This Is How You Can Motivate Your Team Members To Be Creative

Creativity cannot be taught, it must come naturally. For those who are creative, there’s no such word called ‘force’ that occurs to them. Even creative bosses never employ coercion to get their employees in their creative mode, for that proves flak! It is basically an allowance that they exercise to help employees develop their latent skills. Both creative thinking skills and expertise constitute vital ‘raw materials’ that employees are expected to have. But there’s something else that must be infused into the world of creativity- motivation, and that too intrinsic and not extrinsic. While research shows that several socio-psychological factors come into play concerning workplace creativity like financial incentives, it’s basically an amalgamation of all that works wonders. The following factors can pave the way for employees to reinvigorate their creative streaks.

Give Them The Freedom They Need

What is important to note is that employees must think of innovative ways to accomplish a job. And that is why they must always be given the freedom to choose how they should do the work or solve the challenge.

It is the goal that they should identify and then find the most appropriate path and process to reach there. The more the extent of external intervention, the greater are the chances of diminishing their creativity. You need to involve and inspire your team members from inside the team. As a manager, try to learn micromanagement.

Find The Best Candidate

Finding the exact candidate for the job who has the best of skills and expertise suited to the purpose is the key. That way, employees will naturally drift towards creativity.

As a manager, you must check to see that they pay attention to what makes employees interested and excited, and definitely motivated. Rather than channelizing them to do something out of strict orders, it makes sense to let employees gravitate towards those areas of the job where they can harness their latent skills. It is in reality the blend of vocation and avocation that will reap in fruits!

Bring Diversity Into The Team

Half the job is done when a team is constructed well. In other words, diversity (for both skills and experience) among team members will help get the job done faster. There will be a greater likelihood of seeing the team goal from varied angles, and the willingness to stick by each other through the thick and thin will also increase. A common mistake is the temptation of building homogenous teams. Little do people realize that it erodes the purpose altogether and the ‘diversity of perspectives’ is killed right at the beginning. Similar mindsets can never work towards tackling challenges.

Choose The Right Resources

Time and money are the most precious resources available. Time can work in favor of creativity if that is imposed externally. Often fake deadlines produce zero results simply because the ‘buffering’ and unnecessary pressure created eliminates goodwill, trust, mutual respect, and naturally, creativity. Employee burnouts are real and mustn’t be ignored.

To get the best results, devoting time is essential. How on earth can you generate an idea if you don’t have time at your disposal? Coupled with that are a few ‘tangible’ resources too, like materials, money, and so on. Of course, organizations cannot procure these limitlessly. But tightening the resources also adversely affects creativity.

Get Support From The Organization

Employees don’t wish to leave an organization that values and supports them. When they feel they are aided and encouraged by their supervisor to perform better or their goals and efforts are rightly recognized, acknowledged, and rewarded, there’s no chance that they can think of quitting their workplaces. Organizations must have well-defined values that boost creativity.

Not many know this but sometimes extrinsic awards like money or even contingency rewards cause more problems for creativity. Basically, financial rewards are good till a certain point as they are necessary, but if that’s what is given time and again as a reward – there’s every chance that the organization would try and control employees, forget encouraging them. Open communication brings stability and positivity to the workplace.

Killing creativity has become quite normal, even without people realizing it. Perhaps, it requires an honest delving on the part of all such folks who believe in creativity if it’s worth giving in to regular, mundane schedules that fail to yield any positive result.