Happy workers have a greater chance to be creative, according to Harvard Business School professor Teresa Amabile. Enhancing a positive workplace climate and encouraging creativity typically mean higher production and a better work product, especially in firms focused on innovation and the manufacture of new products and companies offering different and unusual services.
Creative workplace endeavors require innovative seating arrangements. Although cubicles provide privacy and a working environment for personal tools and storage, a creative workstation rarely requires the staff member to stay seated within the walls of the cube. Positioning tables and chairs in an open forum, allowing staff to move to illuminate work under natural lighting and purchasing stools with wheels and tables with seating to facilitate group discussion all allow for a creative exchange of ideas. Firms wishing to stimulate innovation typically survey staff to determine the best seating arrangements to encourage innovation and creativity, according to the findings of the 10th Asia Office Space Congress.
Corporate modeling plays an important role in setting the climate and the mood for creativity and a positive work environment. Supervisors who fail to exhibit the attributes of creative thinking and an active innovative model show the behavior perceived by the staff as the accepted corporate model of the organization. Management that also fails to support a positive workplace dooms any central administrative efforts to encourage positiveness. The old adage "Do as I say, not as I do" fails to encourage workplace innovations, according to a review of studies involving administrative modeling done by business researchers Susanne G. Scott and Reginald A. Bruce.
Positiveness breeds positive attitudes in a work environment. A supportive work climate doesn't guarantee prizes and rewards, but these go a long way in creating a positive workplace and elevating creativity. The Segal Group, a business research organization, found employees find cash incentives and recognition involving bonuses as a prime motivation for work. Other positive incentives outlined in the study include meaningful work, an opportunity for feedback, assignment of challenging work and a trusting work environment. Rewarding workers with extra time off from work also created a positive work environment, according to the study.
Psychologist Teresa Amabile outlines the four stages of creativity that include progress through preparation, incubation and illumination that leads to execution. Amabile maintains that allowing employees time for focused play facilitates the stages of incubation and illumination. Some companies interpret the concept of play in the general sense and allow staff to play video games during the workday, while other corporations, including Apple, focus employees on play with the company product to encourage innovation. Apple's staff uses experiments with new hardware and software at work to improve the design and the application of the product before releasing the items to the public.
- Fast Company: How Play Promotes Creativity at Work
- Harvard Business School Working Knowledge: Getting to Eureka! -- How Companies Can Promote Creativity
- Business Creativity and Innovation -- How to Build an Innovative Culture: A. J. Schuler
- Psychology Today: The Art of Creativity
- Demeter Consulting: Corporate Catalyst
- New York Times: Do Happier People Work Harder?
- Forbes: How to Create a Design-Centered Culture -- Start With the 3Fs
- Segal/Gibson: Rewards of Work -- How Employees Gauge the Rewards of Their Work
- 10th Asia Office Space Congress: Survey of 2011 Asian Corporate Real Estate and Workplace Trends to Culminate in Beijing
- University of Louisville: The Influence of Leadership, Individual Attributes, and Climate on Innovative Behavior -- A Model of Individual Innovation in the Workplace
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