How to Create Creative Environments

Our professional environment is changing from one with an algorithmic task-based focus to one that both requires and values agile and heuristic thinking: innovative market disruption is driving the need for a more creative mindset from employees. The challenge for organisations, and for their leaders and managers, is how to create and maintain workplace environments that nurture and develop creative and innovative thinking.

Constraints, creativity and the wrong kind of stress

Creativity, like every other aspect of our lives, works within the context of constraints: available time, resources, capabilities (literal and mental) and budget. We can think of this as the pressure and stress of accommodating reality. Indeed, constraints can inspire creative responses, but they can suffocate them too.