The Creative Organization

Somewhere along the way, some guy with a paintbrush took the title 'creative' and left everyone else thinking they weren't.

Of course that's not the way things are. Individuals bring creativity to everything they do. The question really becomes, "Is your organization ready for a creative workforce?"

Unleashing the creativity trapped in any organization provides payback in productivity, innovation, customer satisfaction, stability and unique advantage. It can also lead to wandering, missteps, waste and frustration.

An artist given 'creative freedom' knows well the history and rules of his trade and then consciously moves to bend or break with tradition to illustrate his vision. If the rules are broken and bent just so...the result can be masterful. If history and artistic principles are ignored entirely...the result will likely be chaotic and unapproachable. When you give an artist creative freedom, you expect the former.

In the same way giving your organization creative freedom requires a strategic goal framework for individuals to work towards as well as mechanisms for measuring success. Bursts of creativity can begin to percolate upwards in the organization at the same time larger, more ambitious organizational and product development is driven from above.

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