To me the perfect office isn’t a white wall with a desk but neither is a load of bean bags and a funky painting. To me both these offices miss the point, office culture (whether that be design, people or management) should promote creativity in the workplace rather than being simply functional or fun.
The job of a leader, entrepreneur or manager isn’t to put a person in a room and say “do this”, it’s to enhance and inspire staff to be creative and in turn become better at problem solving so that they not only do their job but they continually improve at it.
I’ve talked before about how to me the term manager has become synonymous with top heavy organisations and instead I prefer to use the term “conductor” (see my earlier blog for what the hell I am talking about) because conductors liberate and enable the “how”.
Think I’m talking gobledey gook? Maybe. But the fact is this, the best leaders tell their staff why they are going somewhere but leave the how to get there up to their team.
Of course this requires a certain level of recruitment to set up a team of thinkers rather than order takers, but once in place the general theme that leaders pick the where & why while giving their staff the tools to enable the how has worked wonders on many of the businesses I’ve seen or worked with.
It doesn’t take a genius to be creative, it just takes a bit of recognition that creativity and problem solving are a good thing and then some support by a culture that rewards and embraces it.
What do I mean by culture? Team quizzes that promote problem solving are a basic thing, a subtle way to introduce creativity in the work place but lacing everything you do with a creative flair can help to. Now I am not talking about having a wall of donuts, but what about having art on the walls that are actually problems to solve?
Yes ok, this isn’t my field but luckily I’ve done my research and there’s a great blog over on liveplan.com that’s got this covered off.
Of course for some managers giving up the control over the how is a hard thing to do, some are after all control freaks and many are simply scared of having the perception of their own importance or influence somehow diluted by their own team doing well.
The more businesses I interact with the more I realise how being afraid of praising those blow you because you fear them being rewarded more than you is an epidemic spreading throughout the UK and sadly for my little blog post today promoting creativity is negatively correlated to this rising problem.
If we want to create great work places and teams then creativity has to be on the top of our list but before we can focus on that we need to take a long hard look at ourselves and ask the question; why am I afraid of letting my team be creative?
If you want to know how to help your team be more creative, read our next blog “Harness Lean Management“.
