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What characteristics exemplify a creative workplace? Does your organization's work culture and environment support creativity? If so, how?
William,
How do you believe time constraints in relation to the creative workplace and process are best managed in higher ed. How do you manage this "most influential factor" to get maximum results?
Dr. Blake Faulkner
Although there are foundational strategies for establishing a creative workplace, such as those discussed in this course, these strategies may be modified to align with a particular academic culture. For example, my current academic culture promotes collaboration both horizontally and vertically throughout the university. Overall, I believe that time is perhaps the most influential factor in either fostering creativity or stifling it. This is evident in most creative professions where compensation for the time taken in the creative process can be challenging.
German,
You bring up a good point. Building a culture of creativity and innovation requires a daily focus on supporting this type of environment. At times when budgets are tight and people are required to do more with less it becomes even more important to have a createive and innovative culture that makes the necessary changes to ensure continued institutional effectiveness and improvement. This is a difficult task. However, engaging employees in the process and empowering them to be creative and innovate in adapting to necessary changes is essential. People generally like to be involved in creating solutions to address challenges and opportunities. As you mentioned the day to day operations can overwhelm this process at times and I think it takes intentional effort by leadership and management teams to ensure that the collaborative creative environment endures.
Dr. Blake Faulkner
There needs to be an awareness by the management for the need of creative and innovative environments. You can have a diverse group of people working together, but the day to day operations can quickly drown the creative juices.
Christine,
Well said Christine. It sounds like your organization has created an environment both in physical proximity/space and culture for creativity and collaboration to thrive. Innovation can flourish when these foundations are in place.
Dr. Blake Faulkner
I work in a Career College in the Industry Relation department. I find that our team is constantly dealing with many different people, in different industries. I truly value the work space, in our work place. It is physically organized in a way that promotes communication and interaction. Due to the growth in the company, our team had the option of moving locations..away from other departments that we work with on a daily basis. My manager made the decision to stay--working quarters is just as important as the ideas that flow between them. So I would say physical space exemplifies and allows for a creative work place.
The work culture and environment at my company really does support creativity. We have a more level system where hierarchy doesn't flourish. Managers and directors constantly ask for feedback from employees, and they provide us with opportunities to help strengthen areas we feel need improvement. I realize from reading this thread that I'm lucky to have the support I do at my college.
Steve,
It sounds like you have a collaborative culture that promotes creativity at all levels of the organization. How does your organization move from someone having a creative idea to implementation of the idea? I ask because it sounds like you may have some insights here that would be very helpful to others taking this course.
Dr. Blake Faulkner
In my opinion, the ability to allow employees to speak freely and share their ideas is key to instilling a creative environement. As a leader, you need to be comfortable with your own weaknesses and use other indivual's strengths to drive creative solutions. A leader doesn't need to have all the answers, but, it is his/her responsibility to engage the team to drive to those ideas.
My organization's culture supports creativity by soliciting ideas from all levels in the organization. The organization understands that the "front line" folks on many occasions have ideas to drive efficiency and service, by tapping into those resources the company as a team generates creative ideas.
Pamela,
An open and collaborative culture are imperative to fostering creativity and innovation. Creating this culture needs to be intentional and consistent. What ideas do you have that would help foster a more collaborative culture?
Dr. Blake Faulkner
I would say some of the most important characteristics of a workplace would be management creating a climate where people feel safe to voice their opinions and ideas, a platform to do so, and management taking these ideas or concerns seriously. I would say that my organization could use some work on not only establishing regular meetings but keeping up with them as well.
The organization I work for does support creativity. When materials are ordered for labs, our staff(the instructors) are fully encouraged to create new lab projects with different and new components. This really keeps things interesting and fresh.
Jerry,
I think you have hit on a couple of the key aspects of developing a creative environment.I believe creativity and innovation are more essential in higher education now then perhaps ever before as all sectors of higher education are really in the midst of transformative change. Optimizing continuous improvement in student outcomes require this environment as do other areas. Working for managers and leaders with different styles can be challenging but also good opportunity to continue to shape your own management and leadership style and philosophy.
A creative workplace is one in which people feel free to express contradictory opinions in such a way as to further discussion and problem solving. It is one in which contribution is encouraged and participents in the process share goals and understand the strengths and talents of their co-workers. The culture at my workplace is not a creative one. It is managed in a very top down fashion and input is often discouraged because my manager is incompetent.
I think you can balance both, but management has to be very clear as to what "in-house" rules are and what policies / guidelines must be adhered to for the bigger reason. Additionally, work with employees in cross-functional teams. Break-up the IT Team, the Facilities Team, the Academic Team, so on, and create teams that include members of different departments. Sometimes academicians have tunnel vision; break them up. Sometimes IT can only think in black and white; break them up. You would be suprised how shaking things up actually creates balance because it evens-out the type and style of thinking. This creates great innovation.
I worked in a call center where motivating agents to meet goals was very challenging for management. To overcome this challenge I created an Incentive Program. This provided for prizes and rewards for meeting goals other than what was required for the Company's bottom-line. We rewarded agents for reaching certain training / learning levels. We rewarded and recognized agents for overcoming challenges they had in their own performance. It might sound simplistic, but a little recognition goes a long way. Plus, making it personal and meaningful to the individual also matters. You can only win Employee of the Month so many times before it loses it's appeal. Not all employees care about that type of recognition so it becomes a personal slap in the face every time the new winner of the month is called. Recognize individuals as being individual and celebrate diversity.
Andrea,
This is a common challenge in organizations. One suggestion may be to visit with other leaders in your organization about building time in the multitude of meetings you have to occassionally set time aside to brainstorm, generate new ideas from a diverse group with different perspectives. A collaborative culture is fostered by this process. It does take time so you sometimes have to pick your spots but in the end it builds buy in from employees and also leverages the knowledge and great ideas from the entire organization. Have you ever read the book Death by Meeting by Patrick Lencioni? It is a good reminder of defining a clear purpose for meetings and not just meeting to meet!
Also, in regards to your question on your staff being in a rut and how to get them out of it, I would suggest setting some time aside to have a short planning session with your group to get their input into what needs to be done for the group to acheive their objectives, overcome challenges they may be facing, etc... Taking time for this collaborative session may help rejuvinate them and help you build consensus among the group on what needs to be done and how the group is going to get there. What have you tried to get them out of the rut they are in?
A creative workplace in my opinion is very open to suggestions and ideas including the time and space needed to complete projects. being able to brainstorm with others in your department and outside your department creates this atmosphere. When they are a vast amount of meetings on a daily basis, this can hinder your ability as a leader to inpsire your team to be creative.
Pamela,
Many companies talk about valuing innovation and creativity but the actual culture does not support and reward innovation and creativity. A culture based upon fear is not conducive to creativity.
What could the school that you worked for previously do differently to increase creativity and innovation within the school?
A creative environment requires balance. It is very easy to sacrifice order on the alter of creativity. I worked for a school in the past that had so few rules for discussion and innovation that nothing ever got done. The lack of rules allowed those in charge to lay in wait for someone to bring up a creative idea, only to be squashed down by those around him. Soon no one wanted to bring anything up for fear of laying waste to their career.