Count me among the masses (judging from blog posts, tweets, stumbles, etc) who liked the HBR’s Anti-Creativity Checklist by Youngme Moon. I’ve uttered every statement on the list at least once and have heard them many times. We all have, which is why the video has gone viral.
Amidst all this activity and exposure, I wonder how many managers will use the video as a tool to unlock the creativity in their organizations? Here’s what I might do with it…
- Play it at my next meeting to kickoff a new project or initiative.
- Acknowledge that this type of thinking is part of organizational behavior and encourage discussion about it.
- Include reducing “anti-creativity” as one of my project’s goals and monitor it just as I would any other deliverable.
- Help the team to keep talking about it and catching ourselves doing it. Note external dampers on our initiative’s creativity (from project sponsors, other departments, etc) and address it just like we would any other speed bump.
- Include a “creativity assessment” in our project wrap-up.
Heading to work now with a bit more mindfulness …
Update 4/5/2010: Readers may be interested in Pro-creativity lists for public libraries, part 1
These are great reminders about what not to do or say. I would love to see some positive ideas about how to encourage creativity and still say no to an idea. It just isn’t possible with limited resources (both money and staff) to say yes to everything.
I think there are two parts to creativity. Brainstorming is a way for people to throw out ideas without necessarily knowing how it would work in a practical way. The second part of the creativity is figuring out how to make it work with available resources or how to get more resources to do it. The first part is a lot easier than the second. I have found that sometimes employees are not willing to do the second part, then they complain that their bosses are resistant to change or anti-creative because their idea wasn’t adopted.
As a manager it is hard to balance between encouraging creativity and being realistic. Do you adopt an idea because it is “cool” even though it doesn’t fit in with any of the goals of the organization? Do you take funds away from a tried and true but traditional service to try something new?
I would love to see a list pro-creativity ideas that addresses some of these issues.
A pro-creativity list? I love it! You’ve got my wheels turning…