How to develop team creativity

Follow these steps to celebrate, foster and enhance a team’s creativity:

1. Encourage information sharing

Individuals tend to have varying opinions and ideas that differ from those they work with because everyone has their own unique set of experiences that influence their decision-making and creativity. The more you’re able to speak with others about their own experiences, the better you can incorporate what you’ve learned into your own ideas. The more teammates can share with the group, the more the other group members can view a problem from a different perspective.

2. Meet with other teams

By conducting regular meetings with other groups or departments within your organization, you can expose yourself and your team to individuals they may not normally work with closely. Simply being in an unfamiliar environment can foster creativity. Plus, the more you interact with others, the more likely it is that you feel their influence and, later, feel more comfortable brainstorming with them about a pressing issue.

3. Hire strongly

If you’re a manager or recruiter who’s responsible for hiring members of a team or an employee who’s assisting with interviewing and onboarding a new colleague, consider the abilities of the candidates. To foster creativity, it’s important for employees to be open to sharing their ideas and skilled at developing those ideas. This requires them to evaluate current processes and projects, learning more about the company’s values and goals and becoming familiar with the work of others.You may also have greater success at team creativity if you hire candidates who show they’re highly collaborative or appreciate working more with a team versus individually. Organizations can also benefit from onboarding new hires who come from diverse backgrounds of experiences.

4. Create an open and welcoming environment

By establishing an environment where everyone feels welcome and encouraged to share their thoughts and contribute to the larger group, you may find that employees use more of their creativity for the greater good of the team. That’s because a workplace that focuses on respect, trust, active listening and diversity is naturally a comfortable place for many who have ideas to share. These employees may feel they can contribute their thoughts without judgment, which can enhance their natural creativity, as they feel more secure in sharing even those ideas that are unconventional.

5. Encourage ongoing learning

Exposure to new ideas, experiences, best practices and industry experts can foster creativity. Therefore, consider how you can encourage ongoing learning so employees receive training that encourages them to adopt new ways of thinking or exposes them to new information they may not have received otherwise. Research industry experts in your particular area of interest and ask if they’d be available to speak to your group. Either way, see if any known experts have a blog or podcast you can subscribe to so you can receive regular updates.

6. Recognize good work

To make sure that employees or your colleagues know you appreciate their creativity, develop a recognition program that gives you the opportunity to share someone’s impressive contribution to the workplace. This can both encourage the coworker you recognized to continue to share their ideas and show others that their creative efforts are welcomed. Recognition may be what someone needs to feel the motivation to work on their team’s creativity and contribute to the group’s success.

7. Introduce friendly competition

Friendly competition motivates many people. This may be what you require to get certain colleagues to think differently from what they’re used to so they can be more creative. You can start by making up a workplace issue you want each group to resolve, then accepting the most creative solutions. An activity like this can get employees used to collaborating and comfortable doing so even without this situation present.Friendly competition also helps work teams to be more accepting of their teammates’ thoughts and opinions, as having more creative solutions can be the objective of this exercise. Once employees feel comfortable with this new way of thinking, they may be better able to apply the same to real scenarios.

8. Be accountable

Being accountable, and expecting the same from those you work with, means you can admit to mistakes and are open to assessing what you could’ve done differently for a better outcome. Mistakes at work happen, but if you work in a culture of accountability, then mistakes are encouraged for the lessons you can learn from them. A lack of success simply means you can brainstorm better solutions for the situation and use what you’ve learned in future situations.