WHY IS CREATIVE THINKING IMPORTANT?
Creativity ignites passion and innovation. Those are two key elements that set you apart from your competitors. Without the freedom to exchange ideas and think outside the box, your team, therefore, your business, will not compete in a world with consistently changing trends.
HOW DO YOU DEFINE CREATIVITY?
Creativity can mean a variety of things. In the book, The Nature of Human Creativity by Robert Sternberg and James Kaufman, they defined creativity as:
“producing novel ideas appropriate towards some goal.”
While it’s vague, that definition proves any business can and should build a pillar of creativity on which to worship.
But what does this have to do with how you lead/run your business team?
As mentioned before, creative ideas are crucial. However, creative thinking stalls out if your work environment does not sustain free-thinking and confidence.
Comfort breeds creativity.
So, to sustain creative thinking, you have to intentionally establish an environment that encourages not only a collaborative process but a process that turns each member of your team into little innovative think tanks.
HOW TO ENHANCE CREATIVE THINKING IN YOUR WORK CULTURE
1. LOOSEN THE REINS
Allowing your team members the autonomy to act on their own creative instincts and intuition has the potential to provide you with a laundry list of innovative ideas.
“We can sometimes be most present and collaborative with others when we license ourselves to act autonomously and entrepreneurially, to make our own decisions about how to act and react.”
If your team members have the freedom to think and create on their own, they will invest more in what they’re doing. Working on a project and adding a creative spin here and there sounds a lot more exciting than merely filling in a template. Let go of the reigns, and you might be surprised by the result.
2. BRAIN STORMING SESSIONS
Brainstorming sessions are great ways to get the creative juices flowing. These sessions prevent one-dimensional, inside the box thinking from infecting your business. Establishing that all ideas are welcome, and giving the floor to whoever wants it, can provide you multidimensional ideas that come from boxes you never knew existed.
3. FLEXIBLE WORK ENVIRONMENT
It might seem counterintuitive to think remote work days, four day work weeks, and unlimited PTO could help your business. Still, this kind of flexibility could increase productivity and creativity.
Multiple factors can affect when a person is the most creative. If you have a night owl working a regular 9 – 5, they sleep at their peak hours of inspiration.
If someone craves to be outdoors but typically works in a small cubical, their creativity compares to a little shriveled flower that hasn’t gotten enough sunlight. Creative minds can crave unpredictable work environments.
PROOF OF A CONFIDENT, CREATIVE WORK CULTURE
As a creative marketing agency, our team at 18Ninety Creative thrives on free-flowing communication, fearless feedback, and a work environment that leaves plenty of room for creative ideas to grow.
We’re constantly in the creative process, and there’s no such thing as a bad idea. We throw everything on the wall and see what sticks.” – Jade Chase, Owner
Free-flowing communication for our team means bouncing ideas off one another and collaborating to find how we can capitalize on new ideas.
Even when we aren’t working, we think of ideas and bring them in. We don’t just punch in and out because what we create is fun. -Torin Alm, Art Director.
A crucial part of our collaboration process is fearless feedback. When done respectfully, feedback can make a creative idea stronger so it can turn into an actionable plan.
Our work environment is also conducive to collaborative work culture. We have multiple whiteboards, a TV where we cast our work to show to the team, and other work tools that promote efficiency and creativity.
But the best part is that our work environment is not limited to an office. Since we are a marketing agency that produces photography and videography, our workspace can be up in the mountains, deep in downtown Boise, or even across the country. We have unlimited space to think outside of our boxes to produce unique content.
The Skinny
Providing space for creative thinking should not be an afterthought. Your audience will eventually get bored and turn to a greener, more innovative pasture. If you are unsure about your business’s creativity, consulting a marketing agency could be your next step to adding a little bit of innovation to your average workweek.
