The HR Challenges of Creative Cultures
There can be no single HR manager, partner or executive alive today, not even in the darkest of jungles or in the loneliest mountain village, who by now hasn’t heard how creativity and innovation are supposed to be the key competitive advantage of the contemporary corporation. We are, through media, the literature, in conferences and on social media, inundated with claims regarding the importance of creativity, and how companies must become much better at nurturing the same.
In this, we’re also treated to never-ending tales of that most mythical of creatures: “the creative individual”. This is the individual that according to creativity stories isn’t given enough space and support in the modern organization, and who at the same time is the source and fountain of the company’s future value-production. These individuals are routinely hailed in the business press, and often represented by a small group of predominantly US-based actors in IT, design and media. As this discourse is so strong, it has made the creative individual the be-all-and-end-all of much of the discussion regarding creativity.
But are individuals all that important, really? The fact is that an increasing amount of the research on creativity indicates that individual creativity is only a small part of what makes new ideas possible and organizations flourish. Contemporary research is in fact more and more focused on how things such as “group genius” (as championed by Keith Sawyer) or “powers of two” (as Joshua Wolf Shenk calls it) are in fact far more important than individual creative capacity.
Both my own research and my more direct work with organizations support this. I’ve worked with companies with tremendously creative individuals that have failed miserably to bring out new innovations, and with companies with very few super-creative individuals that have despite this been able to outperform both their closest competitors and their industry. Why?
My contention is that this is because we often fail to discern between individual creativity and creative cultures.
To simplify a little, the former is important for the creation of ideas, whereas the latter is critical for their survival and success. You can boost and boost an individuals creativity almost indefinitely, but if the general culture of the corporation isn’t conducive to the reception and development of ideas, this will help very little in the end.
What, then, is the role of HR in all this? Simply put: Enormously important. While any manager can attempt to boost the creativity of him-/herself or some members of his/her team, it is only through the concentrated effort of top management and HR that a truly creative culture can be established. At the same time, flawed execution of HR practices can effectively sabotage the culture of a corporation in a way that makes creative engagements nigh on impossible. As a result, a modern HR function needs to pay heed to at least the following facts of creative cultures:
Individual training will only get you so far. Today, a tremendous amount of money is spent of creativity training that focuses almost solely on the development of individual creativity, and which wholly ignores the context within which this will have to survive and flourish. In developing training, HR managers need to ensure that at least half of the focus is on how ideas are met, engaged with and developed, rather than just generated.
Hiring for creativity does not mean hiring “creatives”. In an organization striving for creativity, the important thing is not to get more of one kind of individual, but to increase diversity. HR can do more for creativity by ensuring that the existing “creative individuals” have good sparring partners, intelligent questioners and devil’s advocates than by just trying to hire more idea-people. In this, hiring for the right balance between challenge and chemistry becomes incredibly important.
It’s more important to engage the quiet masses than further boost the noisy few. All companies already have ideas, but they can often reside with the people who do not want to promote themselves or even speak up. HR needs to work on ensuring an organizational climate where everyone is comfortable sharing ideas and suggestions, rather than just supporting those who are already comfortable with this.
Critique is not the enemy. In a creative culture, ideas are listened to and debated — by everyone. In this, smart and cordial criticism is central. HR must be active in not only trying to make people feel good, but also engaged in debates and discussions. HR thus also need to consider an individuals capacity for constructive criticism in e.g. hiring and promotion decisions, rather than just whether s/he is “creative” or not.
Cultures are led by example. One cannot command people to be creative. Projects that merely ask/demand creativity of employees almost only fail, as they fail to take into account how creativity is led. HR thus needs to engage top management into exhibiting the kinds of behaviors that can strengthen the organization’s creative culture. This can include engaging openly with ideas, regardless who presents them, as well as explicitly condemning behaviors that silence or suppress creative ideas.
Creating a creative culture is no simple thing. On the contrary, it includes a lot of very hard work. Here, the efforts of HR are absolutely critical. By having a broader perspective on the human resources of the organization, HR can be the strategic actor that saves an organization from merely being a collective of self-important creatives and the masses that tolerate them, to becoming a culture where everyone’s ideas are evaluated, and where ideas are nurtured rather than just generated. In today’s ultra-competitive environment, where innovation is often a life-or-death question, the role of HR might thus never have been more important.
An shortened and edited version of this text was published in the German magazine HR Performance
