Light the creative spark in your team

Preetinder Kaur

Creative products are the result of team work. Team leaders and managers need to master the art as well science to unlock creativity in their team. Artists often cannot predict the outcome as clear as the manager can predict for their teams.  So the manager should have the right skills to bring out the creativity and build ground rules for their team to explore creative ideas.

“Well begun is half done”, so before starting a project,   ask the following: 

n Listen. Let others speak without interrupting.

n Be careful not to dominate the meeting.

n Challenge others reverentially by asking questions.

n Speak from your own practice. Use “I” rather than “they” or “we.”

With mutually settled ground rules in place, you’ll discover that your team is more relaxed in meetings, and that they share more creative ideas.

Commit to memory the phrase "yes, and..."

Let’s assume someone shares a design plan in a meeting. You actually like their idea. It’s got a lot going for it. Though, you’d like it if their design had more color. So you say:

I like your design idea, but it needs more color.

Now, that ‘But’ is what is going to make the whole difference in your compliment. Now this positive comment has turned into a drama. The dreadful word ‘But’ ruins the idea given by the team member, because when we say ‘but’ we negate everything said before it. 

So, Let’s be more positive by removing the word “but” from your vocabulary. In the example above, you could have said:

“I really like your design idea, and I’d love to make it even more colorful.”

Give everyone a chance to share

In a team, sure, some of the ideas will be terrible, but that’s okay. The aim is to give a chance for everyone to share. And chances are, there will be a gem in there somewhere.

A better idea is to ask everyone in the team to bring back three solutions—no matter how good or bad. After ten minutes of alone time, everyone comes back to share their three best solutions. Make sure everyone’s three ideas are shared before any of the ideas are analyzed.

Keep an eye on talent

It’s always not easy and equally crucial to have right people in your team.

To create innovation, actually needs, collaborating with experts within your organization, including tech, design, marketing, and finance. This will help you access collective intelligence and make informed decisions.

Add gusto factors

Making collaboration fun, and celebrate completions before moving on is the best way to energizing the whole team and bring synergy for the next project. 

Go Be INSPIRED

Now you know how to bring out the creative best in your team, go do it! You’ll be amazed at the change it makes to your team dynamic when everyone gets a chance to be heard and share their ideas.

Take comprehensive notes on ideas shared

Taking thorough observations ensures that you capture every idea that’s shared. This is important for two reasons:

• It shows participants that every idea is important. Good ideas are often built on the back of bad ideas, so anything you can do to encourage sharing is helpful.
• It prevents good ideas from getting lost. The best ideas may be shared then passed over for many different reasons. 
• You can’t facilitate a meeting and take notes, so make sure you’ve appointed a note taker. Ideally, this is someone who won’t be contributing to the meeting.

Provide great management

Take care of the vividness of your people and do everything you can to remove barriers to high performance. Avoid being too autocratic and allow time for the team to weigh in on decisions. Help build team connections across the organization. Give credit where credit is due and recognize team performance as well as individuals.