Creativity as a competitive advantage

“If you want something new, you have to stop doing something old.” Peter Drucker’s words ring true as a new decade begins and organizations are stuck with the same dilemma of how to balance incremental and radical change. In our last article, we discussed an organization’s capacity to innovate as the key to thriving in the Fourth Industrial Revolution, but the path to embedding ‘innovation’ as an organizational capability isn’t always clear.

The answer lies in fostering certain ‘human’ skills in individuals and teams, including critical thinking, complex problem solving and importantly, creativity. Broadly speaking, creativity is about imagining fresh ideas and possibilities, whereas innovation is focussed on implementation; the act of introducing something new and effective to the market. The two concepts are critically entwined, yet often creativity is dismissed as an optional extra.

Creativity is good for business. A McKinsey study developed a metric for creativity based on a companies’ marketing and advertising excellence. The study revealed a strong correlation between creativity and financial performance. A study by Krueger and Killham found that 59% of engaged employees say that their job ‘brings out their most creative ideas’. Only 3% of disengaged employees could say the same. With the benefits of creativity in mind, let’s take a look at some practical ways to instill creativity in any organization.

Make space — mentally and physically — for creative expression

It sounds simple, but actively soliciting (and even incentivizing) creative suggestions is the first step towards a more creative organization. The neuroscience of creativity tells us our brains function differently in the creative and uncreative states. Unfortunately, we aren’t able to simply switch on the creative state, so we must do what we can to create conditions that might prompt a creative response.

Perhaps the most important goal here is to create a sense of psychological safety in the workplace. For employees, this means feeling sufficiently respected and empowered to share ideas or constructive criticism, even if these views challenge the company norms or hierarchy. For leaders, this means speaking less and listening more, providing respectful critique where warranted. Until employees feel comfortable sharing their ideas, lavish interiors, foosball tables, and Google-style slides will have little impact.

Give teams tools and techniques for creative problem solving

A lot of people have internalized a view that they’re not creative, based on a flawed idea that creative people must excel in drawing, music or other artistic disciplines. In reality, creativity comes in a wide range of forms, and there is a huge library of methods available to help employees develop their creative ideas. IDEO’s tools are a great place to start.

For example, the simple act of brainstorming has a lot of creative potential that isn’t realized in most organizations. Ineffective brainstorms prioritize the ideas of a few, converging too quickly on a small subset of possible solutions. Group dynamics drive consensus, not novelty. Instead, ask participants to generate as many ideas as possible on their own, before opening group discussion. For best results, suspend judgment until all ideas are out on the table.

Break down silos to encourage collaboration

Stanford University scholar Behnam Tabrizi found that cross-functional teams can accelerate creativity and innovation, with a few important caveats. Projects with strong governance support had a 76% success rate, while those with only moderate governance languished at 19%. Without effective leadership, silos persist and organizations aren’t able to harness the power of a collective.

Another study confirmed the need for careful design of cross-functional teams. Simply including members of a wide range of functional areas doesn’t automatically stimulate creativity. Having too diverse a team results in information overload, inhibiting progress. The social bonds within a cross-functional team matter, too: team members must be sufficiently comfortable with each other to freely share ideas, but high social cohesion discourages honest dialogue, slowing innovation.

Cultivating creativity isn’t an exact science, but there are tangible steps organizations can take to put the necessary social and physical conditions in place. Start small with an existing team that already has some of the ingredients for creative success. Empower them with space and tools to solve problems in their own way. Inspiration will follow.

Here at Ignition Studio, we want to bring creativity and fun to company digital media. If you’d like to join our discussion, find me on LinkedIn here or feel free to sign up for our webinars on this site.