‘Creativity and involvement are the new success factors for an organization.’

The challenge for organizations nowadays is getting and keeping as many creative and productive people on board as possible. Organizations with the best knowlegde and technology no longer automatically have the competitive advantage. After all, knowledge and technology are continually evolving and are easily accessible. To keep ahead of the curve in an ever-changing world, you need creative people that know how to react to new impulses and understand what the essential requirements are. The way you creatively deal with current knowlegde and technology, and the amount of energy you put into it, make you more successful than your competitors.

How do you, as an organization, create creativity and involvement among your employees? By taking these three steps:

1. Building trust: In organizations where there is trust, you see that employees are given space to think independently and creatively, which results in an increase of creativity and innovation. When the focus within an organization is on control to prevent errors, the result is a significant decrease of creativity and productivity.
Stephen M. Covey’s business formula says it all: When there is little trust, costs go up and speed goes down. When there is a lot of trust, costs go down and speed goes up.

2. Interconnecting values: Employees that identify with an organization’s values, feel at home within that organization because they speak the same language. This creates room for creativity and causes productivity to increase. The employee’s work directly contributes to their own values, which energizes them and makes it worth going that extra mile.

3. Focus on strengths: Organizations that nurture their employees’ strengths notice that their employees work with more energy and enthusiasm. Lacklustre skills only allow for a limited scope of development, which, moreover, is a process that takes a lot of energy. Energy that can be put to far better use for things that you naturally excel at. That is the way of the least resistance and of the fastest growth. By making optimal use of your employees’ natural resources (those skills, values and passions that are naturally there) and showing your appreciation, a form of natural and sustainable growth arises for both the people and the organization.