A Blueprint for a Creative Workplace

by Kate Rutter

July 15, 2010

How does a workplace culture support creative thinking? What kinds of cultural elements kill curiosity and team engagement? I’ve been exploring this question for a while, and I’m always on the lookout for new and insightful perspectives on organizational behaviors and how a culture of creativity can be fostered and maintained.

In this issue, I share a map of the creative culture landscape that I’ve developed to identify areas of workplace culture that support creativity, insight and innovation. Read on to learn how the map came to be and to download a version to make your own assessment. In a UX team, ideas are the currency and the people are the richest resource. Staying fresh and engaged is crucial to delivering work that is inspired, implemented well and that spans both user needs and business objectives. But creating and maintaining this fresh outlook is a challenge. And it’s a challenge that you can’t take on single-handed…it takes a team approach to foster a culture that promotes and reinforces creativity. This is a topic close to my heart, and I’m always excited to share what I’ve read, learned or experienced. So when I read an article by Dr. Teresa Amabile  called “How to Kill Creativity” in the book Harvard Business Review on Breakthrough Thinking, I was intrigued and excited. The article was originally published in the Harvard Business Review in September 1998, but don’t be fooled. The article is as relevant today as when it was written, perhaps even more so.

While reading this fabulous essay, a picture began to emerge in my head. Dr. Amabile is a clear and eloquent writer, and the structure of her thinking is crisp and concise. I thought “If I could map out the landscape of creativity that is outlined in the article, could the map be used as a tool to evaluate the activities we do at Adaptive Path and how they foster and contribute to the creativity of the culture?”

The question was impossible to answer without just jumping in and doing it. So, after multiple sketches and a few adaptations, I came up with a map, which works like a blueprint for a creative culture. The map shows a summary of the concepts covered in the article, along with a few additions and tweaks.

Here’s a link to the completed map on Flickr:

• View the Map in black & white
  Main view  |  Download different sizes
• View the Map in color
  Main view  |  Download different sizes
• Note: It’s best to print it out on 11 x 17 paper, but it will also fit (and be readable) on 8.5 x 11.

Now that the map is created, the next step is to think through the activities, supports and tools that are in play at Adaptive Path and to map them onto the creative culture blueprint. The goal will be to see where in the landscape we are doing things that reinforce a positive creative culture, where there are gaps, and where we are doing things that kill creativity.

The results of the assessment will be posted as soon as it’s complete. In the meantime, I encourage you to check out the original HBR article, and to use the map to make an assessment in your own organization.

Interested in creating your own assessment map? If so, you can download a blank version of the map (which gives you room to write in your own information) and fill in the activities that are part of your workplace culture. What activities and elements do you have in place that deliver on elements that support creativity? Where are there gaps? Are there things that are part of the culture that directly conflict with the attributes that support creativity?

Here’s a link to the fill-in map on Flickr:

• View the Fill-in Map in black & white
  Main view  |  Download different sizes
• Note: It’s best to print it out on 11 x 17 paper, but it will also fit (and be readable) on 8.5 x 11.

Viva la creative culture!

Related resources

• Purchase a reprint of the article “How to Kill Creativity” from the Harvard Business Review (About $7)
• The article (in the book Harvard Business Review on Breakthrough Thinking) on Google Books
• A recent blog post by Leah, showing some of the elements of the environment at Adaptive Path that support creativity