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Mr Ghayas · #6 Friday, May 12, 2006

Although it's unrealistic to expect a single person to change an entire corporate culture, it's also surprising how much change one determined person can generate. By simply adopting the attitude that a fresh supply of ideas is good for business, an employee can usually count on having one or two of them noticed by someone higher on the corporate ladder. Remember, hardly anyone criticizes an employee in an annual performance review for being too creative. Besides, even if you assume that new ideas and fresh perspectives aren't welcome in your place of work, your assumptions may be wrong. Many companies that desperately need to break out of a rut to remain competitive are actually starving for creative input.

The truth is, companies are often no better than individuals at recognizing the potential for creativity. Sometimes, the company's structure is to blame. Hierarchical organizations have a way of creating survivalists who tend to dismiss the ideas of anyone they perceive as competition. Elsewhere, creativity can be poisoned by a pervasive attitude that everything has already been tried, so "it'll never work," regardless of what "it" is.

Karwoski is surprised at how often innovation is discouraged in the workplace. "It puzzles me because business is all about innovation and development and marketing and differentiation," he says. "It's all about being evolutionary and adapting; otherwise you're left behind." Yet companies everywhere make a daily habit of ignoring the creative values they claim in their annual reports to uphold, and companies everywhere are filled with creative people looking for outlets and a little recognition.

"There is a real hunger out there for people to be able to show their creative side in some way," says Karwoski. "If workplaces could find a way to allow people to exercise their [creativity] more, they could really tap into some pent-up energies."