Creativity at Work (Part 1): How We Never Really Get There

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'Creativity and Innovation' will come in two parts:

Part 1 - what influences poor connection to creativity and innovation in the workplace, and what effect it has on people and the way the organisation runs (particuarly in the difficult times).

Part 2 (next week) - what can be done about it.

This also makes the newsletters quicker to read!

Content in all 2023 newsletters will be sourced from authoritative media publications, academic papers, dissertations and journal publications.

HIGHLIGHTS

1. one line of cynicism or negative scepticism can collapse large group collaboration.
2. it is deemed normal (or expected) for people to act defensively at work.
3. although the demand for creativity and innovation during recruitment is high, corporate cultures tend to herd towards the familiar and uncreative.
4. creativity is seen to be in the pervue of artists, and not professionals.
5. defensive relationships and resistance to open creativity restricts business growth and limits market share.
6. strategies around soft skills are left by the executive to lower management.
7. creativity is often seen as a nice-to-have.

ABOUT PROBLEMS WITH CREATIVITY AND INNOVATION

Before I get into what academic research has been saying, I want to tell you a story I heard last night.

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"In the business setting, we are very good at being our own worst enemies [that it is] considered the smarter move to play defense. So we edit ourselves extensively, shooting down fine tuning, or otherwise judging our own ideas before they have a chance to be fully expressed. Mentally we focus on why things aren't going to work, as opposed to looking for ways in which they can work. We're also very good at limiting our thinking and our exposure to perceived threats. This self limiting has an impact not just on creative processes, but on more straightforward thinking as well (Kuhlan & Crisafulli; 2017)

TENSION OF PROCEDURES VS IMPROVISATION/CREATIVITY

Risk is the biggest worry so there is safety in procedures and standards. Which can also be restrictive, and this causes tension. And when new situations or challenges arise, organisations will work less with creativity to avoid risk. However, this blurring of clarity meant that there was worry about whether you 'go by the book' or not.1 In an interview with firefighters, they commented:

"As firefighters, every situation we face is different. We have tools that we can use in different situations, but you never know what you are going to get. When we are trained, we are told to “go by the book”. But, at the same time, we are trained to react, and rules get you to some point. After years of experience, you know that the book is not that smart."1

FEARS OR CONCERNS (RISK AVERSE)

So why does a lot of talk about dynamic and innovative leadership fail to show in the day to day operations of an organisation? Here's a list of some of the main reasons:

INDIVIDUALS

• Holding back different or new ideas because they fear they will fail at making agreements.12
• Believing their contributions will not be meaningful.12
• Their ideas will be ridiculed."Nobody wants to be the nail in the board that is going to get hammered down" (Kuhlan & Crisafulli; 2017)
• Negativity or cynicism as intelligence.
• Self-judgement/censorship.
• General levels of insecurity.
• Financial survival leads to organising actions around safety and 'not rocking the boat'. As creativity can feel uncomfortable, it's going to be hard.30
• Lack of honest connection with each other.28

ORGANISATIONAL

• STRUCTURAL BIAS: If this bias is against new ideas, even if they might positively change an important aspect of the business, they will be seen as more risky. And some corporate cultures are harder to change than others.
• PROFESSIONALISM: The cultural bias against creativity can be honed down into experiences or conditioning such as lack of good experience, cultural assumptions, narrow view of professionalism. These views define the parameters of how innovative a culture is, and therefore, how much the organisation can hold or grow market share.
• EFFICIENCY: Expectation of brainstroming or ideation sessions to be efficient, and come up with a workable and doable result hurries the editing process, so new ideas are edited ('to save time') as they are announced. Often, that editing process is not handled well, and silence will result, as people hold back their ideas for fear of being ridiculed. Covering two processes (build ideas/ edit ideas) gets less quality from both.
• CLOCKING ON: Following the dominent mindset of "salary in excange for turning up and clocking on" rather than on results or outcomes for the organisation will be a natural limiter on creativity, innovation or the 'cultural magic' that keeps people connected to a specific organisation. This has a real business cost.23
• PREFERANCE FOR AVERAGE: While creativity and innovation are in demand, the familiar or average is preferred over creative, unique, or exceptional talent and performance.25
• LEAVING ORGANISATIONS MORE VULNERABLE: "When faced with new challenges, leaders combine prior knowledge and experience with rules and plans, using their intuition and creativity in an instant of spontaneous decision" (Crossan, 1998; Crossan et al., 2005; Leone, 2010; Shane, 2000).32 This is the challenge many leaders face, and when leaders go against this, they disable their organisation from overcoming new threats to their industry, or incorporating new methods to strengthen the organisation. Others who are not internally hindered do not have weighing them down to keep or grow their customer base or market share.

Simone Kauffeld, of Technische Universit?t Braunschweig, and Nale Lehmann-Willenbrock, of the University of Amsterdam, found in a study of 20 organisations from the automotive supply, metal, electrical, chemical, and packaging industries that dysfunctional meeting behaviors (including wandering off topic, complaining, and criticizing) were associated with lower levels of market share, innovation, and employment stability.33

VERY FEW HAVE A HANDLE ON CREATIVITY

It's hard to start with creativity when it is commonly associated with artists, and not with them.26 In many people's minds, artists sit outside of the professional/business environment (with the exception of commercial art). As a result, creativity (often packaged with 'soft skills') is not ranked as critical to the organisation's survival and growth as steering sales, finance or operations.

For instance, many industry associations put operations, legal and financial issues at the top of their training schedule, with many of the 'soft skills' as add-ons. Why this happens may have to do with who gets promoted to the C-suite.

Typically, anything to do with people or soft skills are usually relegated to lower to middle management, or HR.29

LEADERSHIP LEADS

In Business Cycles, Shumpeter laid the groundwork for the importance of creativity in organizations with this guidance: “...the decisive driving force for an economy undergoing the alternating stages of prosperity, recession, depression and recovery is innovation” (cited in Goodman & Dingli, 2013).31

When leaders choose to embrace soft skills more and give permission to their staff to be creative and innovative, many of the blocks diminish. Leaders then can "mentally and physically embody the spirit he or she wishes to see reflected in the team." (Kuhlan & Crisafulli, 2017)

???? THANKS FOR READING THIS FAR

Next week, I'll cover solutions to overcoming these issues, and these will center around:

• listening, accepting and building,
• reducing that fear, and
• what it takes to bring creativity and innovative thinking more centrally to the running of the business

among other points.

Please share this article with your Linkedin and professional network, as each article will build on each other to present a coherent template to help change HR, your culture, and your organisation.