Are you creative? There’s a mistaken belief that very few people are creative and that the rest of us poor plods couldn’t come up with an original idea if it were served to us on a platter. Quotes like: “Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower” (Steve Jobs) are pure rubbish. Everyone has ideas.
Some years ago, inspired, perhaps, by Toyota’s performance-improvement suggestion scheme, a group of eight colleagues agreed that we would each think of one idea a day to do something at work better, faster, cheaper, more easily, more enjoyably or more efficiently.
We agreed not to share any of the ideas, but just wrote them down and put them in a sealed envelope on our boss’s desk every morning, having explained the process to him with the first batch.
It only took until the next weekly meeting for it all to come to a grinding halt. The boss, a genuinely nice, open-minded person, pointed to the 40 sheets of paper in front of him and asked: “What am I supposed to do with these? At this rate we’ll have 2,000 a year to process. We won’t have time to do any other work.”
This is not uncommon. People who have lots of ideas sooner or later get the message that the behaviour is career limiting. “We are an innovative, creative company” tends to rank in credibility terms with “people are our most valued asset” and “the cheque is in the mail”.
In most organisations the concept of creativity is used a bit like a club to beat people with. Being labelled “creative” is be code for unfocused, disruptive, undisciplined, rebellious, unreliable, and not worth paying much mind.
People who have lots of ideas — and who hasn’t? — and who put them forward may even be seen as interfering with getting actual work done. If you have a good idea, chances are you think that if you do make a suggestion it will either be dismissed or you won’t be given the credit.
People stop trying. Or they don’t start. Talking to a Japanese businessman, where lifetime employment is still common, revealed why people in western jobs don’t try too hard to generate new ideas and suggestions. He asked how much effort we gave to our work. Did we give 100 per cent — everything we had, all the time, non-stop — or did we give something less?
The uncomfortable truth is that only the most trusting and naïve give everything. We hold something back and we work on developing transferable skills that we can hopefully use when the company turns its back on us. And we keep our good ideas to ourselves because they might be needed somewhere else.
But, our Japanese acquaintance said, if you know that when you have nothing more to give you will continue to be treated honourably, and continue to be rewarded for what you have done in the past, you will give your very best.
Image by Richard Winchell, CC 2.0
