A culture of creativity and innovation can be created in six small but important steps (See Lalli)
1. Meet people’s needs. The first step involves questioning the way people are expected to work. To stimulate creativity, a healthy work environment is needed, one that meets people’s physical, emotional, mental and spiritual needs.
2. Teach creativity. Creativity, as Edward De Bono has often written in his books on lateral thinking, is not innate and can be developed through practice and training. The 4 basic principles of creative thinking that must be taught are: defer judgement during the idea generating stage, generate as many ideas as possible, note down ideas and develop and improve ideas.
3. Nurture passion and talent. The quickest way to kill creativity is to put people in roles that do not stimulate their imagination. People who are encouraged to follow their passion and use it in their work develop better discipline, deep knowledge of their work and are more resilient if setbacks occur.
4. Motivate and create a sense of belonging. There’s no doubt that money matters and at the end of the day, is what everyone concentrates on. However, people feel better when they know they make a personal contribution that goes beyond the money they earn. To feel really motivated, people must believe in what they’re doing and feel that they play a vital part in it.
5. Provide the time. Creative thinking requires special, uninterrupted time that is free of the pressure that forces you to come up with immediate answers and instant solutions. Today’s companies live with just one ideal: “more, bigger, faster“. Time is money and time is also limited but if you want to generate creativity and innovation, you need it - that time is obviously not unlimited but carefully scheduled on a regular basis.
6. Stimulate change. According to the theory of creative thinking, most solutions, defined as Illumination, come after the Incubation stage. Illumination does not always come immediately. Often you have to step away from a problem so that your brain can unconsciously work on it and come up with a solution.
Extract from blog post published at fabiolalli.com
The article outlines the basic requirements for an adequate development of creativity in present-day companies in a straightforward, effective way.
It is important to create a work environment that is disciplined but also open to discussion and new ideas. This can be done by adopting a set of precise but flexible rules that control the daily work routine but do not prevent the companies from growing and developing using the creative skills of their employees.
