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Abstract: This article explores five evidence-based practices for harnessing creativity to drive innovation within organizations. These include cultivating psychological safety, encouraging idea generation and sharing, embracing failures and learning from mistakes, challenging conventional wisdom, and developing a growth mindset culture. When implemented collectively, these approaches nurture an inclusive environment where employees feel empowered to take risks, experiment, and contribute novel solutions to complex problems. By role modeling these behaviors from leadership and institutionalizing them as organizational norms, companies can unlock the creative potential of their workforce and gain a competitive edge in today's fast-paced, disruptive business landscape.
Harnessing creativity to drive innovation has become a core competency for organizations seeking competitive advantage. While creative genius has historically been associated with solitary artists or entrepreneurs, research reveals it is a skill that can be nurtured in all.
Today we will explore five evidence-based practices for tapping into creative genius within an organizational context. When cultivated collectively, creativity allows teams and entire organizations to envision new possibilities and find breakthrough solutions to complex problems.
Cultivate Psychological Safety
Research from numerous studies conducted by Google found that psychological safety, or the belief one will not be punished for speaking up with ideas, questions or concerns, is key for nurturing creativity within teams (Project Aristotle, 2014). When people feel psychologically safe, they are more willing to take risks, learn from failures, and think outside the box. Three specific practices can help cultivate psychological safety:
Establish clear communication norms emphasizing respect, inclusion and constructive feedback rather than criticism. Regular "check-ins" allow team members to share how they personally feel about the psychological safety within the group.
Implement accountability processes where leaders model vulnerability, admit mistakes, and recognize attempts rather than just outcomes. This normalizes risk-taking and failure as part of the creative process.
Foster diversity of perspectives through inclusive hiring practices and ensuring representation from different backgrounds, disciplines, ages and life experiences on teams. Research shows increased diversity correlates with increased creativity (Page, 2008).
These ideas were put into action at the education technology startup Knewton. The founder consciously built a culture emphasizing that nobody should feel afraid to propose unusual or unconventional ideas simply because they may not work. As a result, teams felt empowered to experiment wildly and creatively problem-solve, leading to breakthrough innovations in adaptive learning technology.
Encourage Idea Generation and Sharing
Regularly generating new ideas through structured processes enables individuals and groups to think expansively and combine insights in novel ways. Two proven techniques for sparking idea generation include brainstorming and mind mapping (Sawyer, 2012). During brainstorming, the group collectively lists as many ideas as possible without criticism or evaluation to overcome conformity pressures. Mind mapping allows individuals to visually map connections between concepts by branching related ideas off central topics.
At pharmaceutical company Merck, employees engage in bi-weekly "ideation sessions" where anyone can pitch an idea using a standardized template. Submitted ideas are voted on by peers and receive seed funding if selected. This has led to the launch of several new products and process improvements. Japanese automaker Toyota takes a group mind mapping approach, arranging post-it notes ideas on a central wall theme to inspire new combinations and applications. Generating and publicly sharing ideas helps dissolve creativity barriers.
Embrace Failures and Learn from Mistakes
Creativity requires comfort with ambiguity and a willingness to experiment through trial and error. However, fear of failure can stagnate innovation (DeLotto, 2015). Leaders must role model curiosity in the face of uncertainty and view failures as opportunities for growth. Specific actions include:
Openly discuss and document past project failures during retrospective meetings to normalize mistakes as part of the learning process.
Implement a “fail fast and learn quickly” approach through rapid prototyping, usability testing, and MVP iterations instead of lengthy development cycles.
Recognize and reward attempts rather than just outcomes through performance evaluations focusing on experimentation, risk-taking, resilience and lessons learned.
At design firm IDEO, a “Hall of Fame” displays prototypes, models and other artifacts of past failed projects. This serves as a reminder innovation requires assuming risk and overcoming obstacles through iteration. After stumbles in new market entries, fashion brand Zara instituted a culture where even senior leaders prototyped concepts quickly through “test and learn” pop-up stores to get real-time customer feedback.
Challenge Conventional Wisdom
Established mindsets, norms and routines can stifle new perspectives. Leaders should actively challenge the status quo and question underlying assumptions through devil’s advocacy and informed dissent (Gino & Pisano, 2011). Specific ways to do this include:
Assigning “skunk works” teams to rethink core business models, strategies or operational processes from a clean slate outside existing constraints.
Having team "red team" exercises where members play the role of competitors, critics or consultants to probe weaknesses and alternatives.
Bringing in subject matter experts from outside industries during brainstorming sessions to spark new connections by reframing problems.
At innovation consultancy IDEO, “bright idea” challenges encourage staffers to create presentations critically examining and improving upon IDEO’s own methodologies. This evolution of frameworks and constant self-examination fuels fresh approaches. Technology giant 3M institutionalized “15% time”, allowing engineers to spend a portion of each week on self-directed projects to challenge status quo through unconstrained exploration.
Cultivate a Growth Mindset
A final driver for nurturing individual and collective creativity within organizations is establishing a growth mindset culture that believes creative skills are malleable rather than fixed talents (Dweck, 2007). Leaders foster this by:
Focusing performance evaluations, rewards and development plans on curiosity, continuous learning and mastery of new skills rather than just current competencies.
Designing job rotations and cross-training opportunities to expose employees to diverse experiences and break routines.
Providing mentoring programs where more experienced employees coach less tenured staff and help them refine creativity through constructive feedback.
Sponsoring internal or external training in subjects like design thinking, improvisation or systems thinking to expand mental models for tackling challenges in new ways.
Canadian retailer Moosejaw made growing a growth mindset a company value from the start. Leaders participate in monthly book clubs and bring in guest speakers to constantly challenge how work gets done. This evolves the culture and sparks fresh ideas from within on customer experience, merchandising and operations.
Conclusion
In today's fast-paced business environment, organizations must find ways to tap into individual creativity collectively to solve complex problems and drive innovation. The five evidenced-based practices of cultivating psychological safety, encouraging idea generation, embracing failures, challenging assumptions, and developing a growth mindset provide a framework any company or team can use to foster creative genius from within. When adopted intentionally and role modeled from leadership, these approaches nurture an inclusive culture where everyone feels empowered to freely explore new ideas and find fresh solutions through a spirit of curiosity, collaboration and learning from both successes and mistakes. Harnessing such a creative culture confers competitive advantage and allows organizations to adapt and thrive amid ongoing disruption.
References
DeLotto, P. (2015). Fear of failure stops innovation dead in its tracks. Harvard Business Review.
Dweck, C. S. (2007). Mindset: The new psychology of success. Random House.
Gino, F., & Pisano, G. (2011). Why leaders don't learn from success. Harvard Business Review, 89(4), 68-74.
Page, S. E. (2008). The difference: How the power of diversity creates better groups, firms, schools, and societies. Princeton University Press.
Project Aristotle. (2014, June 16). The secrets of Google's culture, and why it matters. The New York Times.
Sawyer, R. K. (2012). Explaining creativity: The science of human innovation (2nd ed.). Oxford University Press.
Jonathan H. Westover, PhD is Chief Academic & Learning Officer (HCI Academy); Chair/Professor, Organizational Leadership (UVU); OD Consultant (Human Capital Innovations). Read Jonathan Westover's executive profile here.
Suggested Citation: Westover, J. H. (2025). How to Tap Into Your Creative Genius at Work. Human Capital Leadership Review, 18(4). doi.org/10.70175/hclreview.2020.18.4.4
