Get Creative
What innovative companies know about hiring that the rest of us need to discover.
By Dennis Stauffer

Alright, you’ve gotten the message that to compete in today’s global economy, you need to be innovative. That part of the discussion is over. If you’re not already persuaded, stop reading now.

You’ve also heard about “the creative class” and the need to become the sort of place where talented, creative people want to work, but you’re still a bit skeptical. You wonder: Exactly what sort of “creative” people are we talking about? Moody, artistic types? Flighty “idea people” with little sense of the practical and relevant? You reason quite correctly that “creative” can be used to describe many different personalities. Yes, you need people with great new ideas, but those ideas need to be relevant to your business and all the hard realities that implies. You want people who are creative, yet practical; who are doers, not just thinkers; who understand that creating real value in the marketplace and capturing some of that value are crucial business objectives.

Those are the kinds of innovative people you need to find, not just the merely creative. So, how do you do that? How do you attract employees who will help drive your future growth, while screening out those who would “rock your boat” just because they think it’s fun? There are several answers to that question, and in many respects they are surprisingly old–fashioned.

Provide meaningful work.
This is a much bigger deal than many business owners realize. Very few of us go to work solely to earn a paycheck. Sure, we want to be paid, and fairly, but we also need to feel that we’re making a contribution to something beyond ourselves, that what we do matters. Research, going back more than 20 years, demonstrates that this is especially true of creative work. People are most creative when they enjoy the work itself and find intrinsic satisfaction in it. That can’t happen in an environment in which the larger purpose is unclear or discounted, or where employees feel no personal connection to a goal.

The bottom line is always important, but if that is the only objective you can point to, you’re not just failing to attract innovative people, you’re driving them away. There’s also some simple logic at play here: If you want people with ideas that connect to your business, you have to first ensure that your business connects with them.

Be flexible and challenging.
Do your people have real autonomy in how they do their work—including sufficient time to consider better ways of doing it? If everything’s nailed down and carefully monitored, you’re squeezing out everyone’s creative impulses. My dad, who worked for decades in retail management, used to say, “There are two kinds of bad employees: those who won’t do what they’re told, and those who won’t do anything else.” He wasn’t talking about managers, but he could have been, because managers set the tone that allows (or fails to allow) for that initiative. Creative people crave challenging opportunities to stretch themselves and use their wits. Are you leaving room for the “anything else”?

Get serious about cleaning up your “messes.”
It’s time to deal with the manager who berates people instead of coaching them. Control freaks? Rein them in. Hidden agendas? Expose them. Information bottlenecks and poor communications? Fix them. All those personnel and relationship issues you’ve been putting off dealing with because they’re not urgent to your business objectives? Think again. In the new economy, the so–called “soft” skills are the new “hard” skills.

Extensive research has found that employees can readily identify good and bad working environments, based on characteristics that measurably impact creativity. Trust, transparency and a low level of conflict are among those essential characteristics of an innovation culture, not to mention the sort of working environment we are all entitled to. When those characteristics aren’t present, your most capable and creative people are the first to recognize such problems—and, if those problems are not addressed, they’re the first to leave. Dysfunctional behavior is something you can no longer afford. Make everyone accountable for eliminating it.

Relax and laugh.
Seriousness does not equate with productivity. During the boom days of the ’90s, much was made of companies bringing in foosball tables and basketball hoops, and building creativity centers. Such steps may or may not be appropriate for your organization, but what’s always appropriate is a healthy sense of humor and a little playfulness. It energizes people, especially those who are creative. The Harvard Business Review cites research showing that highly effective managers use twice as much humor as their average counterparts.

Forgive.
Creativity and innovation are about trying things that haven’t been done before. Inevitably, not all attempts will succeed, so you have to allow people to fail. When you come down on someone for trying a new idea, you’re sending a powerful message to them and everyone else: “Don’t do that again.” Result? They won’t. You can’t eliminate all risk from new ideas, so focus on managing that risk by setting appropriate boundaries and implementing thoughtfully, leaving some room to experiment and even play a little. You want people taking thoughtful risks, so create an environment that makes it safe to do so.

Get going.
Does this sound too “touchy feely”? It shouldn’t. What makes a great working environment hasn’t changed, but those characteristics now have greater value. They’re needed to attract and keep those individuals who will drive innovation for you. And there’s another benefit, an important one: The same strategies that attract innovative people (and, yes, if you do these things, the word will get out) are strategies that will turbo-charge the creativity of every employee you already have. What’s especially reassuring is that none of these things compromises your business objectives.

Oh, and what about those flighty, flaky types? No problem. This is much too practical an approach. They just won’t connect.

Dennis Stauffer, founder and president of Insight Fusion Inc., works with organizations, associations and global companies to boost their innovation and growth. He’s the award–winning author of Thinking Clockwise: A Field Guide for the Innovative Leader. For more information, go to www.InsightFusion.com or e-mail info@insightfusion.com.

Back To Top