Why do we need have creativity at work place? The present economy demands it. Global competition and the fast pace of technological change have left us to be competitive by being creative. No one want to be on the same position they want to move up the ladder. To achieve this they need to be creative. How does creative help employees? Encouraging creativity at work place is good for attracting and retaining quality employees, always an issue even in this bad economy. Encouraging employees to think creatively also helps to ensure that ideas stay under your roof, instead of having them take their ideas somewhere else or start a competing business.
Creativity is the most important human resource and is the heart of human endeavors. Creativity is a process of generating ideas, concepts and associations. Successful exploitation of these ideas is innovation. Without creativity there would be no innovation and thus no progress. We would be dealing with the same issues, following the same patterns on an everyday basis. In any workplace, creativity plays a critical role in the performance and change. Lack of it leads to stagnation and affects performance. The question to be asked is what brings about innovation and creativity. It is important to note that innovation and creativity does not occur in vacuum. It requires building strategies and proper planning. Organizations that support open ideas, and create environments that motivate their employees are the ones that are successful while the one’s that fail are the one that stifle creativity and do not give a free run to their employees to express themselves. From an individual perspective, it is very important to be creative to compete in this ever evolving world. One way would be building creativity in the tasks. Even if the tasks seem to be routine ones, there is a lot of room for creative input. We are always influenced by the environment we work in but it’s important to motivate oneself and be creative at all times coz being creative is being successful.
Albert Einstein said, “Imagination is more important than knowledge.” Imagination and the creative impulse have a way of alchemically transforming problems into new solutions and opportunities. No matter how ominous a problem appears to be, our innate creativity finds new doorways of infinite possibilities that allow us to tackle any challenge. Creativity is a powerful archetypal force that humans can access—when we start to have fun with a problem. Most companies don’t engage in a creative process because most of their prior “creative” meetings haven’t produced significant results. Nothing new happens, the same people come up with the same line of thinking, and the same ideas keep recurring. The solutions generated are mostly dull and uninventive. In the aftermath of the “brainstorming” sessions, everyone goes back to their desks and does what they’ve always done. In this scenario, it’s no wonder most companies quickly abandon creative engagements. But, if current research is to be believed, this unproductive scenario is exactly what would be expected to happen. A lack of productivity is the default tendency of a group—but, it can be prevented. These companies miss out on key insights that can move their business objectives forward. Plus, if you don’t tap into the collective wisdom of your team, your business will lose momentum because key components to solving difficult problems are never uncovered. In today’s fast-moving business environment, we often structure teams around specific projects. Google.com employs a predominantly project-based environment where team leaders rotate and more resources are added to the team based on the viability and momentum of individual projects. Promoting individual creativity is hard , inspiring a group of individuals to be creative together seems insurmountable. As a company—as a collective of individuals with unique qualities and models of viewing the world—we are faced with the challenge of how to maximize our diverse team’s background and group dynamic to produce valuable ideas and insight for our clients. What follows is the result of our search for generating creativity in the workplace. It works brilliantly for the company.
The more and more I read and researched this topic I found that workplace creativity is an integral part of most companies today. At least a quarter of all U.S. companies with a 100 or more employees have some type of creativity training. I found that Frito-Lays based here in Plano, TX trained 25,000 of its employees in creativity in the 1980’s! They were one of the leaders in this regard and were well ahead of the curve. I also found that in typical U.S. corporations the creative environment is initiated from the top down. Senior executives dominate. If these executives are creative then it promotes the creative nature throughout much of the organization. Benefits from a creative workplace can be plentiful but ill mention a couple here. The workforce becomes more flexible and open in thinking and more receptive to new ideas and change. Information and novel ideas also become a standard throughout the organization. Studying as an MBA student I am quickly learning that most management jobs require a top of critical thinking and creative ideas.
Many opportunities and rewards are lost because creativity in the workplace is absent. Instead of having a productive and stimulating environment, workers are faced with boredom as a result of relentless routine. As humans, we are creative beings. It is a fundamental quality we have and it is also necessary in the workplace. Creative acts are unplanned and come from and out of situations where it would least be expected. The real power of creativity then lies in the unexpected. The manager must set up an environment where creativity flows.
Creativity is not equivalent to anarchy. It is different in an essential way. Creativity is an instinct to produce. Anarchy is an absence of any structure. Creativity can bring home the bacon. Anarchy at its very best is a passing fancy under a corrupt system. If you link the two together, you are making a blinding mistake. I know managers want and need to maintain control, but the real issue is, how much are you producing? It's tough for your workers to work under a whip. We need to let them be their best. In the long run we will see how this really helps the company. It's more than just "a happy worker is a good worker." It's more "a happy worker is the only kind of worker." Allow them the freedom to be creative.
How then do we go about facilitating creativity in the workplace? In Corporate Creativity, the authors laid out "The Six Essential Elements of Corporate Creativity:" 1. Alignment 2. Self-initiated activity 3. Unofficial activity 4. Serendipity 5. Diverse stimuli 6. Within-company communication
Creativity is a neccessity, without it there is no innovation. there are many examples of creativity that promotes different lifestyles and creative thinking.
some companies will have a health spa, or gym located at the business to promote a healthy way of life. In turn they hope that the workers will be more motivated or have more energy to put into their work.
Having our presentation based over this topic I found that workplace creativity has a great deal of correlation with the aesthetic feel of the company. One company I found in particular that was extremely interesting was Google and its headquarters GooglePlex. There headquarters has pretty much everything that one could imagine. A Googler does not even have to leave and could very well live out of the headquarters. Having all types of sporting activities, a gym, cafeteria, and its own laundry facility to name a few things. This creates a great work environment were its easy to get around with bikes and carts. From my research I did not find any real negative comments that workers had about working at Google.
A previous poster mentions innovation. That is the million-dollar word here. Companies that foster creativity allow that driving innovative force that will put that company in the driver’s seat. Those who fail to innovate will eventually go bust when their technology becomes obsolete. Sure, by and large this refers to tech companies, but it also applies to the others to some extent. Those who can innovate can stay ahead of the curve.
As to the above comment about innovation, I agree. But this link between innovation and creativity is not only true for organizations, but it is also true for individuals and there daily lives. One interesting thing that I found doing a group project over the subject, is that there is a link between individual creativity and exercise. During my research, I found that there is scientific evidence to back this claim up, which involves the monitoring of brain waves during aerobic exercise. Companies can, and are, using this information to foster creativity and productivity in there own organizations. This might be a reason why so many larger corporations have on site gyms or workout facilities.
Why do we need have creativity at work place?
ReplyDeleteThe present economy demands it. Global competition and the fast pace of technological change have left us to be competitive by being creative.
No one want to be on the same position they want to move up the ladder. To achieve this they need to be creative.
How does creative help employees?
Encouraging creativity at work place is good for attracting and retaining quality employees, always an issue even in this bad economy. Encouraging employees to think creatively also helps to ensure that ideas stay under your roof, instead of having them take their ideas somewhere else or start a competing business.
Creativity is the most important human resource and is the heart of human endeavors. Creativity is a process of generating ideas, concepts and associations. Successful exploitation of these ideas is innovation. Without creativity there would be no innovation and thus no progress. We would be dealing with the same issues, following the same patterns on an everyday basis.
ReplyDeleteIn any workplace, creativity plays a critical role in the performance and change. Lack of it leads to stagnation and affects performance.
The question to be asked is what brings about innovation and creativity. It is important to note that innovation and creativity does not occur in vacuum. It requires building strategies and proper planning.
Organizations that support open ideas, and create environments that motivate their employees are the ones that are successful while the one’s that fail are the one that stifle creativity and do not give a free run to their employees to express themselves.
From an individual perspective, it is very important to be creative to compete in this ever evolving world. One way would be building creativity in the tasks. Even if the tasks seem to be routine ones, there is a lot of room for creative input.
We are always influenced by the environment we work in but it’s important to motivate oneself and be creative at all times coz being creative is being successful.
Albert Einstein said, “Imagination is more important than knowledge.”
ReplyDeleteImagination and the creative impulse have a way of alchemically transforming problems into new solutions and opportunities. No matter how ominous a problem appears to be, our innate creativity finds new doorways of infinite possibilities that allow us to tackle any challenge. Creativity is a powerful archetypal force that humans can access—when we start to have fun with a problem.
Most companies don’t engage in a creative process because most of their prior “creative” meetings haven’t produced significant results. Nothing new happens, the same people come up with the same line of thinking, and the same ideas keep recurring. The solutions generated are mostly dull and uninventive. In the aftermath of the “brainstorming” sessions, everyone goes back to their desks and does what they’ve always done.
In this scenario, it’s no wonder most companies quickly abandon creative engagements. But, if current research is to be believed, this unproductive scenario is exactly what would be expected to happen.
A lack of productivity is the default tendency of a group—but, it can be prevented. These companies miss out on key insights that can move their business objectives forward. Plus, if you don’t tap into the collective wisdom of your team, your business will lose momentum because key components to solving difficult problems are never uncovered.
In today’s fast-moving business environment, we often structure teams around specific projects. Google.com employs a predominantly project-based environment where team leaders rotate and more resources are added to the team based on the viability and momentum of individual projects.
Promoting individual creativity is hard , inspiring a group of individuals to be creative together seems insurmountable. As a company—as a collective of individuals with unique qualities and models of viewing the world—we are faced with the challenge of how to maximize our diverse team’s background and group dynamic to produce valuable ideas and insight for our clients. What follows is the result of our search for generating creativity in the workplace. It works brilliantly for the company.
The more and more I read and researched this topic I found that workplace creativity is an integral part of most companies today. At least a quarter of all U.S. companies with a 100 or more employees have some type of creativity training. I found that Frito-Lays based here in Plano, TX trained 25,000 of its employees in creativity in the 1980’s! They were one of the leaders in this regard and were well ahead of the curve. I also found that in typical U.S. corporations the creative environment is initiated from the top down. Senior executives dominate. If these executives are creative then it promotes the creative nature throughout much of the organization. Benefits from a creative workplace can be plentiful but ill mention a couple here. The workforce becomes more flexible and open in thinking and more receptive to new ideas and change. Information and novel ideas also become a standard throughout the organization. Studying as an MBA student I am quickly learning that most management jobs require a top of critical thinking and creative ideas.
ReplyDeleteMany opportunities and rewards are lost because creativity in the workplace is absent. Instead of having a productive and stimulating environment, workers are faced with boredom as a result of relentless routine. As humans, we are creative beings. It is a fundamental quality we have and it is also necessary in the workplace. Creative acts are unplanned and come from and out of situations where it would least be expected. The real power of creativity then lies in the unexpected. The manager must set up an environment where creativity flows.
ReplyDeleteCreativity is not equivalent to anarchy. It is different in an essential way. Creativity is an instinct to produce. Anarchy is an absence of any structure. Creativity can bring home the bacon. Anarchy at its very best is a passing fancy under a corrupt system. If you link the two together, you are making a blinding mistake. I know managers want and need to maintain control, but the real issue is, how much are you producing? It's tough for your workers to work under a whip. We need to let them be their best. In the long run we will see how this really helps the company. It's more than just "a happy worker is a good worker." It's more "a happy worker is the only kind of worker." Allow them the freedom to be creative.
ReplyDeleteHow then do we go about facilitating creativity in the workplace? In Corporate Creativity, the authors laid out "The Six Essential Elements of Corporate Creativity:"
ReplyDelete1. Alignment
2. Self-initiated activity
3. Unofficial activity
4. Serendipity
5. Diverse stimuli
6. Within-company communication
Creativity is a neccessity, without it there is no innovation. there are many examples of creativity that promotes different lifestyles and creative thinking.
ReplyDeletesome companies will have a health spa, or gym located at the business to promote a healthy way of life. In turn they hope that the workers will be more motivated or have more energy to put into their work.
Having our presentation based over this topic I found that workplace creativity has a great deal of correlation with the aesthetic feel of the company. One company I found in particular that was extremely interesting was Google and its headquarters GooglePlex. There headquarters has pretty much everything that one could imagine. A Googler does not even have to leave and could very well live out of the headquarters. Having all types of sporting activities, a gym, cafeteria, and its own laundry facility to name a few things. This creates a great work environment were its easy to get around with bikes and carts. From my research I did not find any real negative comments that workers had about working at Google.
ReplyDeleteA previous poster mentions innovation. That is the million-dollar word here. Companies that foster creativity allow that driving innovative force that will put that company in the driver’s seat. Those who fail to innovate will eventually go bust when their technology becomes obsolete. Sure, by and large this refers to tech companies, but it also applies to the others to some extent. Those who can innovate can stay ahead of the curve.
ReplyDeleteAs to the above comment about innovation, I agree. But this link between innovation and creativity is not only true for organizations, but it is also true for individuals and there daily lives. One interesting thing that I found doing a group project over the subject, is that there is a link between individual creativity and exercise. During my research, I found that there is scientific evidence to back this claim up, which involves the monitoring of brain waves during aerobic exercise. Companies can, and are, using this information to foster creativity and productivity in there own organizations. This might be a reason why so many larger corporations have on site gyms or workout facilities.
ReplyDelete