Don’t Squash Creativity

Your business is your baby.  You’ve nurtured it from the beginning, and you may be a bit reluctant to hear any ideas that aren’t your own.  I can hear you now, “I listen to other people’s ideas all the time!”  Yeah, you may be placating your team members or employees, but I’m always surprised by the amount of great ideas that staff have that often go unheard.  And it’s not for lack of trying to get their ideas out there, it’s because the business is YOUR baby and because it’s your baby, any ideas that aren’t yours can easily be dismissed.

There are a couple of problems that can occur because of this that, as a business owner, you may not see.  

The first problem is missed opportunity.  How many time saving, cost saving, productivity increasing innovations are you missing by not hearing the creative thoughts of your employees?  It’s important to remember that as your company has grown, by necessity you have removed yourself from certain daily operations which are now being done by your employees.  The people that now do the work you were doing, may very well find a faster, smarter, better way to get it done.  Instead of shooting down their ideas, hear them out.  Create a forum for creativity if you will.  Create a process for the submission of ideas.  This empowering of your employees is an often missed and invaluable business asset.  Which brings me to the second problem that can occur by stifling out ideas.

This problem is often overlooked, but is probably a much bigger issue than the missed opportunity issue.  What is it?  Demotivation and devaluation of employees.  Employees who feel their opinions and ideas are not heard stop giving them willingly.  Not only that, they may start doing their work begrudgingly.  They may lose the passion for what they do that makes them valuable and in turn, may start doing sloppy work–may stop caring about the quality of their work altogether.  

The ripple effect that is caused by a disgruntled or unsatisfied employee can have a lasting imprint on your entire business.  I saw a company recently lose hundreds of thousands of dollars because one disgruntled worker (who repeatedly had ideas shot down and felt demoralized by the boss) “poisoned the well” at her office.  The customers could see it and responded by going elsewhere, the quality of her work went down the crapper, and she was constantly bad mouthing the employer and making everyone else question why they worked there.  Months later the company is still trying to recover from this one employee.

The simple fact is that employees who feel empowered perform better.  If a team member feels like they have a voice, they are much more likely to be passionate about what they do and perform at highest level.  

Does this mean every idea a team member has is a good idea?  Absolutely not.  I’m not talking about letting the employees make the rules either.  But many a grand innovation has come from an employee, not the employer (you).  Be open to new ideas from within your company.  Create a company culture that embraces creative thinking without restrictions.  Let the ideas come to the table and then nourish those ideas with potential.  Your team will feel more connected to you and to their work, and you will feel better as your company grows and flourishes.  

Remember, your entire company started with an idea.  

Building Momentum and the Upward Spiral

The economy is in a tough spot. Millions without jobs, a government that bickers more than they actually solve problems, investments have tanked, banks have closed…hell, even Tiger Woods has fallen from grace. With so much negativity spinning around, it can be easy to allow your inertia to take a turn for the worse. It can be easy to become jaded and start looking outward to find blame for failures.

That’s one road to take.

Another is to Build Positive Momentum and create an Upward Spiral of success. Take even the smallest wins and celebrate them. Take one sale and turn it into three sales. Look for people who are succeeding and “hang” with them. Success begets success or the old adage I prefer, “You are who you hang with”. Instead of looking for ways to cut back, look for ways to expand. Look for new areas of opportunity that may be hiding under that rock over there. By the way, expanding and looking for new opportunities doesn’t necessarily mean spending more money, it could be accomplished by a little sumpin sumpin called networking. The power of many brains thinking about solutions to a problem is almost always more effective (except in government).

I like the word “stratification”. Wikipedia refers to stratification as “…the building up of layers. Stratified is an adjective referring to the arranging of layers, and is also the past form of the verb stratify, to separate or become separated into layers.” When you think of stratification, start to picture your business this way.

For example, is your marketing stratified? I mean, do you have layers of marketing like a website, mailers, social media, a solid name in your community. All of the elements allow you to stratify your business and help you to Build Momentum towards the Upward Spiral of success.

Do you have multiple offerings that allow you to stratify your business across different market segments, or even different demographics? You should. If you’ve only got one thing and that one thing is suddenly no longer valuable, you don’t have a business anymore. Plus, by looking at the layers of your business like this you may find ways to stratify and build momentum that you hadn’t seen before. I know I’ve had some big discoveries and helped clients have some big ones too, just by thinking about my business stratification.

So, instead of watching CNN or reading all the depressing crap in the papers, focus on your successes. Write ‘em down. Multiply them and trend towards the upward spiral. You’ll be better off for it and so will everyone around you.

-Brian