Why creativity is important for all teams

Creativity is central to organizational success

Creativity is crucial in responding to change, innovation, growth, re-structuring and challenges in the market or operating environment. Creativity in these situations is needed to enable new thoughts, connections and ideas to arise, and to avoid getting stuck in old and unhelpful patterns of working. 

Think of the sports team that has a set way of playing that has worked for them but who can’t adapt to other teams improving or using new techniques. A once successful team will steadily, or even rapidly, become second best.

Doing the same thing over and over - when it has been shown to be ineffective or even damaging - is a sign of something unhealthy going on in the team, organization or business. To unstick and move to a new, healthy and productive position requires curiosity, creativity and the generation of new ways of working and connecting with the client, customer or audience. 

The problem is that these processes – change, innovation, re-structuring – also make people anxious and that is not a state of mind in which creativity can be fostered. Some anxiety may be necessary in order to prompt the need for action, but too much is debilitating. 

My own research into the role of new technologies in working practices showed that, if anxieties are sufficiently managed, change can be engaged with creatively and flexibly. One quote from a participant sticks in my mind:

You can kind of connect in a freeing way and in a creative way with technology. Thinking about artists, Hockney using the iPad to do all those amazing things. There are people that can use technology in amazing ways and there is some element of choice in that and self-determination.

However, there was also evidence that often the opposite was true and people felt their creativity deadened in organizations that value certainty and control over fresh thinking and independence. This is supported by the work of Isobel Menzies Lyth who showed that the way organizations deal with anxiety can inhibit the capacity for creative thought and therefore the full development of the individual's understanding, knowledge and skills. 

Thus the individual feels helpless in the face of new or strange tasks or problems. 

A crucial task for leaders is therefore to create a working environment in which all members of the team are able to hold onto their creativity, have new ideas and express them. Sometimes the support of an organization consultant is helpful in creating and sustaining these conditions. This will only be temporary until the organization is able to find its own creativity and achieve its goals or address the challenges. 

The use of creative methods, including drawing, photography, poetry, is one way of freeing up people to think again and grapple with the uncertainties of change in innovative and productive ways.