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Leadership Workshop (7 of 12) - Stimulate the Creative Flow

More than 40 percent of leaders surveyed said that they spend too little time working with individuals to unlock their creative energies. Asking yourself, “Have I found my own creative flow? Am I helping other people find their creative flow?”

Take this free work survey to assess your organizational strengths and weaknesses.

Leading at Light Speed is a groundbreaking leadership book by Eric Douglas describing the 10 Quantum Leaps which build trust, spark innovation, and create a high-performing organization. Chapter 6 is all about how to Stimulate the Creative Flow. On page 159-160, Eric discusses how recognizing success is critical.

Coaching, empowerment, and praise inspire flow. Micromanagement kills flow. To encourage flow, good managers need to make sure people are recognized early on for their success. Every success should be recognized, even if it is recognized in a small way. Rewards and praise should be distributed generously to all who were involved. At the same time, a special effort needs to be made to celebrate and recognize people who made special contributions.

I have a 10:1 rule about the balance between positive feedback and “constructive” feedback. People need to hear ten times more positive feedback than negative. Otherwise, they simply will not – or cannot – hear the constructive feedback. The portion of the feedback which is ‘constructive’ will be lost. By focusing on praise and encouragement, you can help prepare people for the day when they need to hear the constructive feedback.

Developing professionally is encouraged by rewarding success. As shown in Chapter 3 of Leading at Light Speed, the Performance Development Life Cycle illustrates the specific points in an individual’s development. An important step is creating an Individual Development Plan, in which you write down exactly what your career goals are and how you need to prepare yourself – the kinds of training, mentoring, job shadowing, and feedback you need. Encouraging creative flow means giving people the opportunity to reflect on and articulate their career aspirations, and later share their IDPs with people who can help them get there.

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Leadership Workshop (7 of 12) - Stimulate the Creative Flow

Leading at Light Speed is a new leadership book by Eric Douglas detailing the 10 Quantum Leaps to build trust, spark innovation, and create a high-performing organization.

Let’s begin with the idea of spark. By spark, I mean the spark that inspires people to innovate and create. As with trust, spark feeds an essential need. ~{We respond positively to those who inspire our creativity, and conversely, we respond negatively to those who do not inspire us}. Spark is crucial if you’re going to succeed in a world where change is constantly accelerating. But spark without trust can be damaging to the organization, leading to useless or even destructive innovations. Leaders must know how to inspire trust while at the same time sparking new products, new processes, and new practices. Southwest Airlines, FedEx, and Google are three examples of highly successful companies that have built high-performing organizations based on trust and spark.

Spark occurs when you tap into people’s creative impulses. It requires providing the freedom for people to explore new ideas without fear. Innovation happens when there’s a big vision, clearly communicated, and the entire team is focused on achieving that vision. It exists when there are clear performance measures to recognize what matters, and when performances are evaluated fairly and consistently.

In light speed organizations, trust and spark feed off one another. One catalyzes the other. By creating trust, you enable people to be open to change. By energizing spark, you unleash the innovation that makes an organization vibrate with new ideas and purpose.

When you build trust and spark together, amazing things happen. You attract and retain the most talented employees. You constantly innovate. You offer your customers a surprising and delightful experience. You perform at a higher level than your peers. When trust and spark work together, it doesn’t ensure calm quiet. When people feel free, they can begin to ask questions and air conflicting opinions. The culture shifts to one in which people focus on the performance of the organization as a whole. When you’re operating at light speed, everyone “runs it like they own it.”

Take this free work survey to see if your organization practices the 10 Quantum Leaps of high-performing organizations.

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