There are many people that are staunch believers in that business and the arts do not mix. They are too different and that having a business temperament hampers your creative processes. Likewise, having a sense of creativity in business may make you veer too far off the beaten track. These are both far from the truth, and in fact, one can help the other! So if you are working on developing a business in the creative sector, or you are looking for ways to increase your sense of creativity in running a business, take heed from these pieces of advice.
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Encourage Opinion!
How can you expect anybody to work with a creative flair if they don’t feel they are allowed to express themselves? Good art is all about that, and it is very hard to accomplish. You may reinforce the notion that your employees can express themselves freely, but it doesn’t mean that people will actually do it. The key is to create the best environment for ideas and opinions to flourish. A lot of workers are used to the idea that they could be punished severely if they express an opinion that is too candid, or if you, as the leader of the business, will appear too sensitive to criticism. So the first place to start is with you. Learning to take criticism and ideas that may be a bit too much for you to bear is the first step to getting everyone in the organization to be on side. You will find some people that are too forthcoming with their opinions also, and this is a great thing to encourage. Another way to encourage this would be to have days where people are giving notes. Pixar does a notes day, where people are doing just that, and this may be a way to get people who are not so keen to express their opinions to give honest feedback on the company. It’s a difficult thing to get the ball rolling, but once people feel comfortable in revealing their true opinions, it will improve the company, and it will get people to work together with more zest.
Outsourcing Is Not A Bad Thing
Depending on where your business is in the development stage, outsourcing may be a very necessary thing to do. It all depends on what skill sets you have in your midst. Running a creative company with the type of contacts that may only specialize in the arts means you may be stuck for accountants and IT specialists! There are many IT services for smaller companies that you can call on to help install a basic network and give you advice on what systems are suitable for the type of work you do and if you need any additional programs. For example, accountancy packages or programs to do the back office functions, such as automatic email responses.
There are many who feel that outsourcing is something that detracts from the permanent members of staff, which is why it is viewed as a bit of a bad word in some circles. But if your business needs the help to get on its feet, then outsourcing is the help you are very unlikely to survive without. Luckily now, there are many outsourcing websites that showcase people who have very specific skills. If you need someone to do a certain line of code that builds your website a certain way or you need someone to translate some very technical text into Swahili, you are able to find these people who you can pay for their services. If you are in a tight spot and need to get something started very quickly, it means that based on your budget you can pay them accordingly and you don’t need to take anybody on permanently for those tasks. As soon as they are completed, it has been a useful help for you to get onto the next stage of unveiling your business.
Praise Your Employees
A creative culture is not one where everyone works by themselves. It is dynamic and requires a lot of collaboration. As a result, give praise where praise is due. Some people like to be actively praised in front of colleagues, while others prefer to be given feedback in a private way. Find out from your staff what method they would like and when they have exceeded expectations you can congratulate them in a manner befitting of their personality. It entirely depends on the workplace culture. If people work in groups, public praise will work well in front of colleagues, but people that work individually may not appreciate being singled out for praise, especially if one person receives praise while others may get a haranguing which could upset the apple cart! Nor is it handy to dish out praise at every turn, you want your workers to work hard, not rest on their laurels. Of course, being encouraging reflects well on its leaders, and you need to strike a right balance, especially when it comes to working with creative types who may be of a sensitive nature. But this is something to apply in every type of business, not just creative-based ones.
As a way of encouraging creativity, managers need to be agile themselves in order to get the best out of their employees. Flexibility is of the utmost importance when dealing with a group of creative types, and each challenge needs to be met head on. Personal and professional challenges can clash heavily when trying to develop a creative environment because people may invest much more of themselves into an artistic role than they would, say, an admin role. And as creativity thrives on the generation of ideas, you may want to allocate your time to factor in opportunities to have brainstorm sessions and have a shorter period of time later on to refine these ideas. The old adage in writing is don’t get it right, get it written, so this may be an approach you would wish to take on board. Creativity and business do work together well; it is more about the right balance that suits your workplace. The yin and yang can be balanced!
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