With a schedule full of meetings, admin and catching up on projects, it can often be difficult for business owners to find the time to think creatively. Yet, enterprises are only going to move forward if their employees are empowered to think imaginatively about the future – finding new ways to tackle old problems, coming up with new products or improving methods that are currently in use.
With that in mind, what is the best way to find the time to think creatively at work? And how can you create an office that is designed to promote creative thinking?
Innovation meetings, or time designed specifically for thinking creatively, may seem like a solution to the problem. But be wary of setting allotted time for creative thinking.
“Structured creativity can sometimes deliver effects contrary to the intention,” says Ben Barker, founder of cold-brew coffee company Artemis Brew. “We’ve found organising meetings based around idea generation can limit the creativity within the session, and often team members feel pressured to think, which leads to mental blocking.”
You can’t dictate to your workers that they are supposed to be creative every Tuesday at 11am, for example. Creativity is something that has to be nurtured at all times – and there are ways to ensure this can happen.
Don’t dwell on perfectionism
Barker says more casually pitched brainstorming sessions work best, in his experience. He says having a dry wipe board in the office encourages “off the cuff” scribbling of ideas. The casual, non-permanent nature of a wipe board also reduces the pressure to come up with ideas.
“The biggest enemy of creativity is perfection,” says Litzi Essler, founder of the Happy Engine coaching. A culture that rewards perfection encourages team members to conform and follow the status quo, she says. This prevents them from exploring new ideas, because they fear failure.
Creating an environment where leaders encourage employees to take calculated risks and challenge current thinking is one of the best ways of enabling creativity.
It’s also about the balance between thinking creatively and working out how to execute the ideas. “We want to make sure we get the balance right between creative thinking – generating new ideas that will help our users – and then critically evaluating, developing and delivering them in a way that makes sense,” says James Gupta, founder and CEO of online education platform Synap.
Use technology to your advantage
“We use a variety of software tools for capturing new ideas we can come back to later,” says Gupta. “Often, an individual idea for a feature doesn’t make sense on its own, but if you capture everything, then over time patterns emerge and you can build a new feature based on that.”
Give your employees somewhere to go
Changes of scenery also enable people to think differently about problems. Create breakout spaces, meeting rooms and coffee areas where people can go to allow them to think differently. “Sometimes just changing your scenery, even a little bit, can really help you to break out of the ‘business as usual’ mode,” says Gupta. An outdoor space filled with plants, a garden or somewhere with a nice view could also work.
“Taking time out of your normal environment helps to get you out of your daily routine,” says Gillian Rattray, entrepreneur acceleration manager at Royal Bank of Scotland. “Even a trip to the local coffee shop can give you the space to think creatively.”
Release some responsibility
Letting your team have more influence can stimulate creative juices. “A good way for bosses or team leaders to introduce creativity can be through their normally private future business planning,” says Barker.
“Say the MD of company X wants to hit a total customer target of 300 by a certain date, and they’ve worked out a plan. Instead of relaying the finished plan down to the team to put into action, the boss could approach them by pitching the vision and the goal, then asking the team to brainstorm an action plan for getting there.
“It makes members feel more valued and part of the team, instils a creative session and will most likely introduce better ideas on top of the original plan,” he says.
SEAT believes in helping people move forward by making it easier to get to the good stuff. To find out how SEAT Business could help your enterprise achieve more, visit seat.co.uk/business
