12 Ways to Build Creativity in Your Organisation

Written by Helen Shale, Clinical Hypnotherapist & Master Life Coach

Helen Shale heals toxic workplaces, and individuals who experience significant anxiety and stress in unwell organisations. Synthesising 25 years of knowledge and experience as an internal communications specialist and now clinical hypnotherapist she applies 'Connection Engineering', to enable employees at all levels to feel valued and engaged.

Does the frustration of “just good enough” ideas and the drama that goes with them make you want to hand everything over to AI? Are you tired of incessant fighting between the design and production teams and yearning for a tech takeover? These are symptoms of behaviours and systemic issues that are costing your business, leading to unrealised opportunities and returns. An impeded creative process just exposes them.

Here’s how to change that. In this article, you will find 12 tips to help employees who feel stuck in a ‘rinse and repeat’ cycle get excited and contribute their best ideas.

What is a culture of creativity?

AI offers a great hand up, but it doesn’t generate award-winning concepts and fresh energy without the human touch. In his book Creativity and Culture in Organizations, Saadi Lahlou, Chair in Social Psychology at the London School of Economics, recognises that creativity relates to the individual, whereas innovation applies to the organisational systems that support it. However, organisations often regard creatives as ‘disruptive troublemakers’. This creates a ‘double bind’ because a successful creative culture requires psychological safety. Individuals need to feel they have the permission and support to be bold, explore, brainstorm, and evolve new ideas in order to thrive.

The first step is believing it’s possible. The second step is evaluating your organisation objectively. In reality, you have everything you need right now to make it happen, it’s just about finding a new approach. You have your ultimate resource: your people.

What causes ‘creativity shutdown’?

Individuals become less willing to engage, and organisations stop learning for many reasons. Heavy workloads, deadlines, and unreasonable customer demands, particularly when driven by a purely transactional rather than partnership focus, consume all available energy. This is further compounded by the level of management experience, expertise, confidence, and courage needed to raise the bar on what constitutes ‘acceptable risk’ related to ‘initiating change’.

The five types of ‘creativity stagnation’

Creativity blocks and stagnation manifest in various ways, each with its own causes and impacts. These types include:

1. Need to know

The full context isn’t made available to those originating ideas, particularly the operational ‘must-haves’ for the development of the final product, process, and market realities. Creatives feel hamstrung and undermined.

2. Fear

People don’t feel sufficiently safe to raise ideas. Having the courage to present ‘out there’ ideas is hard. They worry about how they will be regarded by their peers and managers. Conversation is stilted rather than free-flowing, and the ability to brainstorm and resolve challenges as a team is significantly constrained.

3. Relationship failure

There is insufficient trust in the room for people to offer up their best ideas for evaluation and evolution. Stronger personalities can also overrule others and/or claim others’ ideas as their own to superiors.

4. Agendas 

Individuals higher up the chain only support ideas that are fully aligned with their own worldview. Truly innovative ideas are often dismissed, taken over, or ‘strangled’ deliberately over time. Decision-makers need to be part of the process.

5. What’s the point?

Participants experience commitment fatigue. They’ve made the effort in the past, but there are no structures to enable the realisation of new ideas, nor is there senior management willingness to truly embrace and develop something new.

Signs and symptoms of ‘creative blockage’

A heavy dependence on old products and services in their original form indicates an immature creative pipeline. While there needs to be a ‘fast fail’ process to minimise resource waste and unnecessary expense, truly innovative ideas can also be discarded too quickly rather than explored and evolved.

Frequent clashes between design and production or other disciplines due to a lack of mutual understanding of roles and processes is another sign of creative blockage. This issue becomes amplified when teams are under pressure managing their current workload. Originators think differently; however, they are also fully capable of embracing production challenges and parameters, as long as they are clearly communicated from the outset.

Failing to recognise different personalities and how they are best supported is likely to lead to high staff turnover, where valuable institutional knowledge walks out the door. Also, check the personalities of the gatekeepers, are they focusing on problems or potential?

12 tips on how to build a culture of creativity

Creativity comes through individuals, while innovation is the organisational capability to turn those ideas into profitable products and services. Here are 12 tips for achieving both:

1. Understand the creative process and the need for psychological safety

Originating ideas is hard. Creatives need information, understanding, headspace, and time to initiate, evolve, and review. They need to feel that they can safely seek early-stage feedback and receive constructive criticism without fear of potential humiliation.

2. Have the right people in the right places

Recognise that true creativity and innovation require free thinkers as well as pragmatists at every stage. Tailor the team to ensure individuals complement each other and cover the necessary skills, experience, knowledge, and capability.

3. Review your innovation systems and processes

Use systems or processes to capture and evaluate ideas systematically. Each stage needs a team fully briefed on background and objectives, with sufficient time allocated for careful consideration. Incorporate a ‘fast fail’ approach if challenges cannot be overcome.

4. Encourage authentic relationships across disciplines

Conflicts are most often based on misunderstandings of roles, responsibilities, and the timing required for each phase. Regular brainstorming sessions, hackathons, and idea-sharing platforms bring diverse perspectives together to spark fresh thinking.

5. Empower employees

Find ways to give employees greater autonomy in how they approach their work. Let them explore unconventional solutions without excessive oversight. They will then feel a sense of ownership and trust and be more motivated to promote their best ideas.

6. Create a flexible work environment

Allow employees to be more imaginative and focus on the project rather than strict rules or processes, within an agreed framework. This may include a designated and dedicated shared creative space or a hybrid in-office/remote working arrangement.

7. ‘There is no such thing as failure, only feedback’ – Robert Allen

Treating setbacks as stepping stones fosters resilience in creative thinking at both an individual and organisational level. It also encourages earlier-stage sharing of ideas, which speeds up the innovation process.

8. Invest in professional development

Mentoring, guest speaking, workshops, and courses in creative thinking will keep employees motivated and inspired. These don’t have to cost a lot. Find new ways to regularly expose employees to new trends, technologies, and ways of thinking.

9. Leverage technology

Collaborative platforms, mind-mapping tools, project management software, and idea-generation tools embracing AI can reduce friction and promote inclusion. They also help teams stay connected and productive, particularly if they are spread geographically.

10. Provide creative resources and time

Allocate time for greater innovation on projects they are currently working on. Start the change within the daily workload. Ask for ideas on how things can be approached differently and/or improved, and embrace them, or at least trial and evolve them.

11. Showcase creativity

Model creative thinking and openness to new ideas. This behaviour is crucial to creating a culture of safety. Be approachable and supportive when team members come forward with new ideas. Demonstrate that vulnerability is crucial to meaningful connection.

12. Celebrate your successes

Celebrate achievements and milestones, no matter how big or small. This oils the wheels of change and ensures that team members remain motivated and reaffirmed, as well as rewarded for their efforts and participation.

Transactional or transformative?

You may be thinking that supporting creativity, valuing diversity, and embracing experimentation are all very well, but appear to be a risky investment in a highly competitive marketplace. Google’s abolition of its 20% Time rule, which previously allowed employees to spend 20% of their work time on personal projects, highlighted this fact, as customer experience specialist Steven Van Belleghem’s recent article explains.

How you approach this will be tailored to the needs of your organisation, balancing exploration with practicality to maintain profitability while fostering innovation. This is really about making the most of the resources you already have and removing blocks to support your company’s growth.

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Read more from Helen Shale

Helen Shale, Clinical Hypnotherapist & Master Life Coach

Helen Shale is on a mission to redesign the workplace to reduce the significant and avoidable psychological and physical damage employees are experiencing at all levels internationally. Helen is the originator of 'Connection Engineering in the Workplace', using her 25 years' as an internal communications specialist and the healing skills of Clinical Hypnotherapy to create healthier organisations and happier, more productive people who enjoy having their life back.