Ducks in a Row: Killing Creativity
by Miki Saxon
According to brothers Tom and David Kelley, founders of the iconic design firm IDEO, everybody is creative no matter what their background or career path.
“…early failures, defeats and setbacks can lead otherwise creative people to shut down their own best ideas.”
If you accept their reasoning and your team isn’t as creative as you would like the fault most likely lies with you.
The “early” in the above quote can refer to early in life, but also early in tenure.
How often have you hired someone with a track record of creativity only to find them carefully coloring within the lines?
That’s usually the result of having creative ideas rejected, arbitrarily shot down or, worse, ridiculed—not once, but over and over.
Even when those negative responses are from a team member, it’s still your responsibility, since the culture that makes acts like that acceptable is either sourced from or condoned by you.
Flickr image credit: liz west
