The benefits of creativity are easy to identify but difficult to harness. We all want to feel engaged in our work, inspired to innovate and grow, and satisfied with our jobs. Tapping into creativity can give you and your company those things and much more.
The trick? Like most secret ingredients in every successful endeavor—creativity is hidden in plain sight but overlooked.
Estimated reading: 4 minutes
Creative workplaces are widespread by now, and companies from Google to Capital One Credit Union are embracing unconventional spaces and work styles while searching for the best ways to motivate their employees.
Workers are searching for inspirational quotes to spark their creativity; people are hunting for creative jobs or changing careers to find a more creative outlet.
And they are all right—creativity is worth the effort.
Organizational psychologists have identified creativity as vital for happiness in the workplace, job satisfaction and job fulfillment. But while the upsides of creativity in the workplace are widely acknowledged, exactly how to capture that creative spark is an ongoing venture.
The key to creativity—and how to infuse your company with it—is not to access some outside source of creative potential. The key is to realize that creativity already exists, and it’s inside every employee inside your company.
“The worst enemy to creativity is self-doubt.”
~Sylvia Plath
Many people get distracted by hunting for the perfect job. Likewise, companies get preoccupied with building elaborate offices. But creative thinking is already inside every employee and business. Creative solutions are just waiting to be discovered!
As Plath put it, self-doubt is the number one obstacle.
So the first mindset you need?
Believing that creativity is within you, your employees, and your organization like a secret ingredient in a recipe ... it exists even if you can’t quite name it.
Go Deeper: "27 Best Ways to Raise Emotional Intelligence in the Workplace."
From the company perspective, believing in creative potential means honoring individual’s strengths as they already are. It’s easy to fall into the trap of thinking that creativity is something you need to import.
A new software, a high-tech upgrade or an innovative business model might seem advantageous to boost the company’s creativity quotient. But as organizational psychologist and author of Originals: How Non-Conformists Move the World, Adam Grant said in his TED Talk: originality is not making something new, it is seeing something new in what you already have. Grant strives for “Vuja De,” — the opposite phenomenon of Deja Vu.
“Vuja De is when you look at something you've seen many times before and all of a sudden see it with fresh eyes,” says Grant.
Maybe increasing company creativity is not about building a game room but acknowledging that some workers are inspired by a playful tone. Maybe it’s less about buying a treadmill and more about encouraging activity if it helps employees to focus.
Creativity in the workplace is, by definition, beyond the usual. It is not black-and-white. It is not standard. Creativity honors individuality. So rather than searching for the next add-on to transform your company, trust in the creativity that’s already there and work from the inside out.
The Harvard Business School points out why creativity is important in business. However, it is also stressed that creativity is not enough. The creative process faces the difficult path to fruition when the excitement of new ideas wears off. If creativity isn't backed by solid planning and implementation, ideas are just that: ideas. This fact can be overlooked in companies.
From the individual’s perspective, creativity can be just as hard to harness as productivity. It can seem like a genetic trait that you either have or you don’t, or a limited commodity that only certain people possess. That thought process leads people to give up on themselves as “uncreative” or to constantly search for a different job/task/role, one that has more of that elusive creative aspect.
Who hasn’t scrolled through creative quotes trying to find inspiration or trolled through job postings when already employed? But how do you find fulfillment and be happy with yourself in the place you already are?
As with a company honoring its own individuals’ inherent creativity, an individual has to honor his own circumstances to see the creativity that’s already present. Believing that creativity resides within each individual is at the heart of new ideas and creative problem solving.
In an innovative essay debunking the “follow your passion” trend, Blinkist Founder Sebastian Klein advises workers to embrace a craftsman mindset when they feel creatively stuck.
“The craftsman’s mindset acknowledges that no matter what field you’re in, success is always about quality,” ... “Once you’re focused on the quality of the work you’re doing now rather than whether or not it’s right for you, you won’t hesitate to do what is necessary to improve it.”
Instead of looking outside your current task or job for a more creative outlet, “focus on refining the quality of what you do with the focus of a devoted craftsman. You’ll be well on your way to cultivating not only a satisfying career, but a new, rarer kind of practical passion built on commitment, mastery, and pride,” he writes.
Yes, there are outside sources for inspiration: idea boards, forums, literature, nature, everyday conversations and motivational speakers. The point is not to isolate oneself, it is to tap into the internal fire that those external sources happen to stoke. That is Emotional Intelligence.
Once you realize that there is an unlimited supply of creativity inside of you and that outside inspiration is just a mirror for what you already possess, it’s easier to overcome that self-doubt that Plath aptly identified as the enemy of creativity.
Business leaders who foster creativity in the workplace recognize its power—and profitability!
Creativity is indeed the secret ingredient for company success. It can enliven a workspace, skyrocket engagement, make employees feel fulfilled and put the business on an upward trajectory. Most importantly, creativity is not a completely new recipe. It is using what you have to improve the current reality.
“To be creative means to be in love with life,” said Indian spiritual guru and mystic Osho.
“You can be creative only if you love life enough that you want to enhance its beauty, you want to bring a little more music to it, a little more poetry to it, a little more dance to it.”
Creativity can enliven a workspace just like authentic leadership helps employees feel fulfilled and put the business on an upward trajectory. Most importantly, creativity is not a completely new recipe. It is using what you have to improve the current reality.
Creativity is that enhancement. It is the secret ingredient you already have in plain sight that can transform your current reality from plain sustenance to a recipe for success.
Related reading: "Why Emotional Intelligence Is Crucial in Business."
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