How to be creative in a non-creative environment?

There are places where creativity is discouraged. It may be because of giving priority to routine instead of initiative or just because the team is still learning and the person in charge is trying his best to accomplish a task, with no time to explain or to help people to understand what they are really doing.

In the short term, there is not much damage… but in the long term, that may affect a person’s capacity of thinking out of the box and even the task may be affected.

However, there are ways to keep creativity alive even in the worst places:

• From a leader’s point of view, the leader may help others to think in different ways to find solutions to whatever they have in hand. Many years ago, I arrive at an airport just to learn the flight was much delayed; their system has failed and they were doing our registration by hand, including luggage. What impressed me was the leader’s attitude: she was following up the process and every time someone has found a new way of doing something, she used to call everybody’s attention to that. She was promoting creativity in a critical situation and with a team of young people.
• A simple way to encourage creativity is to share with others in an informal environment, or even to have a training that is not related to their main subject. I had a workshop with a group of public officers working at a company that was closing. Situation could be grim as everybody there knew they would be fired at the end of their process; in other words, their prize for success was to be fired… It was very valuable for them, for their peace of mind and their morale to talk about things not related to their work.
• When there is rigidity in the place, make effort that mind is free. I was at the Air Force for three years, spending the equivalent to high school there. However, I’ve made effort to keep my mind free – I was well informed, doing poetry and even practicing meditation in my last year.

In other words, there is no excuse to not be creative...

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