Use Structure to Make Creativity a Company Priority

Trying to promote creativity and innovation in your organization? It’s not enough to simply hire people who demonstrate creativity during the interview process, says a recent post on human resources consulting blog HR Bartender.

If organizations want to encourage creativity at every level of the business, the author says, they must figure out how to put some structure around it:

• Develop a model that walks employees through the three stages of the creative process: assessment and analysis, brainstorming, and implementation.

• Teach new hires the company’s creative process during orientation and onboarding. Not only will that provide new employees with a framework, but it also sends the message that company leaders value creativity so much that they have adopted a process to encourage it.

• Give managers the tools to encourage creativity and train them on how to deal with the ideas—good and bad—that come out of the creativity process. The worst thing the company can do is tell candidates that creativity is important during interviews, promote a creative process during onboarding and then not support it in the daily operation.