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For the Employer: How to Increase Employees' Creative Potential...				For the Employee: How to Increase Your Creative Potential...
The Good News About Creativity: Creativity just happens. No one can predict or control who will be creative, what the next creative act will be, or when it will happen. The best thing your company can do is to prepare for creativity to happen. You do not need to go out and hire creative people. Your present employees are very capable of being creative. You do not need to hire expensive consultants to teach your employees how to be creative. Creativity does not depend on age, length of employment, or the type of work the employee performs. Creative acts come in all sorts of sizes and shapes. A creative act can be simple as well as complex. You do not need to pay people more money to be creative; in fact, it may make them less creative if you do. The Bad News About Creativity: Creative ideas usually cannot compete with a company's political and bureaucratic structure. One person's creative idea is another person's bad idea. A good creative act can often threaten your coworkers. Unfortunately it is all to easy for a company to create an atmosphere that discourages creative ideas from developing. Continue		(30% OFF) (20% OFF) (20% OFF) (30% OFF) Disclaimer		The Good News About Creativity: You do not need a Ph.D. in creativity to be creative. In addition, you do not need to attend seminars on how to be creative. Creativity does not depend on how old you are, your level of experience/education, or the type of work you do. You can be a creative auto mechanic as well as a creative sales person. You do not need to think big when it comes to creativity. A small idea can be very valuable and cost effective when it is measured over time. Creativity can be very self-rewarding. In fact, it can be so rewarding that you could spend hours, weeks, or even years in turning the dream into reality. No one can know for sure who will have the next creative idea, when it will occur, or what it will be. So, it could be you! The Bad News About Creativity: Unless your company is set up to receive and accurately evaluate creative ideas, it is liable to be rejected. American companies adopt about 38% of all creative ideas presented to them, as compared to Japanese companies who adopt about 90%.(1) Your creative idea may threaten your coworkers' jobs, or even put you out of a job. Your creative idea is not likely to make you rich. You are likely to feel very frustrated if you are working in a company that does not appreciate creative thinking. Continue

1.) Develop a suggestion system and throw out the suggestion box. This means that a company should have a system in place that carefully considers each creative idea. This suggestion system should reach every employee in every location that the company operates. It should also be easy to use, and not be composed of forms and red tape. After the system is in place, a team composed of employees from each department meet once month to review all new ideas and to report back on the development of past creative ideas. The team should also be empowered to reward those employees that develop creative ideas that make a positive impact.

2.) Develop a company atmosphere that endorses creativity as a valuable commodity. Just as the employee’s computer is a company asset, the employee’s brain should also be considered a company asset. This can be easily accomplished by setting up a suggestion system, and by having upper management give their permission for employees to work on the development of new ideas and products.

3.) Move people around and develop communication patterns that don’t put your employees to sleep. If possible, allow employees to observe other employees doing their work, and arrange for company retreats were employees can meet each other informally and share information. Interaction and communication are important because creative acts do not develop in a vacuum, but instead take a great deal of team work.

4.) Do not monetarily reward the quantity of new creative ideas you receive from employees. For example, do not impose a creative quota where every employee must turn in “x” number of creative ideas per month in order to get a bonus. Do monetarily reward successful creative ideas and good attempts at being creative. Allow employees to take their creative ideas to other companies if your company does not have the ability to develop it.

Steps to enhancing your ability to develop creative ideas:

1.) Do not work in a vacuum. Being creative requires diverse stimuli and connections with other people. Make sure you know what your company's other departments are up to, and how their work might connect to your creative idea.  

2.) Align with your company’s goals and directions. If your company just started developing a new education software product, they might not be opened for your new idea about developing a video game. But they might if you can show them how your video game could improve their educational software.

3.) Bring your lucky rabbit’s foot to work. In other words, do not underestimate the power that serendipity plays in creativity. If you are involved in an unusual occurrence, do not overlook it--but analyze its possibilities. Many of the most financially successful ideas were developed only after an accident led to their discovery.

4.) Plan to work after hours and on some weekends to fine tune your creative idea. Get permission to use your company’s computer, supplies, and other resources that might help you to develop and explore the potential of your new idea. Just remember, if you use company material to develop your new idea, it more than likely will belong to them and not you.

5.) Go to seminars on topics related or loosely related to ideas or in areas that you hope to develop creative ideas. Attending outside seminars is a good method of gaining diverse stimuli.

6.) Do not listen to the "nay-says," but do listen to constructive feedback.


^{(1)  Corporate Creativity: How Innovation and Improvement Actually Happens.
       By Alan Robinson and Sam Stern.}

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