Let Your Creative People Fly

03/05/07

Creative people. It may be tough to work with them, but many companies couldn’t survive without them. They can be volatile, temperamental, arrogant, eccentric . . . and key players in your company’s success. HR people can help managers nurture their most creative people’s talents and accommodate their quirkiness for the benefit of all. Here are talking points for an informal coaching session or more formal training.

Be Descriptive, Not Prescriptive
Creative people chafe at being told how to do things. That offends their egos and may bias their thinking. Perceptive managers are content just to describe the preferred results and let their innovators take over from there. For example:

“Rearrange our warehouse layout so one person can take inventory in less than two hours.”

“Simplify the merchandise return form so it takes less than one minute to complete.”

As General George S. Patton said, “If you tell people where to go, but not how to get there, you’ll be amazed at the results.”

Be Tolerant and Patient
People can’t produce winning ideas on demand; ingenuity flourishes at its own pace. Your most prolific thinkers may lie fallow for a time, but that doesn’t mean they’ve gone to seed. There are bound to be slumps and dry spells.

Henry Ford once had a consultant evaluate his company’s operations. The consultant expressed concern about one laid-back executive. “Every time I go by his office, he’s just sitting there with his feet on his desk,” the expert said. “He’s wasting your money.” Ford wasn’t impressed. “That man once had an idea that saved us millions of dollars,” he said. “At the time, I believe his feet were planted right where they are now."

Show Them the Money
A lucrative suggestion system can be a powerful motivator for people to think in new and different ways. No matter how small your business, you can offer some form of financial or quasi-financial rewards. A few possibilities:

A fixed dollar award or a percent of the suggestion’s first-year savings.

Tickets to popular sports events, dinner for two at an upscale restaurant, or theme park passes.

Gift certificates for your own company’s products or those of local merchants.

Additional vacation time.

Praise, Praise, and Praise
Your most creative people are good, and they know it. While they’ll appreciate money, they also thrive on recognition. Validate their talent with plaques, profiles in the company newsletter, appreciation dinners, or other ego-stroking devices that supplement financial rewards.

Don’t Overrate Teamwork
Don’t force-feed teamwork to talented introverts. Those who prefer to work by themselves might best be left alone. Transplant shock might destroy their creative bent.

A manufacturer discovered that one of the most frequent suggestion award winners was a stock clerk who worked in the warehouse. He regularly won several thousand dollars a year for his ideas about redesigning or simplifying small parts. Because he saw them and handled them daily, he was in an excellent position to think of ways to produce them easier, faster, or cheaper. Pulling him out of that job and forcing him to work on a team would have eliminated the stimuli that kept his creative juices flowing.

Keep Policies and Procedures Flexible
Policies and procedures should be flexible enough to permit employees who do relatively unstructured and creative work to work from home occasionally, hold brainstorming sessions off company premises, and generally enjoy enough autonomy and independence to disconnect from the traditional (and often stifling) workplace environment. That lets their spirits and their thoughts roam free.