Unlocking creativity and innovation in remote and hybrid workplaces can be a game-changer. Let's delve into strategies that can spark imagination, foster collaboration, and drive groundbreaking ideas, even when physical proximity is not an option.
Creative Acts for Curious People
One big preoccupation since the pandemic has been whether remote work and burnout has stifled creativity and innovation
- Many people worry that creativity and collaboration suffer when teams are working remotely, in hybrid fashion, or flexible configurations
- There are challenges that we have to be more intentional about designing for when we’re working remotely
- A lack of in-person vitality that you can sometimes feel
- When I think about my most creative sessions with my team, it’s a full-body experience
- Deputize people with these different roles
- Particularly in hybrid meetings, you can make sure that somebody who is online is the person who’s running the online experience because they can empathize and identify with attendees
Design-and all kinds of creative work-is a way to help people develop skills to navigate the kind of uncertainty that we’re in
Running a short creative project where you are helping people to come up with new ideas, focusing on the end user, and having collaborative engagement with others is a really smart thing to be doing right now
- The project gives folks a chance to practice building resilience and trying multiple different directions
“Water Cooler Magic”
Serendipitous interactions between people in the hallways between meetings in the office are key to innovation and creativity and organizational culture.
- You have to build that into the heart of the culture, and you have to make time for it. The human piece is not in addition to, or outside of, the work.
Is it more challenging to kickstart creativity given what everyone has been going through?
As leaders, we have to make space for deeper emotions to emerge.
- There is a set of reflection practices that have to do with understanding, processing, and digesting what has happened. A lot of that is important to do before you can get into the present moment.
Hard work is writing your research report or doing an Excel spreadsheet, soft work is where there’s interaction between colleagues that is work, but it’s not hard work
If we can hold both of those categories up at parity, then I think we are getting somewhere really important.
What have you learned from this past 18 months-plus in terms of what allows teams to thrive and do their best work?
It’s a combination of acknowledging the challenges of the moment while continuing to focus on what we’re trying to achieve as a group
- People have to believe that there is something bigger than themselves that is worth working for in order to sustain inspiration
- We have to make space for it as leaders and intentionally include it in our culture when it doesn’t happen automatically or organically
