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Innovation is built on creativity. Creativity is what makes your work stand out. Creativity solves problems. It is open to taking risks. It provides better products and services that support the creation of better solutions for customers as well as businesses.
It makes work more enjoyable.
How can you bring more creativity to your work day? This article offers five simple ways to increase the creativity of your team.
1. Improve brainstorming sessions
2. Mentor team members
3. Communicate often
4. Celebrate small victories
5. Let people work independently
Reward creativity
Sometimes, it’s just not easy to feel creative.
To get better results, you must think creatively and use diverse ideas.
This often means looking for ways to encourage creativity in your team. This starts with the team feeling valued and taken seriously.
You won’t get creativity from them if they think that their ideas will be laughed at. They need to feel safe talking about things that are slightly out of the ordinary, and where they know their ideas will be valued.
How can you create that safe space for your team to be creative? These are five ideas to boost creativity in your team.
1. Increase brainstorming sessions
Brainstorming is a great method to unleash your team’s creativity.
Although brainstorming should be a creative activity it doesn’t always work out that way. If you don’t set the goal of being creative in your brainstorming sessions, then problems can arise.
This is a mindset issue, and it’s easy to overcome if your determination is sufficient!
Do not just hand out sticky notes. Instead, do some group exercises to warm people up and make sure they realize that it’s okay to make suggestions.
Start with a game such as word association. It’s easy to use and doesn’t require any tools. It helps people feel confident that they won’t be judged for what their words say.
Start the brainstorming
Start the brainstorming session as soon as you are ready. Define the problem clearly. Give clear instructions.
The goal of the session doesn’t have be to solve the problem. The goal of the session is to brainstorm some ideas that might work. The team can then examine these ideas in greater detail and offer suggestions for how to move forward.
Don’t judge ideas. This is the golden rule of brainstorming. Write down everything. Don’t be critical. Encourage ideas to flow. Telling someone that their idea won’t work is a way to shut down the conversation.
You never know when a crazy idea might spark an idea in another colleague, and you end up with something you can use.
2. Mentor team members
Sometimes, it’s not appropriate to be creative in a group. Instead, you can work with individuals to unlock their creativity.
Get to know your coworkers. It is easier to inspire and lead when you know what your colleagues are passionate about.
Talk to them as a friend. You can support their goals as a manager even if they aren’t directly under your supervision. There is a lot of freedom to support and develop individuals even in a matrix structure.
People who enjoy coming to work and feel supported and encouraged by their managers and team will be more creative.
3. Communicate often
Scientists from MIT’s Human Dynamics Laboratory discovered the best predictors for a team’s success is the level of energy and engagement among team members, outside of formal meetings.
Another Gallup study found quality relationships at work are a key factor in determining employee satisfaction.