Starting a business is the ultimate form of creativity. In exploring a new opportunity, you get to build every aspect of your business from scratch, from the product to the culture to the customer experience.
The trouble is, all too often, entrepreneurs end up building organisations that handicap the very creativity they need to be successful, says inc.com.
Here are some changes you can make today to bring creativity back to your culture.
Let Employees Work Remotely
Let’s face it: Your office is not where everyone does their best work, not even you. And while offices are great for building comaradery, they can also be rather distracting.
Working remotely doesn’t always have to mean being in different cities. As Inc. contributor Jason Fried points out, “Remote just means you’re not in the office from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. all day long.” His company, 37 Signals, has built an entire culture around people who work from anywhere. His latest book, Remote, will inspire you to think differently about how your own team does its best work.
Ditch the Meetings
The worst part about meetings is that they’re incredibly easy to add. Even if you make an agenda, the number will only go up as you grow in size. As a result, little creative thinking will get done during the day.
You’ll start to notice people takings their evenings and weekends to do their best work, when they know they can dive in without distractions. The 30 or 60 minutes in between meetings won’t allow them to really get things done, so they’ll end up wasting time playing email ping-pong.
Try to cut meetings down to one daily standup. Even if the entire organisation has to dial in, it shouldn’t last more than 20 minutes, if it’s done right. This will keep everyone on track and then free them up to use their day as they want.
Department Goals
Department goals often help managers more than employees. Generally, you’ll end up wasting valuable hours setting new goals and then even more time asking why you didn’t hit them.
Worse still, each department relies on resources they don’t control and departments they’re not a part of to reach their goals. This can result in teams signing up for work they were unaware of, which can lead to arguments about whose goals are more important.
Instead, try focusing the entire company around two or three mega goals and enable them to figure out how they accomplish them. This helps everyone be creative while making it clear what they’re in for.
Give Plenty of Feedback
At the end of the day, most people want to do amazing work. They want to surpass expectations, especially their own. Yet a lot of companies make feedback a formal process, waiting until the end of the month, quarter, or year to share how they actually feel.
Creative cultures thrive on timely, spontaneous feedback. Whether it’s good or bad, feedback helps teams raise their own expectations. It’s the fuel you need to ignite a creative culture. And who doesn’t want one of those?
