Establishing a successful business requires a lot of leadership qualities, but in particular, boosting and maintaining creativity in your employees is a must. Workplaces thrive on innovative thinking and upward growth. However, sparking creativity in your team can be a challenge, especially around the holidays when minds are a bit more distracted.
To get your employees thinking more outside the box, we’ve collected a handful of tips to encourage creative thinking and new, unique ideas.
Allow failure to take place
The old saying goes “you can’t succeed if you don’t fail.” You want to set a tone that allows for mistakes and failure, which are generally necessary for a road to success. Let your team know that you don’t expect perfection and trial and error situations are to be expected. LinkedIn advises, “If you decide that a business problem is worth solving, then commit to being wrong until you’re right. If there was some shortcut or obvious path to the solution, it already would’ve been traveled.”
Acknowledge success & innovation
When your employees commit to their ideas, celebrate their experimental thinking. Even if they fail, let them know that you appreciate their suggestions. Take notice when those on your team speak up and attempt to lead a project in a productive direction. Acknowledgement and validation are greats motivator to continue forward thinking.
Let anyone lead and speak up
Even if you are the manager, let others take the lead, no matter their position or title. Encourage those in lower positions to share their thoughts and make their own contributions. You may find that people at different stages have varying degrees of insights and creativity.
Allow different formats
If you want your employees to be innovative, you have to be as well. Let them present their ideas in different formats and approaches. Sitting in the past and only allowing one way of presentation will only set you back. If an employee is more artistically orientated, allow them to draw their ideas, rather than using a deck, proposal, or formal slideshow. This will promote an open and encouraging environment where more people are likely to come forward with their thoughts.