Managing Creative People

No doubt, creativity will be a trait very much in demand in the future work environment.

If you are a manager, did you ever think about what it means to manage creative people? If you are not a manager you can still share with your boss what you need in order to allow your creativity to flourish.

Firstly, management and creativity don’t ‘mix’ easily. In management we want to have everything well structured, under control, good plans, all going into the right direction, measurable, no ‘ugly’ surprises. Creativity doesn’t fit these requirements; more creative ideas are bound to fail than succeed. There are risks. People may laugh at creative ideas and try to kill them off before they are fully explored, etc.

How do you handle this as a manager?

Make it known to your team that creativity is welcome. Talk about it, but, as always, action is more powerful than words.

- Encourage questions and criticism, also or especially if that involves you.
- Provide ‘space’ – let staff try out their ideas, allow time outs, have meetings / discussions on the subject of creativity only.
- Give due appreciation to creativity, also if an idea failed.
- Consider to make it a key performance indicator.
- Request staff to ‘think it through’ thoroughly before sharing an idea e.g. 1. What was the challenge? 2. What are possible solutions? 3. Why is the chosen solution the best? What is the rationale behind it? 4. Cost vs. potential benefits? 5. Risks involved?

There are many, many tips to become more creative. I found a book called ‘The Idea Book’ by Fredrik Haren www.interesting.org quiet useful. It stimulates your mind to look at things from many different perspectives.

Some tips for creativity meetings:

- Of course there is the ‘good old’ brainstorming. Please bear in mind on cardinal rule. When you ask your staff to come up with ideas, only ideas are allowed. At this stage you don’t want comments to ideas, funny remarks, or criticisms as this will stifle the creative process.

- Use the ‘Disney Method’ – Assign roles to team members, one being the ‘dreamer’, one the ‘analyst’ and the ‘critic’, and ask each to slip into their role and evaluate certain ideas.

- I find it sometimes a challenge that team members or too quiet or just fall in line with ideas previously voiced out by somebody else. The way around this is to tell the team the challenge, request them not to talk yet, and ask each one to come with 3 solutions in writing. I use post-it stickers as I can post them on the white board. That way, you get more ideas and if many come up with similar solutions that tells you something else as well.

- Use ‘Method 653’ (I have no idea why they call it 653) – Each team member writes down a solution / idea and passes his / her paper to the person to the left neighbour whose task it is to add improvements. After each one has written down their improvements, the notes are again passed to the left for more improvements. Complete the circle.