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12 WAYS TO MOTIVATE OTHERS TO BE MORE CREATIVE

If you are a manager, your creativity responsibility is twofold. Not only should you be more creative yourself, but you should also be motivating your subordinates to be more creative. And it is that combined creativity that leads to innovation.

With this issue of Report 103, we will look at a dozen ways to motivate others to be more creative. These are all very basic actions and easy to implement. Nevertheless, the results should be impressive. Here they are...

1. Compliment people often.
Compliment people a lot. By doing so, you present yourself as a positive person who sees the good sides of others. This not only makes you more approachable, but also makes you a more trustworthy person. People know you are unlikely to be critical of their ideas – or them. And that makes them much more willing to share ideas with you.

Arrogant or rude managers, on the other hand, essentially build walls between themselves the creativity of their subordinates. After all, if your boss is rude to in the best of times, why take a chance sharing a crazy idea with her?

Of course you need to be careful not to be seen as someone who blindly compliments everything. Then you are likely to come across as being out of touch. Compliments must be warranted. But they must also be given generously.

2. Challenge people often.
Most intelligent people thrive on challenges. And creative challenges are particularly.... challenging. If you regularly challenge your subordinates to come up with new ideas, you will exercise their creative minds regularly and make their work environment more interesting.

In particular, in situations where you might once have said, “it cannot be done”, ask instead: “How might we do it?” Where once you might have said: “We don't have the budget to do that!”, ask instead: “How might we reduce the cost of that idea so that we can fit it in our budget?” or “In what ways might we convince senior management to buy into this idea?”

When preparing a presentation to a client, don't just open PowerPoint on your computer and call up your standard business presentation template. Instead, start by asking your team: “In what ways might we give this presentation real impact?”

When performing routine tasks, ask, “In what ways might we improve this process/make this process more efficient/make this process less time consuming?”

And so on. Constant challenges keep everyone's minds sharp and lead to lots and lots of great ideas on a regular basis.

Importantly, also get in the habit of challenging yourself regularly. It will do wonders for your creative output.

3. Remind People that You Want Ideas
This may seem obvious, but it needs to be done. Always remind people that you are keen to hear their ideas. When you challenge your subordinates, don't stop after the challenge has been issued. Instead follow up with: “I want to hear your ideas”, “Let's see how many ideas we can come up with this time!” or similar.

Likewise, in general meetings, always remind people that you are interested in hearing their ideas at any time.

Needless-to-say, when people come to you with their ideas. Listen attentively, provide positive feedback and, if there are problems with the idea, challenge the idea owner to solve those problems (see Challenge People Often above)

4. Reward ideas.
Rewarding ideas is an important creativity motivator. Rewards, as you probably know, can range from simple recognition to gifts or special privileges. Avoid big rewards (but see the article Transparent and Translucent Rewards for Innovation in the 3 January 2006 issue of Report 103: http://www.jpb.com/report103/archive.php?issue_no=20060103) as they generally cause problems which eventually destroy motivation.

You can assign rewards to specific challenges (see above), such as “In what ways might we improve our sales pitch? I have five boxes of chocolates for the best five ideas!” Or: “In what ways might we improve product X? Every idea gets an apple!”

Rewards, of course, may also be more structured and associated with idea management processes or structured brainstorming events.

5. Provide Time to Think.
In his article “Organisational creativity - the top ten enablers” (Report 103, 4 October 2006 issue: http://www.jpb.com/report103/archive.php?issue_no=20051004), Wayne Morris noted that the number one enabler for organisational creativity is providing time to think. And this is an issue I have seen in many companies. Management wants employees to be more creative. Management has invested in idea management tools, innovation training and more for staff. But, employees are so overworked handling day to day tasks, that they do not have time to stop and think. You and I know, however, that thinking is critical for creativity.

Worse, in cubical farms, the employee who is seen staring off into space is likely to be seen as one slacking off rather than one who is hard at work thinking up innovative ideas for the company.

What this all means is that you need to help your subordinates organise and prioritise their time and stress that thinking is a critical component of their job responsibilities.

6. Provide Space to Think and Talk and Create.
Tied up with time is space. A couple of years ago, the East of England Development Agency undertook a survey of about 1000 people and found that only 10% had ideas at their desks. Moreover, only 6% of woman and 17% of men had ideas anywhere in the workplace.

Thus you need to provide your subordinates with places where they can think and collaborate on ideas. Niches with tables and chairs are simple, yet effective. People can find a niche, sit and talk. More elaborately, you can provide conference rooms with beanbag chairs and toys in them for people to really relax and think. Allowing people to take walks is also effective. If you've been reading Report 103 for any length of time, you will know that I firmly believe in walks as a means of juggling brain cells and inspiring creative thinking.

7. Go on Creative Thinking Field Trips.
Getting out of the office all together is an even better way to inspire new ideas. Employees, at one client of ours, visit spaces where their products are used. There they are challenged to think of new uses for their products, new way ways to apply their products and new products that would appeal to their existing clients. This is a great way to generate ideas. Escaping the office brings everyone a breath of fresh air. Visiting environments where your product is used puts you in the mind of your client. And that helps you think in new ways.

You can also visit places not directly related to your business and find inspiration. Art galleries, museums of all kinds and unrelated businesses can inspire ideas. Look at how a restaurant in a small town serves its customers and ask how you might offer the same level of service to your big business customers.

8. Push Ideas.
When we are looking for ideas, we have a tendency to stop when we get our first good idea (See article “Don't Settle for First” in 5 April 2005 issue of Report 103: http://www.jpb.com/report103/archive.php?issue_no=20050405). The problem here is that our first idea is rarely our best or most creative idea.

Hence, when someone comes to you with an idea, ask her to push the idea further or ask “That's a great idea. But you are a creative person. So, think about how else we might accomplish that action and let me know what ideas you generate.”

Likewise, if you issue a challenge to your subordinates, ask for another idea for every idea suggested. But, be sure to compliment the suggested idea. The aim is to generate more ideas. Compliments – as we have read already – are great for generating ideas.

9. Implement Ideas
This may seem obvious. But over the years, I have seen a number of organisations and teams go to great length to generate ideas. For example, I've several times seen firms bring together a dozen highly paid managers for a day of brainstorming. The results have been very good with a number of powerful ideas generated.

Over time, however, these companies have managed to never even come close to actually implementing the ideas their managers devised. In some cases this was due to the perceived risk of the generated ideas. In some cases it was because an easy mechanism for implementing the ideas didn't exist. But most often, it seemed that business-as-usual at these companies had too much momentum and it was simply impossible to change business-as-usual in order to implement new, unusual ideas.

Not implementing ideas is not only a tremendous waste of resources (think how much it costs to take a dozen managers off their duties for a day), but it is also demotivating in a big way. If subordinates see that ideas are not being implemented – they will quickly learn there is point in sharing their ideas.

10. Tools
Tools can help employees develop and collaborate on ideas as well as help you capture and manage ideas. Tools can include basic things like whiteboards in meeting rooms for sharing ideas; and pens, markers and paper for working on ideas.

Tools might include mind-mapping software for developing ideas. Medium to large organisations can implement idea management tools – such as Jenni idea management software service (http://www.jpb.com/jenni/) to capture and manage ideas as well as focus innovation on business needs.

11. Encourage Humour
Creativity and humour go hand in hand. Whenever I have led a brainstorming event that has had several teams working on an issue, the team that is laughing the most inevitably has the most ideas. And whenever I participate in a brainstorming event with multiple teams, the team I am working with is usually the team that laughs the most. I am proud of that!

Laughing frees up our inhibitions and makes us feel good. Jokes, like creative ideas, are usually about bringing together dissimilar concepts in new ways. When a group is laughing, participants often try and outdo each other with funny ideas. And those funny ideas are often very creative ideas.

12. Be Creative Yourself – and Demonstrate it!
A good manager leads, of course, by example. If you tell your subordinates to be creative, but never share a creative idea yourself – you are not setting a very good example.

As a reader of Report 103, you are certainly a creative thinker. So this last step should not be difficult for you. The question is, are you demonstrating your creativity? Do you bounce ideas off your colleagues – including your subordinates?

If you use creative thinking tools – do you show your subordinates what you are doing and why? If not, it is important that you do. Your subordinates need to see that you are being creative at work. That will make it much easier for them to be creative.

If you want to boost your creativity, you might enjoy the first creativity article to appear on the jpb.com web site – and a long time favourite page on the site: 10 Steps to Boost Your Creativity (http://www.jpb.com/creative/creative.php has been on line for more than 10 years now.

Conclusion
As you can see the above steps are, for the most part, not particularly demanding. Nevertheless, they can have a powerful effect on your organisation's creativity and innovation. So go ahead and implement a few of them. I expect you will be pleasantly surprised by the results.

JENNI EXPERIENCE

If you are thinking about idea management for your firm, you might be interested in trying out Jenni idea management. There are two ways to do this. Our newest approach is what we call “Jenni Experience”. Jenni experience allows you to participate in an actual ideas campaign where you will be invited to submit ideas on a real innovation challenge. You will also be able to review ideas already submitted as well as look around in Jenni.

Once you have submitted an idea, it will be reviewed by an idea manager and sent to review via evaluation, SWOT analysis and testing. You will be invited to participate in each of these stages – so you'll get a clear idea of how easy yet effective the idea review process is with Jenni.

Once you've gone through these steps, we'll contact you to demonstrate the administrative and management functions of Jenni.

At the end, you should have a very clear idea of how easy and – dare I say it – fun Jenni idea management can be. To participate in the Jenni Experience, start here: http://www.jpb.com/jenni/experience.php.

If you would prefer a guided tour of Jenni, where one of our sales people or I take you through the features of Jenni and answer your questions, visit http://www.jpb.com/jenni/contact.php to arrange a demonstration. Guided tours can be performed at your office, one of our offices or via the web and telephone.

To learn more about Jenni before embarking on Jenni Experience or a guided tour, please visit http://www.jpb.com/jenni/

LATEST IN BUSINESS INNOVATION

If you want to keep up with the latest news in business innovation, I recommend Chuck Frey's INNOVATIONweek (http://www.innovationtools.com/News/subscribe.asp). It's the only e-newsletter that keeps you up-to-date on all of the latest innovation news, research, trends, case histories of leading companies and more. And it's the perfect complement to Report 103!

Happy thinking!

Jeffrey Baumgartner

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Report 103 is a complimentary weekly electronic newsletter from Bwiti bvba of Belgium (a jpb.com company: http://www.jpb.com). Archives and subscription information can be found at http://www.jpb.com/report103/

Report 103 is edited by Jeffrey Baumgartner and is published on the first and third Tuesday of every month.

You may forward this copy of Report 103 to anyone, provided you forward it in its entirety and do not edit it in any way. If you wish to reprint only a part of Report 103, please contact Jeffrey Baumgartner.

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