The Science of Building a Positive Creative Climate
Science says that if you want a creative, innovative and motivated workforce building and maintaining a creative climate is key. This also tracks with my own experience. When I’ve been in environments where ideas flow freely, challenges are embraced, and everyone feels a sense of belonging, I thrived. I worked extra because I believed in our projects. They also stretched my talents in a fun way where I felt like I was learning and growing while being a useful member of the team. Not to mention I didn’t want to let my colleagues down and I saw the same drive across team members. On the flip side, when the “vibes” were bad, it was all bad. Little changes set everyone’s hair ablaze, people couldn’t wait to get out of there and turnover was rampant.
First introduced by George Litwin and Robert Stringer in their 1968 book, "Motivation and Organizational Climate," organizational behaviorists, designers and creative researchers have since looked into what a creative climate means (both positively and negatively), what it’s composed of and its effects on organizations. And in general the results are clear. If you want a creative, innovative and motivated workforce, a positive creative climate should be a strategic priority.
Understanding Creative Climate
A single definition is tough, but it's generally considered to be the structures and social dynamics that either encourage or discourage creative thinking and doing. Maybe to say it a different way, in a positive creative climate, people feel empowered to bring up issues and ideas and the structures exist for solutions to take hold and flourish. While there is not compete agreement on the exact recipe of a creative climate, which can include up to 14 different elements in some analyses; in my work and research, I bucketed them into 6 distinct areas:
Belonging: The feeling of being accepted, valued, and included as a member of the team or organization. It fosters psychological safety by ensuring all team members feel represented, heard and valued while encouraging individuals to share ideas without fear of judgment or shame.
Organizational Integration: The degree to which leadership, strategy, goals, processes and resources are aligned on the importance of creative execution. Allowing an organization to work together collaboratively and share information. Integration promotes cross-functional collaboration, exposing individuals to diverse perspectives and sparking new ideas.
Focus: Thorough, clear and shared collective vision that gives leaders and team the ability to concentrate on specific tasks and goals, minimizing distractions. Focus allows individuals to dedicate their mental energy to creative problem-solving and exploration, while also clearing barriers to cross-team collaboration.
Challenge: The opportunity to tackle complex problems and stretch one's abilities. Challenging work fosters intrinsic motivation and ownership that push people to seek out of the box or creative solutions.
Permission: The explicit (policies and procedures) or implicit (behaviors) approval to take risks, experiment, and try new approaches without fear of negative consequences. Permission empowers individuals to challenge the status quo and explore unconventional ideas.
Group Reward: Recognizing and rewarding the collective achievements of a team rather than just individual accomplishments. Group rewards is positive extrinsic motivation that promotes collaboration through shared purpose and encourages individuals to contribute their unique skills and perspectives to the team's success.
A couple things to call out in this list. First, I put them in this order because I believe this is also the order of importance. Without people feeling like they belong, it doesn't matter how much challenging work they have. They won’t take the risk to put themselves out there. No amount of Focus or Group rewards can break through an organization that isn’t integrated on the goals of being creative or innovative. Second, I did not specifically call out diversity and inclusion because in my mind that is the baseline of an organization that focuses on belonging, the bedrock of a positive creative climate. It is inherent in an organization that focuses on the psychological safety of its employees, ensuring they’re exposed to differing and unique perspectives in respectful, nonjudgmental ways.
The Effects of a Positive Creative Climate
Beyond just “vibes” there are tangible effects of having a positive creative climate. In one particularly influential study, both to my research and in the field, that has been cited 1200 times was this 2007 quantitative meta-analysis of the research to date. In 2007, The study analyzed 42 prior studies involving over 10,000 participants. Their primary findings found a significant positive correlation between supportive creative climates and various measures of creative performance, including idea generation, problem-solving, and innovation.
Two findings that also jumped out to me are, first that a positive creative climate had the largest effect on disgruntled employees and, second, a positive climate is particularly impactful in high-pressure, competitive situations. Which is to say that a creative climate pays dividends exactly when you need it.
They hypothesized why this was the case. When it came to disgruntled employees, if they saw that their organization was open to improving, adopting new strategies and generally changing they would work to make that change. In stressful times, a climate that promotes open communication, trust, and collaboration becomes a lifeline, allowing teams to focus on problem-solving rather than finger-pointing. This sense of shared purpose and belonging empowers individuals at every level to contribute their unique perspectives and skills, ultimately leading to more creative and effective solutions.
Dig the well before you’re thirsty
It seems that recently this sort of “soft” stuff has been left behind. At the first sign of a downturn (that never really happened?) it was the first to go, but as the science shows it's the stuff that keeps things together when the times actually get tough. I’m curious to see if a renewed focus on DEI, employee wellbeing and the “softer” stuff is around the corner? Recently Keir Starmer, the newly elected British PM, took a strong stance of turning off after 6pm to be with his family. While the Tories took a shot at him for it, these are the sorts of strong stances leaders need to take to ensure a positive working climate. It shows that all types belong, they’re focused on the right things and integrated on that focus from the top down. With that statement the new PM is setting the work culture before he needs to lean on it in tough times; digging the well before he’s thirsty.
If you have any questions, would like to chat more about creativity or any of the other topics discussed here, I’d love to hear it. Send an email or a note on LinkedIn and let’s start a conversation. Also, a few folks I’ve spoken to missed the last few posts, so I’ve also added a section below to follow along in your email inbox.
