7 things we’ve learnt from a year of diagnosing the conditions for creativity within businesses
"‘It’s hard to know whether your business is a ‘have’ or a ‘have not’ when it comes to the conditions for creativity…’
Last year Firehaus launched Spark, our Conditions for Creativity diagnostic, with the specific intention of helping businesses identify what they’re currently doing to both boost and block creativity across all their staff.
Now, a year in and with the comparative data of 10 businesses and over 160 individuals have gone through the process, I thought it would be interesting to reflect on what we’ve learned along the way.
Leaders don’t get the feedback they need. Running a business is hard, and keeping all the plates spinning and keeping creativity high is harder. Leaders told us that as they get more senior their feedback tends to be increasingly financially based, rather than the broader feedback you get earlier in your career (if you’re lucky).
Accountability without support can be damaging. Especially in smaller businesses, we’ve seen a trend of staff being awarded higher and higher levels of accountability without the support to help them take it on. They’ve confided to us in interviews that they’re desperate to be worthy of the new responsibility, so don’t ask for help, even when they desperately need it.
Self-learning doesn’t work for everyone. Almost everyone wanted more training, across both job-specific skills and soft-skills like leadership and creativity. However, an increasing number of businesses are providing this in a self-learning format, relying on their staff to pick their subjects. For some this is fantastic, but it rarely works for everyone as individuals are often blind to the specifics of their own weaknesses.
Businesses need to celebrate creativity more. We know that positive reinforcement through praise and celebration is a critical part of fostering a creative environment, and what’s more, it’s free - a simple shout out or a pat on the back goes miles. Yet few leaders make enough time to publicly celebrate the creativity of their staff, focusing instead on celebrating big projects and those putting in extra hours which disproportionately affects some disciplines more than others.
Leadership is often more of a barrier to creativity than they think. We’re commonly told by leaders, off the record, that their younger staff are ‘just not as creative as we used to be’. This ‘us and them’ attitude then leads them to take very direct action around creativity which often boils down to situations where the subtext is ‘Hey, you lot, be more creative, look I’m doing it!’ Unsurprisingly, this doesn’t work and actively reduces creativity, yet we’ve seen it time and time again. Don’t be that person.
A lack of process strangles creativity. No, this isn’t an oxymoron. Too much process can be damaging, but by and large, we’ve noticed not enough process and clarity within businesses that are struggling with their creativity. Creativity generally needs a problem to solve or a barrier to overcome, yet if no-one knows what they should be doing and when, no matter the level of talent, energy and creativity dissipates.
No single condition for creativity is commonly missing. We use a simple model of creativity based on a multitude of academics and theories which has 9 conditions for creativity, and we’ve yet to see one of these consistently be lacked - every business is different and requires thought and effort. There are no quick wins!
So, there you go, anyone wanting to improve creativity at work could do a lot worse than take a look around them for these seven trends and take steps to combat them.
It’s hard to know whether your business is a ‘have’ or a ‘have not’ when it comes to the conditions for creativity, but we have discovered that there is a simple metric that seems to predict it very well. The difference between how creative your staff think they are and how creative they think your company is - what we’ve taken to calling the Creativity Gap - is a key indicator to the conditions of creativity at your business. Based on our data, if your staff think they are more creative than the company, you’ve got a problem! Why not ask them today and see where you stand?
If you'd like to know more about us running Spark, our conditions for creativity diagnostic at your organisation then drop me a line and I can send you more info. (And yes, it still works with home-working!)