How could an organization be creative? How creative ideas of both a start-up or established one be put into practice to stay ahead of the curve and survive? Both consume a lot of energy and resources of varying degrees yet both want to be leaders in their own area of expertise.
Institutionalizing a culture of creativity and excellence in an organization is the first step of the leader at the helm. This requires an enormous understanding of its people and their behaviour and their quest to do something different, adding value to the work they do everyday. There needs to be constant motivation and inspiration from the top to unleash a sense of creativity in people, showing them the avenues they could let their creative thinking to take shape and be nurtured. Many large organizations that exist today were not created overnight but were built brick by brick to realise the creativity and skills of its people.
The likes of Google, Microsoft, Amazon, Apple, Walmart, Toyota or those Oil giants have allowed their people to think big and creative to add many revenue streams that increased their top lines. On the other hand, we have also seen many large corporations that had failed to innovate – Polaroid, Pan AM, Compaq, General Motors, Kodak, Yahoo, Toy’R’Us are great examples of how lack of ideas could cripple their growth and business. Inertia of being larger companies drag them into becoming a soulless organizations inimical to change.
It is necessary to encourage nerve and spunk, inject a spirit of fanaticism among the employees of organizations, simultaneously dismantling the layers of hierarchical hurdles at the same time. This will help to cope with today’s bewildering complexity created by global competition, mergers, acquisitions and cross cultural alliances. Eliminating hierarchy is not about doing away with titles and designations but instilling the entrepreneurship in employees, recognising the need for equality among the superiors and subordinates , removing the fear and barriers of communications and embolden them to speak up on flaws in strategies affecting the business and offering creative solutions to address them. Acknowledging their creative ideas is not enough but rewarding them to contribute more that add value to company’s operations.
Growth is impossible without systematically correcting past errors and continuously executing new ideas to become leaders.
THE PULSE by Sivakumar Gopal 