Creativity is one key to building a work culture your team members engage in. Challenging the way things have been traditionally carried out by introducing new ideas and methods encourages teammates to strengthen their talents. Encouraging staff to tap into their creative process helps them unlock their potential and find new opportunities for growth. Learn how to spark creativity in your workplace with these simple tips.  

Create a Diverse Team 

Build a team with a variety of skills, strengths and backgrounds. Encourage healthy debate among them for creative ways to approach a project. Promote different points of view and ways of doing things. Find a way to accomplish a goal through methods you have not used before. 

Designate Creative Time  

Set aside time each week for creativity. Teammates may browse through thought leaders’ work online, read a book, draw, talk with a friend or go outside. Promote creative time at the start and end of each day in distraction-free solitude. Or, choose a weekly creative block, such as Wednesdays from 2-4 p.m., to provide time for new and long-standing creative work projects. As your team members go through different experiences each week, encourage them to draw on those events to form new ideas. 

Have a Brainstorming Session 

Ask your staff to come up with three to five creative ideas for a project. Gather them together to present what they came up with. Introverts and extroverts will have an equal opportunity to present a variety of ideas. Nobody can push for only their idea among all the other great ones. 

Promote Innovation 

Encourage your team members to innovate. Promoting experimentation and learning from failure inspires discussions of team aspirations and working toward co-created goals. Learning from mistakes provides information on how to improve what happens the next time around. Your team learns lessons to succeed in the future by continuing to try. 

Remove Limits 

When investing significant amounts of time and money in creating new initiatives, don’t set limits. After providing parameters and a goal, let everyone work in the manner that best suits them. Provide your staff with what they need and let them get thinking. Instead of saying “but,” say “and.” For instance, avoid saying “but that’s too expensive.” Instead, say “and we could free up the budget in this area…” Even if you don’t agree with an idea, affirm it.  

Focus on “What” Rather Than “How” 

Let your team be creative without focusing on implementation. Creative ideas best flow on their own. Producing tactical solutions along with ideas creates a mindset of producing while editing. People have a harder time coming up with unique ideas when they need to think about concrete ways to make them happen.  

Find Creative Municipal Workers  

Find creative municipal workers with help from MuniTemps.  We place professionals with the training and experience you need to operate through any political, economic or budgetary challenges. Get in touch with us today!