How to Foster a Creative Work Culture
How to Foster a Creative Work Culture
Photo by ameenfahmy on Unsplash
August is almost upon us, dangling the possibilities of a new school year, eliciting groans from children and trepidation for many teachers. But what if we did a creativity reboot, offering a whole new way to do learning and work?
Creativity, according to IDEO - “is the ability to look past the obvious—to transcend traditional ways of seeing the world to create something new.” Edward Clapp (2016) put it this way, “creativity is the distributed process of idea development that takes place over time and incorporates the contributions of a diverse network of actors, each of whom uniquely participate in the development of ideas in various ways.”
The media often highlights creative workplaces with pool tables, nap chairs, and juice bars, and though such amenities certainly help to soften the corners of workplace demands, they are not essential elements of creative outputs. Creativity really comes down to openness, trust, and relationships. Are leaders open to hearing diverse ideas even when they run counter to their own thinking and shake the status quo? Do managers trust others to make decisions and solve problems, or do they practice tight-reigned control? Most importantly, do leaders invite feedback and encourage employees to interact up and down the hierarchy and across specialties, or do they practice closed-door policies, relying on a small and consistent circle of influence, limiting the perspectives shared?
For my latest book, Workplace Bullying: Finding Your Way to Big Tent Belonging, I collected the stories of over 200 individuals who had been bullied on the job, ranging in age from 18-65, working across 36 industries, and representing 35 states and 10 countries. In addition to sharing their workplace abuse story, I invited participants to tell the story of a time they worked in an environment that encouraged creativity and innovation. Per those responses, eleven common themes bubbled up from the data.
These creative organizations and leaders …
Practice Transparent Decision Making: They invite a wide range of perspectives to weigh in about important topics and demonstrate a willingness to answer questions and incorporate feedback in regard to potential changes. They openly share what process and data was used in coming to conclusions and are ready to adjust course when roadblocks arise.
Extend Autonomy and Trust: They hire exceptional people and then get out of their way. They embrace differences, break traditions, and resist the urge to promote uniformity in thoughts and actions. They applaud initiative and intellectual risk-taking and abandon habits of micromanaging that only serve to frustrate and eventually drive out top employees.
Give People a Voice: They explicitly seek opportunities to garner feedback and then adjust actions and initiatives based on what is said. They celebrate employees who speak out, and resist shutting down critical conversations simply because they make some people uncomfortable.
Play on Employees’ Strengths: They understand that though calls for well-roundedness often frame the halls of school, in the workplace, it makes sense to play to people’s strengths. Instead of continually relying on a tight inner circle to carry out plans, they think broadly, enlisting the best people for the job, not the ones with the longest tenure or highest degree of displayed loyalty.
Provide Positive Feedback and Celebrate Success: They know the pitfalls and unethicalities of using praise as a type of manipulation, giving positive shoutouts only to those who promulgate the company’s mantra. Instead, they make an effort to applaud those doing critical work, even if such projects shake the status quo and make upper management uncomfortable.
Engage in Courageous Problem Solving: When something goes wrong, they skip the glossy press releases full of euphemisms. Instead, they lay the problems out on the table, talk openly about the harm done, make space for people to share hard truths and conflicting ideas, and engage the full team in creative problem solving.
Encourage the Creation of Something New: They break the mold and relinquish the devotion to duplicate systems that fail to serve. When employees offer to take on new tasks, solve issues in novel ways, and develop unique systems for problem solving - they simply say - yes!
Invite and Support Intellectual Risk Taking: They understand that company culture codes are not captured in the organization’s handbook, but their influence permeates interactions. Instead of punishing people who speak out and venture into new territories, they celebrate successes and failures born from taking informed chances, for innovation rarely transpires inside rulebooks.
Encourage Respect and Collaboration across Disciplines and Departments: They surrender the need to control group dynamics and instead craft opportunities for people from diverse specialties and perspectives to collaborate. They topple the bloated top-level hierarchy and stop asking people to stay in their lane. Instead, they reward the courage of those willing to try something completely new.
Offer Meaningful, Deep, and Relevant Professional Development: They allow employees to outgrow themselves by inviting them to choose what types of professional development best meet their personal needs, instead of insisting on uniform class offerings that are irrelevant for large groups of employees and thus fall flat. To make professional development work, they know it’s essential that it’s not added on to an already heavy workload. To make room for new learning, they remove other obligations, fully cover the cost of the training, and then invite participants to take on leadership roles when they return to share new learning.
Be Driven by Purpose: They ask about each employee’s passion and how it connects to their organization’s mission. They make time for employees to explore passion projects, for such endeavors have been shown to drive institutional breakthroughs and keep the company’s most innovative employees engaged. In addition, they too, pursue mission-driven work, modeling what it means to take intellectual risks, negotiate failure, strive to outgrow oneself, and engage in creative problem-solving.
To learn more, check out Chapter 7 (Characteristics of Creative Cultures) of Workplace Bullying: Finding Your Way to Big Tent Belonging.
Two Read
This week I am reading:
How to Love Your Daughter: A Novel by Hilda Blum, translated by Daniella Zamir
Three Women by Lisa Taddeo
Book Release
Workplace Bullying: Finding Your Way to Big Tent Belonging was released by Rowman and Littlefield. Find my new book anywhere books are sold (Rowman and Littlefield, Amazon, Barnes and Noble).
From the Publisher: Workplace Bullying: Finding Your Way to Big Tent Belonging is a lifeline for people who have been targets of workplace abuse and are desperately trying to make sense of the trauma. It is a resource for partners trying to help their loved ones heal. And, it is a toolkit for managers and industry leaders inspiring to create inclusive cultures by proactively addressing toxic behaviors that stagnate innovation, fracture work communities, and drive out top employees. To simplify a complex topic and make the book readable and engaging for a wide audience, the author uses the elements of story to tell the tale of workplace bullying, zooming in on the characters, settings, and plotlines of cultures that allow and/or encourage workplace abuse.
Participate in the Workplace Bullying Study
To deepen my understanding of the impact of workplace bullying on belonging, I have launched a new research study. If you would like to participate anonymously, please click this LINK. I have my university’s IRB approval to do this work.
Reach Out With Questions and Ideas
I love hearing from readers, so please don’t hesitate to reach out to say hello or suggest topics for me to write about next ~ dorothysuskind@gmail.com.