Leading Creativity: The Role of Openness and Curiosity

So how does someone ‘lead’ Creativity?

What mental, mindset muscle are you trying to cultivate, grow, and support?

If you have been tracking along with this series, then you won’t be surprised when I tell you that you can’t have Creativity without first being Open and then being Curious.

Sure someone can come up with new ideas, but in my experience if they don’t have Openness and Curiosity as predecessor mindsets, then those ideas either won’t get acted on or they wont get shared with anyone.

Which makes sense, if you think about it. What type of Creative ideas or solutions will come from a close minded, know-it-all mindset? Think they will come up with solutions that would help their current prospect move past an obstacle? Think they will try different solutions to overcome low email open rates?

No – not at all. To me, there is no real way to be Creative without first being Open and Curious.

How to Lead Creativity by Example

Back to the original question – how do you lead Creativity?

The first step is – of course – be Creative yourself. Be able to ideate and come up with new tactics, strategies, ideas that can be tested out to achieve different and greater results.  Managers can try and get away with the ‘do this such and such a thing’ even though they aren’t or don’t do it. Managers say, “this is the way that we have always done it.” Managers push and try to control actions to get a result. Leaders say, ‘here is what I am doing, you can do it as well.’

How good are your Creative, problem-solving skills? Can you come up with new ideas, or figure out how to research solutions if they aren’t coming to mind easily?

Second is to foster an environment for Creativity. There are two parts to build a group that thinks outside of the box: Don’t kill their Creativity, and push their Creativity.

Learning from a Misstep: An Experience in Suppressed Creativity

I once worked for a small company, where the bootstrapped CEO had a very Creative, problem-solving mind. He is the one who, early in my professional and leadership career, taught me what it truly means to do ‘whatever it takes’ to try and close a deal. I learned my tenacious and Curious ideation from him as a way to overcome obstacles.

His problem, though, was that he didn’t think anyone else in the company was able to come up with Creative solutions like him. We would have a weekly pipeline meeting where everyone would bring their print outs of their transaction pipelines and we would go through them one at a time for a status update. If the deal was stuck or behind the deadline, they would offer up their suggestions. But since the owner didn’t think they had the ‘right’ answer for solutions, he would jump in each time and just tell them what the Creative solution was, give orders, and then send everyone on their way.

After a few weeks of this, the team would show up to the meeting with their printouts, but not suggestions. They had learned that their ideas weren’t good so why even try. They would just sit there waiting for him to tell them the answers to the test. Another couple of weeks later he realized the trend, came to me and said “The team isn’t coming with ideas and I am having to do all the thinking for them. Why can’t they come up with solutions?”

I told him that it was his fault (in as nice a way I could tell that to my boss) – he had taught them that they weren’t Creative enough, so they stopped trying. It’s not fun to come up with ideas just to get them shot down each and every time. The solution was to encourage them to come up with ideas, support their ideas, and let them try (and even fail, if needed) so they can get better and being Creative and trust themselves more and more.

By the way, he didn’t like that or agree with that assessment. He felt we should fire them all and he would just do it all himself. That company ended up going out of business.

Encouraging Creativity: Become a ‘Yes’ Leader

Make sure you aren’t being a negative leader, crushing the Creative hopes of your team. No idea is a bad idea. Now…that doesn’t mean you/they should try every idea. But never stop the idea, brainstorming flow.

The other part is to push the Creativity. Once you have shown them they can trust you – that you are a YES leader (‘Yes – that’s a good idea.’ ‘Yes – we should try that.’ ‘Yes – give that a shot!’), then it’s about pushing them to come up with more, new, different ideas for every situation.

It’s about bringing your team together so they can push each other to be Creative. It’s about celebrating it, again with the YES mode. “I have no idea if that will work, but let’s try it! Always worth a shot.” Its about holding yourself back from being the thinker for the group.

Where can you be an encourager of Creativity?

Reigniting the Creative Spark

How can you reignite that spark that everyone had in them at one point in their life? Could have been way back when they were a child – like we all were – making up characters for stories, stories and scenarios with our toys, games to play by themselves or with others, adventures they went on in their mind, creative solutions for avoiding eating that one dinner they hate (I was lucky to have hungry dogs and big napkins to hide food in).

And if that isn’t a strong skill for you – that’s okay, if can be developed. Remember – If you are Open and Curious, you can grow your Creativity.

Conclusion

If you want a great example of an amazing Creative person (when it comes to business – especially marketing) who is the master at ideation, check out Bob Sager’s website as well as follow him on LinkedIn. He has taught me so many things – not just actual solutions, but how to think in a way that leads to Creativity and solutioning.