It has been my experience working in a couple of large corporations that there is a disconnect between what the C-level and VP-level SAY they want and what they encourage, endorse and green-light. They SAY they want their company to be innovative and on the cutting edge but anything that hasn't been proven, tested or tried is usually ignored -or worse, scorned. If something truly innovative gets pushed through, then the temptation is to re-hash the same thing over and over until the creativity is wrung out of it . . . The trick, then is to keep working to innovate new ideas.
Here is a tidbit from this article:
"The research shows 8 in 10 people feel that unlocking creativity is critical to economic growth and nearly two-thirds of respondents feel creativity is valuable to society, yet a striking minority – only 1 in 4 people – believe they are living up to their own creative potential."
From what I experienced (and this is only me, mind you, it might be different where you work) upper management usually puts people in neat little "boxes". They have their "creatives", their "crazy creatives" and their "non-creatives". Usually those upper-level types see, and treat, themselves, Directors and maybe a manager or two as "creative" and full of brilliant ideas.
They see their artists, designers and writers as "crazy creatives" and treat them like you would an impulsive child, not to be trusted with sharp objects.
Hourly employees, those in the trenches, often dealing directly with customers and clients are typically seen as "non-creative" and are treated as such.
I once saw 2 VPs allow another bully VP bash an idea that came from a group of people it was obvious these veeps considered to be non-creative worker bees. These hourly employees came up with a genius idea -a cost-saving idea that was very customer focused. It was brilliant. The VP bashing was brutal, the 2 other VPs in the room, by their very silence, condoned what their bully peer was doing. The idea died on the vine and the employees who'd put their necks out got them neatly chopped off. (Literally, one of those employees was laid of shortly thereafter -two more found new jobs within the year.)
(The end of this tale is: a few years later, a Diretor-level type proposed the very same idea and it was green-lit and was very successful.) I'd say if you'd asked those employees with the original idea, they would say they didn't feel like they were living up to their creative potential at work -at that point in time. I certainly hope they have positioned themselves where they are able to live up to their potential.
I'd say that if you agree with this statement from the article (below) that you might want to think of creative ways to find a new workplace:
"The study reveals a workplace creativity gap, where 75% of respondents said they are under growing pressure to be productive rather than creative, despite the fact that they are increasingly expected to think creatively on the job. "
How does your workplace do? Is creativity from EVERYONE encouraged? Or discouraged?
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