of our thoughts put into action. Also, each of us is unique in our own special ways. No two people are alike. This is owing to the fact that we all have our own social backgrounds, our upbringings, and our own set of experiences that shape us. Even between twins there are differences in thoughts, feelings and opinions. However we are all told what to do and to do as we are told. We have to follow a norm. If one person did it one way and it worked, then everyone else better follow that route. A tree has to be the way the art teacher likes it, it can’t be as a thicket of leaves if one imagines sitting on one of the branches atop. Questions fly across, “Where is the trunk?”, and “Where is the ground?” We can express uniquely as we imagine things in our mind. And it can be the key to unlocking our creativity.

To begin to be creative, looking at possibilities in everything is essential. The world of the Possibilities lies between absolute certainty and doomed failure. While no one knows beforehand what can absolutely work, the path to perfection lies through a maze of possibilities which involves taking risks and holding on to hope in the dire circumstances. Most people don’t place faith in anything unless they are absolutely certain of it and this behaviour is controlled by our need to avoid failure. Fear of failure and all such other fears are acquired. We were born fearless. Think of your child when she leaped towards you or when she learned to ride a bicycle. How many times did she fall but still yearned to learn? Failure didn’t break her resolve, it only strengthened it. Ask an adult who doesn’t know swimming; he would raise a million reasons to not take a chance. The world has made us into beings that resist failure and avoid risks.

For a creative mindset one has to work on one’s fear of failure and rejection. That’s a start point to train our mind to think of possibilities.

In improvisation style of theatre, where the actors perform without a planned prepared script, there is a very fundamental and basic principle of operation. It is encompassed in “Yes, And…” Here actors work with each other’s idea and build upon it. You would rarely see them going back on what has already been established. For the audience, it would seem as though they had already rehearsed the script as not one person is contradicting another.

Notice a conversation between two people purely as an observer. Make note of how many times in a minute words like – but, don’t, can’t, no, not, never and wrong are used. You’ll be surprised. Quite often we don’t give importance to other people’s ideas and instead push our own. This makes for every small idea to fight for its place among the million others. The ‘Yes,And..’ brings different thoughts together and instead of being opposed to one another, they now are aligned with each other. This way an idea doesn’t face resistance, it gets support. Think of how productive your meetings can be if people are not striking one another down. Save a bloodbath and a towel, adopt “Yes, And…”

Questions stimulate thought. Questions like What-if, Why-not, What-else push the boundaries of the mind to generate answers. Begin by understanding every facet of the given context. And then proceed by challenging assumptions with these questions. A simple question like why should a customer not go to the shop to buy clothes spurned an entire new industry and changed the dynamics of how we shop.

Creative people challenge the status-quo. They constantly push the limits. For them the boundaries of possibilities stretches to the ends of the horizon. And make the impossible happen.

In organizations all across the world, creativity is emerging as a buzzword. A lot of them want it, but are unsure of how to get it. We shall now look at few of the steps organizations could take to foster creativity in their own backyard. Of what steps leaders can take so that the lid that blocks the emergence of ideas within their teams can be removed. How the culture in the organization impacts creative thinking?

Organizations operate with a structure of hierarchy which allows business objectives to be realized through assignment of roles and areas of responsibilities to its people. The psychological contract between organization and employee makes for an exchange that satisfies both parties. At a very basic level criteria fulfilment of this contract does happen, which makes this association stable. However, one can wonder if this can be made into a synergistic one. An organization can greatly benefit from new ideas that reduce cost, improve efficiency and add value.

The mind comes alive when faced with anything challenging. To make the workplace context challenging, leaders can encourage their people to develop ideas on challenging issues. Questions spur insight and provoke different ways of looking at situations. The mind gets struck or wanders if there is nothing specific to seek. To begin a day with a provoking question or to find a solution to a problem sows the seed for stimulated thinking for the entire day. Care should be taken that these are set in a non-demanding way. Studies have shown that creativity spurs when there is no pressure to perform, so then the mind can be free to think. These can be encouraged without any expectation as then people would not operate with the mindset of “I-am-being-asked-so” and will move into a mode of “hey, why not?” Leaders should also be careful to not reject an idea too quickly. Doing so will dry up the splurge of ideas faster than water evaporating from a hot rock in the desert.

It is important to create an environment where ideas are encouraged. Rejection of ideas creates doubt in the mind about the next idea, thereby stifling creativity. Instead leaders can work on challenging the idea further in the place of rejection to make it more viable, thereby allowing the same idea to be made better. Leaders could also make an open forum where ideas are presented to and evaluated by peers. This allows for auto-correction and people can then present ideas freely without fear of rejection by managers.

The culture in the organization has a direct impact on how and whether creativity flourishes or perishes. Ask anyone and they would say our organization favours creativity. Job profile requirements go into heavy detail saying that creative minds are invited. However, this doesn’t say that the organization has a culture of creativity. While organizations prefer creative results, there is a lot of resistance to the creative process and not just from the organization, but even by members of the same team. The creative results are more or less an outcome of a lasting struggle of the idea and the people behind it fighting against the odds. However, only after it delivers the results is it lauded, rewarded and applauded. The same fanfare and support is rarely given to an idea during genesis.

A shift in outlook is essential for organizations – to move from reactive focus to a more proactive approach of idea generation. And to build this culture, leaders have to work at multiple levels. The first is to lessen the effect of conformity. Approval seeking behaviour denies independent thinking. You may have come across certain managers who tell their people, “Who told you to do so?” or “Why didn’t you ask me?” And then they expect their subordinates to be creative while they are instrumental in setting the counter behaviour.

Too many controls, conformity to norms, protocols and procedures makes for a very rigid workplace. To loosen up, most companies have casual wear Fridays and such processes that further add to a more conformist workplace. Creativity is all about freedom, freedom to experiment, freedom to make mistakes and learn from them. Companies high on control want to protect themselves from failure. Such companies stifle creativity and create excellent conformists. Imagine if students freely chose subjects that interested and felt passionately for rather than being made to surrender to a fixed curriculum. Here one can make a choice between dozens of subjects within the scope of a course. They would naturally excel in those areas and could emerge to be world leaders. And it lends to a more perfect balance between conformity and flexibility. Leaders in organizations can now look at finding the perfect balance that draws from both. The good news is that, even small bits of flexibility in the structure start yielding results. One doesn’t need a complete overhaul to fix anything. People are already capable of generating ideas, it just needs to be allowed and given space.

People are inherently creative. Organizations just have to provide a path for them to channel their creativity. In today’s world, the relevance of creativity has vastly increased. With time, patience and by changing the way we work, we can create a more creative workforce.