The Mandate: Be Creative be Innovative

The mandate:  Be creative – be innovative.  You have 20 minutes at 3:00 PM Tuesdays and Thursdays to free your mind, free your anxieties and create.

Do you think that’s a good schedule?  Without naming names, I know of school systems that mandated creativity at specific times of day – and I know of companies that allow their key employees (only those specially selected) to be creative only 10% of their time.

I love this quote:  “Leaders who order their employees to be more innovative without first investing in organizational fitness are like casual joggers who order their bodies to run a marathon.  It won’t happen, and the experience is likely to cause a great deal of pain.”    Safi Bahcall, Loonshots:  How to Nurture Crazy Ideas that Win Wars, Cure Diseases and Transform Industries.

We’ve become so rigid in our structure – everything on a timeline.  Kids are mandated to rush from one class to another with almost no time to breathe in between each class period.  I recently visited a high school where the Principal stood out in the hall encouraging the students to run so they wouldn't it be late for their next class.

No time for dreaming.  No time for friendly conversations.  No time for the epiphany to emerge.

The easiest way for new ideas (creativity and innovation) to merge is to have idle time – in the shower, on the toilet, walking in the woods, on the staircase – and/or to be chatting and “what iffing” with others.

Time without the brain doing other seemingly more important things.  But not just time.  Space.  Space to think.  Space to chat with others.  Space to play.

Some organizations are smart enough to create these spaces.  It might be a few coaches and chairs clustered together in a corner space near the elevators.  It might be as one company did it – an extra wide extra spacious staircase so if a couple of people want to step aside and chat they have the run to do so without interrupting the flow of others walking by.

But most do not.  They create boxes called cubicles separating people from each other. Furthermore people are discouraged from “wasting time” by having personal conversations or “fooling around.”

When speaking at a conference about my research on Managing for Creativity, I mentioned that I had been told by several CEOs that their managers stifled good ideas that should have “bubbled up.”   In the audience was a retired C-Level executive at one of our biggest High-Tech Companies.  She said I was being unfair to managers, since they were in the middle of the sandwich having to meet the objectives told to them by those above them – and having to satisfy the needs/wants of their staff.  That’s true.

That’s only one of many reasons why I think encouraging and obtaining creativity in the workplace requires a major cultural change within the organization championed by the CEO him/herself. 

The mandate has to change.  The culture has to change.  The environment has to change.  The timing has to change – and only the C-Suite can bring about that change.