The Secret to Team Creativity...

How do you get a team to be more creative? That is the million dollar question. Do you lead through creative excersizes? How about see movies together? Is it a creative office space? Is it reading books on creativity? Perhaps go to an art museum and experience ‘real’ art? While all these activities can help fuel yourself and your team, it’s not enough to take creativity to the next level. Regardless of the purpose of your team, how much experience is present, or personality type; there is a common element essential to building creative teams. It’s missing in many environments, often under valued, or it's seen as trivial. It’s also the least understood team disciplines (it is a discipline). The secret is FUN. I know everyone values fun for team building but I want you to start thinking of it in a new constructive context. President of the innovation Company IDEO, Tim Brown, helped put it in a simple formula:

Fun builds trust; trust builds creativity.

That’s it. Yes, it’s that simple. Intentional play creates environment of trust and acceptance that builds creativity for a team. Fun allows your team members to be ‘themselves’ and more importantly, overcome self consciousness. Ironically work is not the opposite of play its ‘self consciousness’. Insecurity, shyness, introversion, etc. keeps us from expressing open and honestly because we care too much about what others will think of our ideas and of our value to the team. ‘Silliness’ helps us get over our inhibitions.

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Creativity takes flight…
A practical example of this, for the past few weeks our entire staff has participated in a paper airplane flying contest. We have seen all sorts of shapes and designs. This contest has spanned a few weeks with prizes for distance and creativity. We do these competitions before each staff meeting. What does it have to do with team building or leadership training? Well, almost nothing. But it creates an environment of fun to help build trust to help build creativity. It says, ‘I can be silly, I can be a kid, and I can play- and you still accept me’.

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Survival of the funnest...

Another way to have fun is to compete. Our staff recently had a board game tournament with the game of Settlers of Catan that spanned several weeks. Many new team members learned how to play and there were many outside gatherings to compete in the tournament. One time I came to watch three random team members playing at a coffee shop- these three would have never ‘hung out’ together if it wasn’t for this tournament. It was a great experience for our team and a LOT of fun. Everyone is demanding another one ASAP. The best part of these team buildig activities is that they are cheap!

I've noticed that teams that engages in regular fun activities usually are more open minded about creative ideas as well as they generate more original ideas. There is a sense of 'free spirited thinking' that only comes through trust and understanding. Does fun replace the 'real stuff' of community or a proper brainstorming process? No, but it fertilizes the soil for such progress to occur. So if you are reading this and you are a leader/manager/director/pastor you need to ask yourself: