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“Here’s to the ones who dream, foolish as they may seem. Here’s to the hearts that ache. Here’s to the mess we make.”
These words from the 2016 musical ‘La La Land’ resonate with all the creative souls living their 9-to-5’s, with big dreams in their eyes, working in regular businesses. As business owners, we should endeavour to bring this creativity to the table and add freshness to our regular deliverables. Because every business can benefit from creativity and fresh thinking. So how do we do that?
Well, you already know a creative culture exists in a workplace that offers freedom. But how much freedom, exactly? When does creativity stop being productive? We tried to find some answers through our own tried and tested ways.
How can you bring creativity to your organization without letting it fiddle with your work routine?
At Cucumber Marketing, we make sure that we encourage creative and fresh thinking. After all, we promise to offer fresh marketing to our cool companies.
Fresh is one of our three core values as a marketing agency. The other two values are ‘cool’ and ‘grow’. While ‘fresh’ pushes us to think different, ‘cool’ pushes us to stay on-trend and focussed on what’s relevant and finally ‘grow’ urges us to focus on our goals and grow together. We have embedded creativity into our culture but we still give it a direction. It’s out of the box but it’s not outside the lines.
We’ve got three suggestions for business owners to encourage a creative and fun culture at work while still focussing on productivity.
1. Set clear goals for every team member
Just like there is a method to any madness, there are boundaries to freedom. Boundaries make us appreciate freedom. The moment freedom starts affecting your goals, it stops being fun too.
To encourage your team to think fresh and to feel free at work, it is important to set clear goals for everyone and review them periodically. When each team member knows what he or she is accountable for, day to day activities will be planned accordingly. Remove all the other restrictions like work timings, mobile phone usage etc. and just push the goals. As long as their goals are met, they can do whatever they want with their time. Goals act as the best watch guards.
2. Encourage breaks
Meditating hard to bend a spoon without even touching it! Works well in movies, but in reality, concentrating too much on a single problem reduces productivity and most of all, stifles creativity. You will think monotonously, you will get stuck on the same steps each time and your brain will get into a loop. Instead, encourage your team to take breaks, exercise their minds in different capacities like observing people at a cafe, walking to a nearby park, talking to a friend over the phone, reading a book. Such quick breaks, help you focus better and keep you from getting bored. Thus, encouraging creativity.
Being an advertising agency in Vancouver Downtown, we are really lucky to find easy places around us where we can enjoy short breaks before getting plugged into any tasks that require us to focus for long. We even take little yoga breaks during work hours.
3. Offer sensory experiences
It’s a little overstated but it works nonetheless. Playing unconventional music at work, displaying interesting quotes or thought provoking art in the common areas, filling the office with new scents. These are ways of simulating your team to feel fresh and cool.
Try including some popular characters in your daily routines to lighten things up.We’ve got Google’s Andro that we won at some Google Conference and we’ve recently got ourselves Disney’s Star Wars droid BB8. They make our thinking room look more inviting and fun.
By making these 3 changes in your business, you will notice a difference in creativity while productivity will remain the same or it might even increase. Give them a try!
And while you’re at it, use our ‘Make A Fresh Mess’ wallpaper to keep yourself motivated. 🙂
Download one for your device here
Follow us on Instagram to get more tips for your Vancouver business. We help cool companies grow with our fresh marketing ideas. You can contact us to discuss your brand’s strategy!