What do you do if your team lacks innovation and creativity?

Owning the project as a leader, start by providing opportunities for your team to tackle low-risk tasks and responsibilities, allowing them to familiarize themselves with the process of problem-solving and decision-making, enabling them to develop their skills and confidence incrementally. As your team becomes more comfortable with taking on moderate levels of risk, gradually introduce them to higher-risk challenges that push their boundaries and expand their capabilities. Build a culture that celebrates and happily absorbs even the most unconventional or seemingly laughable ideas. This fosters a spirit of creativity and ingenuity, as team members feel empowered to think outside the box and explore new possibilities.

If your team lacks innovation and creativity, foster a culture that encourages experimentation and idea-sharing. Start by acknowledging the importance of innovation and its impact on success. Encourage open communication and brainstorming sessions where all ideas are welcomed without judgment. Provide opportunities for professional development and training to stimulate creativity. Celebrate and reward innovative thinking, inspiring others to contribute their unique perspectives. Embrace diversity of thought and collaboration, recognizing that breakthroughs often emerge from collective insights. By nurturing a culture of curiosity and exploration, you empower your team to unleash their creative potential and drive meaningful change.

Even if your company's culture doesn't foster innovation and creativity, you can use that lack as a constraint. Name it as such. Talk about it as such. Constraints can actually unleash creativity and innovation because now you have to work within boundaries that will push you. Maybe your culture is one of hitting the numbers and any new idea is too risky because if you don't hit the numbers, heads will roll. Now you get together with your team and set your minimum standard (the numbers that must be hit) and your creativity and innovation is applied within that framework: what can we try so that even if it fails, we still hit the minimum requirements? That's an interesting challenge and when you succeed, you build on that success.

If your team lacks innovation and creativity, invigorate their creative thinking by encouraging a culture of curiosity and experimentation. Start by facilitating regular brainstorming sessions where all ideas are welcomed without judgment. Introduce 'creative days' where team members can explore new ideas or work on passion projects related to your industry. Offer training or workshops on creative thinking and problem-solving techniques. Encourage cross-departmental collaboration to bring fresh perspectives. Recognize and reward innovative ideas and initiatives to reinforce their value. Creating a supportive environment that celebrates creativity will naturally lead to more innovative thinking within the team.

Use dialogue to get at the heart of why there is resistance to innovation and creativity (it's going to be some kind of fear, but probably won't be talked about as fear). Once you get to the heart of it, your challenge is to show how experimentation, innovation, creativity can be done within a set of boundaries so that even if it fails, it will be contained. In other words, manage risk and show how there is only potential upside to being innovative and creative.

I heard this amazing quote some time ago: cacophony is not diversity. And I realized that the beauty of diversity is when diverse perspectives and viewpoints are delivered within an overall context of unity and alignment -- we are all trying to achieve the same thing. That's your challenge to get the most out of a diverse team - make sure everyone is aligned on what we are trying to achieve. Within that context, diversity will be an incredible strength to help you see and consider things that you wouldn't otherwise.

Goals not only provide context for progress, they provide boundaries to guide and focus your creativity and innovation. They can feel like a constraint at times, but remember that the difference between a thrilling and horrifying roller coaster right is a seat belt.

Any creative endeavor requires lots of practice. This is code for "lots of failure." Creativity and failure go hand in hand. I experience this with poetry. I write LOTS of bad poetry. But its only because I wrote lots of bad poems that I can get get to the good ones. Paradoxically, this means repeated failure isn't a sign of lack of talent or ability, but a sign that you are practicing and well on your way to succeeding, and succeeding more regularly.

Creativity is basically putting ideas together that haven't been considered in that way before. You definitely can exercise this muscle. In a team meeting, ask everyone to draw something. Say, a fancy new office for the company with 1 special feature might be a prompt that people would happily respond to. Then everyone shows the results. The crucial thing here is NOT the drawing. It is that everyone sees that they have all approached the task differently. Maybe someone put in a coffee fountain, maybe a slide. It tells you "I approached it like this, but if I had taken an approach like that person, I would have thought this or that." If all answers are similar...your team isn't diverse in thinking/they don't feel safe to share ideas.