Building a Creative Culture

Building a Creative Culture

Creativity is something you can nurture in everyone who works in your organization. When you encourage creativity in your culture, you will help foster new ideas and innovative approaches to help your business grow.

I recently read an article in Kellogg Graduate School of Management’s magazine that talks about how creativity breeds entitlement. In an experiment, when subjects were told they did well on a creativity test and that this was rare, they were more apt to rate themselves higher on measures of entitlement (e.g., “I deserve preferential treatment.”) compared to those who were told that creativity was common. This reminded me of a situation I faced while working at an advertising agency and it compelled me to write this article.

When I arrived at BBDO, the planning department was fully developed and they were in transition to making the advertising agency more strategically grounded. But I soon discovered that the company still had strong roots in traditional advertising. They were behind some of the biggest, most iconic ads on television – FedEx, M&Ms and Pepsi. This meant that the Creative department (with a Capital C) was treated with kid gloves. As a new planner, I thought I would come in and contribute my creative ideas to help strategically build brands. The Creative department, however, were the only ones getting billed as the ‘Creative Ones.’ Instead of welcoming my ideas, my Creative ‘partners’ conveyed a polite, “Thanks, but no thanks” or offered excuses like, “The Creative Director hasn’t seen our ideas yet.”

This experience at BBDO really stuck with me. As a planner, my very job was to look for inspiring branding ideas upon which creative campaigns could be built. After conducting a brand assessment and consumer research, I wrote the creative brief and then briefed the Creatives. At BBDO, the Creative teams were run by a Creative Director, and for each brand campaign, teams compete against each other to come up with the best ideas. When multiple Creative teams were angling for the big ad campaign, ideas were held closely to the vest, and I didn’t get to see them until right before we were ready to present them to the client. 

I’ve always been curious about the way creativity is coveted and held by a privileged few. But I’ve also been curious about how creativity is sometimes pushed away. I’ve run many creative workshops in my career, and I often hear the statement, “I’m not creative, but here’s my idea.” I completely reject both assumptions. Creativity is one of my company’s core Values because I believe it is in everyone. Sometimes it’s suppressed and needs encouragement to emerge. But we ALL have the capacity to think creatively and to make a big impact on our companies and broader communities.

Here are some ways you can foster creativity in your company:

1.    Encourage everyone to be creative.

It all starts with the belief that everyone in your company is creative – not just the special few with artistic talent. Creativity is not just about creating art. Creative thinking can be developed and nurtured in many different ways across all departments in your organization. Encourage even those departments that are not typically seen as creative to lead discussions on creativity. I’m not talking about encouraging your Finance department to undertake some ‘creative accounting.’ Running numbers might not be the most creative task, but presenting them to marketers or to product developers in a way that makes sense may take a bit of creativity. Make sure everyone knows that Creativity is something to be valued in your organization.

2.    Set up an office environment that’s conducive to creativity.

I love taking clients off-site for creative meetings. Why? First off, it’s good to get your head out of your day-to-day business. Secondly, most offices are uninspiring when it comes to developing creative ideas. One scenario is to create an idea room – a space that is set away from the hubbub of your busy office. Set up comfortable seating, a rug, maybe even a few bean bag chairs. Put up a white board or blackboard and stock it with markers, chalk and Post-its. That way employees can have an impromptu brainstorming meeting any time of the day.

In addition to an idea room, you could have spaces in the office where people can go off to and think – by themselves or in groups. Create small nooks with tables and chairs or sofas where people are free to work if they choose. Make sure it has outlets for laptops or a table for those who want to write. All of these creative spaces are important because they help people switch gears and reset when undertaking a creative challenge.

3.    Bring the magic of childhood into the office.

As I mentioned in my last post of this series on Maintaining your Creative Fitness– our creativity peaks at Age 5. As we grow older, we aren’t encouraged to play like we were at that age. Somehow our idea of play moves away from free-form exploration. When I hold a brainstorming session, I always bring some essentials – such as Play-Doh and tools like plastic molds and rollers. Why? Because who doesn’t love playing with Play-Doh? Sometimes your brain can’t be ‘on’ all the time. It’s okay if my participants play with Play-Doh while the rest of us are ideating. They are exercising another part of their brain and eventually they’ll throw out a brilliant idea, or maybe kernel of an idea that leads to a brilliant idea.

Free-form play is one way to inspire creativity. So encourage it whenever you can. Maybe your idea room is set up like a playroom filled with blocks, stuffed animals and Legos. Or you may decorate your own office with reminders of childhood. Reminding yourself of your creative spirit as a child can help unleash your creativity as an adult.

4.    Practice creativity with field trips.

In Innovation workshops, one of my favorite brainstorming exercises that I do is to get my participants to go on a treasure hunt. I start by sending my participants to a place outside of our meeting room, which is hopefully in an area of town that’s populated with stores. I give a group the task to find an object that is completely outside of their category and to come up with several ideas from that one item. So if, for example, we are tasked with creating new gardening tools, I’d send a group to the grocery store and ask them to ideate off of a piece of food. They might choose a banana. How many garden tools can you come up with that are inspired by a banana?

If your organization needs fresh ideas – send them to inspiring places. Maybe your company needs to reduce the amount of breakage of shipped products. Going to the science museum might illuminate some inventive ways that objects are protected. Maybe your team needs to become better at presenting. Enroll them in an acting or improv class, or send them to a Moth StorySLAM. Be creative about how you encourage creative problem solving in your company.  As a popular cruise ship advertising slogan says, “Get out there.”

5.    Set up Creative Thinking Time.

Google is well known for establishing ‘20% Time’ in the early 2000s. That is to say, 20% of an employee’s time can be spent working on projects they think will benefit Google even if it’s not directly related to their jobs. This created a ton of innovation among employees who were passionate about certain projects. Gmail, Google News and AdSense came out of ‘20% Time’ projects.

There has been a debate about whether or not ‘20% Time’ really still exists at Google, as it’s not an official HR policy. But the fact that people are given the freedom to work on passion projects is more important than whether or not it’s 20%, 10% or 5% Time. The point is that we should all carve out some time during our workday or week to think about solving a creative challenge. I worked at one organization with the rule that no one was to have meetings on Friday mornings. It was intended to give us time to think at the end of the week. Whether or not it's a three-hour time block during the week, or a day out of the office every month, find the time to think about a problem and how to solve it creatively.

I eventually left the advertising agency I mentioned above because the creative process frustrated me. I made my way to an innovation agency and then set up my own agency. I now partner with other creative freelancers on different projects, and these collaborations help foster my own creativity. I also find ways to fit in creative writing as well. My wish is that we all make time for creativity. So whatever you are working on, I hope you find ways to nurture and celebrate your own unique gift of creativity. Until my next post on the Art of Creativity - Happy Creating!