“Creativity is putting your imagination to work, and it’s produced the most extraordinary results in human culture.” – Ken Robinson

In today’s winning companies, leaders look for every advantage as possible. Those leaders of creative and innovative organizations know how to take advantage of the opportunities they have in their employees. These resources are of using the creativity and innovation your employees have within them for generating greater breakthrough results.

Creativity is very important to organizations that want to solve new problems, fix current ones and be innovative in their industry. Bringing out the best in your employees for higher performance is what leaders typically want and need to do. So, how do you bring out the best creativity in your employees you may think works the same way? This is not necessarily true.

Various factors are required for creativity and innovation to take place. You cannot command or demand creativity to take place in an instant. It is not an overnight development.

“The role of a creative leader is not to have all the ideas; it’s to create a culture where everyone can have ideas and feel that they’re valued.” – Ken Robinson

Ask for ideas from your employees. Make sure everyone on your team knows that they ARE paid to think!

Encourage Creative Environments

“You can’t just give someone a creativity injection. You have to create an environment for curiosity and a way to encourage people and get the best out of them.” – Ken Robinson

If you want your team to be more successful, then you need to create a creative work environment. By allowing your employees to generate, create and produce results, you need to give them to room to breathe and be themselves with you giving them the resources they require to do the job.

Ask new employees immediately for their ideas. This puts them in the position to jump right in after getting to know how the team works. Having the right culture with the right employees can help you break down problems and bring your designs to the next level.

Empowering Your Employees

“Don’t tell people how to do things, tell them what to do and let them surprise you with their results.” – George S. Patton

Letting your employees generate, create and produce the breakthrough results needed for the assignment they are given allows them the opportunity to use their own creative thinking skills to work on the problem, challenge or difficulty themselves. By doing so, you put trust in your employees.

Brainstorming Sessions

Allowing your employees to brain storm on their own, let’s them be more open with ideas flowing, and for them to choose the best ideas without any judgments or criticisms from others. In conducting a brainstorm session, each work team can be themselves and effectively… Afterwards, generating practical action plans for arriving at their proposed solutions helps your employees increase their confidence in…

You need a plentiful supply of new ideas in order to choose the best ones for the solution you and your team works with. Set realistic goals to motivate your employees or let them set their own goals. Acknowledge their efforts to solve the problem, challenge or difficulty they are working on. As the leader, be open-minded about creativity and the work your employees conduct. Allow them to speak up with regard to their ideas and how it will help.

Encourage Positive Morale in the Workplace

Giving positive feedback or criticism can be in the form of helping your employees improve their creative project or to help either with generating a better idea or even combining ideas to build on each other for greater results.

When faced with a time crunch or nearing a deadline, working long hours, feed your employees! A lot can be said about ordering in a couple pizzas to help get ideas flowing. This is a recognition telling your employees you really appreciate their work.

As a leader, making sure that your employees generate and create the right solutions to the right problem ultimately boost your company’s bottom line.

“The leadership instinct you are born with is the backbone. You develop the funny bone and the wishbone that go with it.” – Elaine Agathe