Creativity and Innovation in the Workplace

Senior Strategic Partner, Charles Parnell, brings home the concept of Creativity that leads to Innovation. Enjoy this insightful look at this week’s Power Idea.

One of the discourses in the workplace is how to capture creativity and innovation. They are central to organizational performance. As the knowledge-based, interconnected global marketplace continues to move ahead with warp speed, it will become increasingly critical to be competitive. This will require different approaches and strategies to address and solve problems. Creativity and innovation will provide the underpinning for action. Creativity is defined as the mental and social process (conscious or unconscious) of generating ideas and concepts. Innovation is the successful exploration of new ideas or the outcome of the creative process.

The types of innovations are divided into product, service, and organizational (procedural or process). The most common are market-led or market-push innovations. The others are technology-led, for which markets must be developed. An overarching principle for organizations is to expect to attract and retain superior talent. Hopefully, this talent will tangibly contribute to a creative and innovative work environment. Here are some leadership practices that warrant consideration to foster creative and innovative core behaviors for your employees:

* Problem identification and resolution
* Tolerance for risk-taking
* Tolerance for ambiguity
* Integration of different disciplines
* Tolerance for employees communicating new ideas to others
* Tolerance for employees’ ideas that do not appear readily effective
* Tolerance for comfort with the notion of “no right answer”
* Awareness of diverse thinking and how to incorporate this thinking into the teams
* Awareness of different behavioral styles
* Hiring and working with people of different ethnic backgrounds
* Encouragement of intellectual conflict within the workgroup

We now have concrete evidence that organizations that embrace the foregoing will be competitive in their markets now and in the future. They will increase the prospects of attracting and retaining superior talent. This will be a key component to their success.