Lexington, KY - Our city is the midst of a transformation: nurturing creative talent to cultivate a knowledge-based industry. What can you do to foster the creativity of your teams? Research has shown that many elements are required to facilitate high-performance creative teams.
Selection and processes
To begin with, you must have a team with an appropriate and diverse mix of knowledge and skills. After you have created the team, it must establish norms, or rules, used to run meetings, make decisions and get tasks accomplished. A critical balance must be met regarding the amount of time spent tuning the team processes with the amount of time actually working on the tasks. Teams that spend little or no time developing processes frequently become dysfunctional or suffer from low productivity.
Culture and leader behavior
As your teams operate, do the members feel it is emotionally safe to bring up innovative ideas or concerns, especially safety concerns? Do you as a leader accept creative ideas and concerns or minimize - or even punish - them?
So-called whistleblowers are the extreme in this regard. Take the example of a June 2008 memo written by Matthew Lee, a Lehman Brothers senior vice president, regarding possible improper valuation of risky assets. Within weeks, Lee was dismissed, reportedly as part of a broad layoff, and in September 2008, Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy.
One of the most important elements in a creative team is how you value conflict and the emergence of controversial ideas. These ideas are critical to breakthrough innovations. Imagine one of your teams having the task of designing a new cell phone. A team member raises his hand and blurts out, "Hey I've got an idea; let's just put one button on the front! The rest of the phone will be a sleek, blank glass with a small hole for the ear speaker."
Would the other members of your team look at this individual as if he or she had two heads? It may be a good litmus test for your tolerance of paradigm-shifting thought.
Depending on the phase of a team's work, a balance is necessary between openness to new ideas and marching down a path with a chosen solution. As design teams converge from all directions for a given creation, the number and scope of new ideas should be dramatically curtailed.
New teams must be given time to create a bond, develop a good working relationship and share knowledge related to their task. In order for teams to remain vibrant, both individual and team self-development must occur. Studies have revealed that self-development is a key attribute to maintaining a high-performance team.
Team members often are assigned specific tasks, with reports and proposals brought back to the team. How often do you let the team make decisions versus you as the leader making the decisions?
I frequently see individuals who are reluctant to cede control of group or individual decisions. Fear of making the wrong decision or losing control of the group drives this behavior. Good communication in a safe environment is central to working on this issue. If you, as the leader, communicate pertinent information from outside the group that they may not be aware of, you will go a long way toward alleviating some of these fears. Fear will hold you captive. Working to move beyond the fear brings a paradigm of an expansive universe of solutions, adding depth to your group's creativity.
Continuing in this line of thinking, we come to the topic of mistakes. They should be evaluated and honored. Making a mistake means the culture allows individuals and teams to take risks. Conversely, if mistakes are punished, you will reinforce behaviors of fealty or loyalty.
Leading
How do you inspire and motivate your team? How deep is the knowledge of your teams' tasks? Again, this is a balance. If you know little about your teams' tasks, members will question your ability to lead. If you have intimate knowledge about the teams' tasks, you may have an urge to micromanage. Respect and honor each person's abilities and contribution to the team output.
Finally, does your team have adequate resources to do its job? If not, what steps are you taking to gather the needed resources or how are you assisting to reduce the resource requirements? Collaborating with your team in this regard will show that you care about their well-being and success rather than allowing them to flounder with inadequate support.
A review of your leadership
If you are unsure as to how well you are fostering creativity, a review may be in order. Take this list of elements and create a survey for yourself and your team members. Create a scale from one to five for each element. Take the survey yourself and have team members take the survey. The results may be surprising - in terms of perceived differences between you and team members and in the consistent views of your strengths and weaknesses.
Joel DiGirolamo heads the firm Turbocharged Leadership and can be found on the Web at www.turbochargedleadership.com.