Creativity in Organizations: Myths

Creativity in organizations is not about brainstorming meetings or teambuilding activities.

Talking about creativity in organizations is talking about an organizational culture, a leadership style and a full process in which the main objective is to enhance companies' innovation and efficiency.

Also, talking about creativity is talking about enthusiasm, passion and commitment. These are the healthiest fuels for performance and productivity in organizations. 

But, what are we really talking about, when we talk about creativity? Firstly, it's important to address some myths often associated with the use of creativity in organizations: 

1. Only a few people are truly creative. You can’t train creativity. 
Not really! All employees of an organization have potential and the skills related to creativity can be trained. More! Individual and team skills on creative thinking and problem solving can be developed by the use of specific tools and techniques. You can help an employee develop his divergent thinking (essential for generation of creative ideas) as well as increase his mental flexibility. These trainings will positively impact employee hability to think outside his usual mental schemes: to "think outside the box". It's true, not everyone will be a creative genius! However, with the proper training and use of several creativity techniques, employees working in organizations that encourage a culture of creativity will show that they have much more to contribute. 

2. Being creative means taking thoughtless risks. 

Truth: creativity is associated with people who take more risks. Lie: creativity is associated with people who take thoughtless risks. An important distinction to be made is between risks and consequences. A risk may be huge, for example when it's very likely that our action will fail, but the consequence of this risk may be small, meaning that, if we fail there will be no serious consequences. If it's true that creativity is associated with people who take risks, with people who are not afraid to fail, it´s also true that these people evaluate seriously the relationship between risk and consequence. Therefore, they take risks to an acceptable level. In organizations is much more creative who better understands when to take the risk or not. Additionally, the creative process minimizes risks by having an evaluation phase before implementation... no idea is a good idea if it only serves the theoretical world. 

3. Creativity does not imply time. 
Wrong! More haste, less speed... and this case is no exception. Creative process takes time. It takes time to question challenges and problems we are facing, it takes time to produce ideas and it takes time to explore these ideas. For example, there are already organizations that give their employees a percentage of time (included in the working hours) to do what they wish, to explore the projects that they want. And not surprisingly, many of the innovative ideas of these companies emerge from this time given to employees. Time is money, but innovation and efficiency mean even more money. 

4. Creativity is only useful for creating new products. Creativity inhibits productivity. 
Creativity is essential for creation of new products, but not only. Creativity can be used to solve organizational problems and to develop or improve services, processes and organizational strategies. You will find this broader vision of creativity in organizations with a culture and a managerial leadership that values sharing of ideas and in teams willing to seize oportunities. In this kind of work environment employees are creative while being productive. Moreover, studies have been suggesting that employees’ creativity contributes to the innovation, efficiency, performance and survival of organizations. 

5. You need huge monetary rewards to enhance creativity in organizations. 
On the contrary! Motivation linked to the creative process is mainly intrinsic. Well, of course you will need to reward creativity. However, from a certain point on, it's not money that will dictate whether the person will be more creative or not. People will be more creative if they feel they are in a challenging job, if they have autonomy and some saying about their tasks. Most of all, they will be creative if they sense that their ideas are being valued.

Creativity in organizations is not a myth and doesn't have to be a waste of time. Creativity in organizations is a way of thinking that enhances the potencial within each employee and it's a way of working that enables sharing,  development and efficiency. 

It's not about transforming hard work into creativity; it's about transforming creativity into hard work!