How to Foster Creative Exchange
Five Ways to Manage for Creativity
Creativity in today’s digitally driven organisations is often misunderstood. For designers working in a start-up, people tend to assume that creative output is a daily reality. On the other hand, working as a designer for a large corporation it is assumed that creativity is either taken for granted, or curbed entirely. In fact, neither assumption is entirely accurate as creative output depends less on the size and maturity of the company, and more on the working culture and style of leadership. Creative leaders are those who focus on creating an environment that promotes innovative thinking and an open dialogue of ideas. It is not about managing creativity but rather managing for creativity.
Fostering a creative culture starts with forging a space where critical thinking and creative exchange can flourish. A physical, shared space is necessary for individual and collective mindspace to form and broaden. Here at Zalando we have just such a space with The Studio. Conceived and planted four years ago by IDEO, The Studio was formed in order to spread a creative mindset within the organisation, focusing on those projects that got us closer to that goal. Over time, The Studio has fostered creative change and become a forum for questioning the direction of product development by courageously asking, “what if?”
…perhaps paradoxically, creativity seems to blossom best in (somewhat) constrained settings.
Even though the gratification of feeding culture with creative exchange might be delayed, its value is high. Creative input eventually builds social capital within the design community, with the potential to spread into the culture of the entire organisation.
Over the years I’ve learned that, perhaps paradoxically, creativity seems to blossom best in (somewhat) constrained settings. I believe it is therefore fundamental to build certain parameters in the pursuit of effective creative leadership. Below I discuss five ways to foster creative exchange that should be applicable in both fast-paced start-ups and more traditional corporate environments.
1. Open the process
We know that good design is process-driven. Great design, however, comes from following a process that embraces empty gaps. Having question marks within a project flow allows for serendipitous ideas to come forth. Most designers are used to divergent thinking, especially in terms of brainstorming at the initial stages of a project. Leaving ourselves open to the process throughout the project, however, can lead us to surprising discoveries and experimentation, from using mood-boarding as a method for user research to designing brands without visual logos. Stray from the beaten track often and with confidence, but make sure your team doesn’t lose track of reaching the final goal.
Stray from the beaten track often and with confidence…
2. Take Risks
Encouraging risk-taking starts with a feeling of safety. For a design team, that means accepting every idea without judgement and rewarding the ones that successfully balance inventiveness with relevance. To get to that ideal state, the fear of failure needs to be mitigated by providing enough time for creative exploration. For a creative leader it means instigating inspiration to seek opportunities everywhere, through something I call expansive thinking — expanding a problem question from one use case to the whole field or industry. In The Studio, we’ve recently designed a product character for the Zalando fashion store — a concept that would visually and metaphorically explain what makes Zalando unique. In order to get to the core, I encouraged looking for metaphors for fashion as a whole. Think bold and risky and you’ll reach more possibilities before the pragmatic consideration hits your concepts.
3. Create team rituals
Because divergent and expansive thinking might be difficult to initiate, a structured way of letting the mind wander on a regular basis can help to provoke an inflow of ideas “on demand”. In the Studio it often takes the form of team rituals — recurring moments of joint obsessions and mutual celebration. Sharing individual passions can of course happen organically, but why not plan fun events instead? Within the product design community we have established so-called Passion Thursdays — open lunch gatherings where we feed each other with knowledge and inspiration. A regular event that eventually became a habit, we started training our minds to contemplate topics completely unrelated to digital design — from quantum physics, to interior design, to the history of synthesisers. Sharing means storytelling and storytelling fosters imagination — something that’s not just for kids and is perhaps even more consequential within the corporate environment. And besides being a mutual celebration of each other’s passions and interests, it also allows for the growth of trust and openness.
Sharing means storytelling and storytelling fosters imagination.
4. Form eclectic collaborations
Exchange, as an act of giving one thing and receiving another, requires different people being involved in the process. For the exchange of creative ideas to happen, we need a diversity of creative people involved in the conversation. In projects aimed at purposeful innovation it involves facilitating a collaboration between eclectic profiles, where mindset — not skillset — is the common denominator. Designers’ are accustomed to collaborating with developers, product managers and user researchers, but fascinating things happen when marketers, sociologists, or even a film director are brought into the conversation. As common understanding builds shared commitment, assembling teams that are interdisciplinary and multicultural opens doors to new ways of thinking. Build bridges and reward those who work together on solving real-world problems.
5. Drive learning as purpose
A designers’ work is problem solving. Sometimes we get so caught up in designing better products, that we forget about becoming better designers along the way. Yet, once we make learning a priority, the purpose of our work becomes even more attainable. Training the mind like a muscle involves exposing it to exercises useful for the usual design activities, but then going beyond them. For visual designers it might mean stretching their comfort zone, for example, from prototyping UI components to crafting something from textiles, or learning about performance set design as a physical example of creating a user experience.
As common understanding builds shared commitment, assembling teams that are interdisciplinary and multicultural opens doors to new ways of thinking.
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Using lateral methods to instigate creativity helps to foster that most fundamental skill of designers — intuition. And fear not, intuition as the ability to deduct and decide without conscious reasoning can be taught and nurtured. Intuition sculpts creativity which in turns plays an important role in honing the design maturity of an organisation. Creative exchange is essential in today’s product design teams working within the constraints of the product, established design systems and/or the company’s strategies.
As the cultivation of creativity and creative exchange don’t usually pop up organically within mature organisations, it is absolutely necessary to put in place “a structure to be unstructured” in order to succeed. It’s the clear rules and tools that allow designers to venture out further than they otherwise would.
Kasia Luczak is a design strategy lead at Zalando. This will be her last post for Zalando design as she is moving onto new professional adventures. We’ll miss you, Kasia! Good luck.
If you‘re interested in filling Kasia’s (very big) shoes and becoming part of an organisation dedicated to fostering creativity, apply to The Studio now. We are hiring a strategy communication designer and a product designer (UI/Motion).
