Most companies do not train their managers and leaders to:
a: understand creativity, how it happens, is encouraged - we have operated companies based on analytical, concrete, command and control, if it ain't broke don't fix it, path of least resistance - not on creative processes which is opposite of all these things.
b: understand group dynamics and how to lead-manage people to foster creative ideas and then picking and implementing them. Here is what happens in most work place meetings. The manager has a meeting and goes over problems that need fixing. She asks for ideas from the "team" and if the manager is new or the team is new, she will get some ideas, then if they are not ideas that fit within her realm of possibilities she won't try them out. She will typically go try out a variation of what has already been done in the past - path of least resistance. Anything too new and different there is a perception of being very costly if the idea fails. Depending on who she is reporting to and how much leeway is given to trying new things and being okay with failing - will she try anything new. So after ideas were given at the meeting and none of them were tried and most likely the people with the new ideas given any encouragement for them - the next meeting when she asks for ideas, she will not get any. People begin to dread coming to meetings. People start leaving (mentally at first then actually leaving the job). Those who don't leave are okay with not having their ideas heard and implemented and are okay with just doing whatever they are told. So overtime you get more of the same and innovation is reduced to nothing.
c. employees are not trained or encouraged to understand how to be more creative (most come from other workplaces that didn't encourage creativity and innovation) and fall right into just doing what they are told, not to rock the boat, just do what is necessary. in orientation-training - they should be trained on creativity skills and on group brainstorming and on communication skills to get their ideas across and how to get them implemented. in these orientations the managers should be present during these training sessions so the employees see that they are supporting these processes.
Here is an example of how this has happened to me (has actually happened many times both in jobs and in committees in my social activist work). When I was working at National Seminars in the Onsite Department selling Onsite Programs to Companies I suggested a new idea of getting business. I wanted to take the very popular Creative Leadership Camp Brochure send them out to potential cleints and tell them they could attend the program for free. I would fly out to one of the seminars where I would have these clients attending and chat with them at lunch or after the program to see if it would be a program they would like to bring to their company. When I suggested this to my boss, he said that I needed to prove myself first in the old way of making phone calls to people and just trying to sell over the phone. They couldn't pay for my travel expenses until I proved myself. I was also confronted at a team meeting by senior employees that we were not to be making cold calls because that makes us look cheap. We were supposed to just wait for the phone to ring. The problem is when you are a new consultant you have no clients and the phone never rings. So I was being shut down from the boss, my co-workers. I soon got very frustrated, bored and gave up on the job and went back on the road as a speaker for National.
I still to this day, 10 years after I suggested my idea, think it was a great idea that would have really got the company a lot more business and money. I would have loved my job and stayed longer. So what was the cost to National Seminars for this situation? In their minds nothing because they don't track turnover and its costs and put it into their expenses! What it actually costs was approximately $120k: $20k is an average number of a turnover cost for a new employee that leaves within the first 6 months. How much would it have cost them to let me try out my idea? Let's see each trip would have been maybe $500. I could have made 40 trips and gained lets be conservative 20 new clients at $5000 a client which equals $100,000. $100k + $20K - $20k (travel expenses) = $100k profit. I'm not a mathematician so you might check my math. What a waste!!!
And that's just me. How many other employees not just in my department but across all departments was this going on. All of them. If there is not management training on creativity, creative team building and implementation, or a Innovation-Creativity Strategy, or Orientation Training on Creativity (there wasn't any orientation training at all - very very bad sign) then there is not Creativity and those who try to be creative will be shut down! Most people begin to hate their jobs if they are not engaged in the company, its processes and future - if they are only doing the technical aspects of their job. And what do employees do that hate their jobs? Leave, maximize sick time, and just do what they are asked to do and nothing more.
How much is this company losing every year because of their lack of Creativity & Innovation Strategy? Last I knew they had about 150 employees x $100k (rough guestimate at the loss of a good creative idea) = 1.5 million a year. Hmmmmmmmmhhhhh..........
To train their company to have a Creative & Innovation Strategy I would only charge them $100k. That would include the implementation of the Orientation Training and Training Their Trainers, Hiring for Creativity, Performance for Creativity, Management & Leadership Creativity, Team Creativity, Communication Skillls, and Process for Implement Ideas to be followed with an Employee Survey to see how employees felt about their jobs and the company after the program was implemented. Most companies do not train their managers and leaders to:
a: understand creativity, how it happens, is encouraged - we have operated companies based on analytical, concrete, command and control, if it ain't broke don't fix it, path of least resistance - not on creative processes which is opposite of all these things.
b: understand group dynamics and how to lead-manage people to foster creative ideas and then picking and implementing them. Here is what happens in most work place meetings. The manager has a meeting and goes over problems that need fixing. She asks for ideas from the "team" and if the manager is new or the team is new, she will get some ideas, then if they are not ideas that fit within her realm of possibilities she won't try them out. She will typically go try out a variation of what has already been done in the past - path of least resistance. Anything too new and different there is a perception of being very costly if the idea fails. Depending on who she is reporting to and how much leeway is given to trying new things and being okay with failing - will she try anything new. So after ideas were given at the meeting and none of them were tried and most likely the people with the new ideas given any encouragement for them - the next meeting when she asks for ideas, she will not get any. People begin to dread coming to meetings. People start leaving (mentally at first then actually leaving the job). Those who don't leave are okay with not having their ideas heard and implemented and are okay with just doing whatever they are told. So overtime you get more of the same and innovation is reduced to nothing.
c. employees are not trained or encouraged to understand how to be more creative (most come from other workplaces that didn't encourage creativity and innovation) and fall right into just doing what they are told, not to rock the boat, just do what is necessary. in orientation-training - they should be trained on creativity skills and on group brainstorming and on communication skills to get their ideas across and how to get them implemented. in these orientations the managers should be present during these training sessions so the employees see that they are supporting these processes.
Here is an example of how this has happened to me (has actually happened many times both in jobs and in committees in my social activist work). When I was working at National Seminars in the Onsite Department selling Onsite Programs to Companies I suggested a new idea of getting business. I wanted to take the very popular Creative Leadership Camp Brochure send them out to potential cleints and tell them they could attend the program for free. I would fly out to one of the seminars where I would have these clients attending and chat with them at lunch or after the program to see if it would be a program they would like to bring to their company. When I suggested this to my boss, he said that I needed to prove myself first in the old way of making phone calls to people and just trying to sell over the phone. They couldn't pay for my travel expenses until I proved myself. I was also confronted at a team meeting by senior employees that we were not to be making cold calls because that makes us look cheap. We were supposed to just wait for the phone to ring. The problem is when you are a new consultant you have no clients and the phone never rings. So I was being shut down from the boss, my co-workers. I soon got very frustrated, bored and gave up on the job and went back on the road as a speaker for National.
I still to this day, 10 years after I suggested my idea, think it was a great idea that would have really got the company a lot more business and money. I would have loved my job and stayed longer. So what was the cost to National Seminars for this situation? In their minds nothing because they don't track turnover and its costs and put it into their expenses! What it actually costs was approximately $120k: $20k is an average number of a turnover cost for a new employee that leaves within the first 6 months. How much would it have cost them to let me try out my idea? Let's see each trip would have been maybe $500. I could have made 40 trips and gained lets be conservative 20 new clients at $5000 a client which equals $100,000. $100k + $20K - $20k (travel expenses) = $100k profit. I'm not a mathematician so you might check my math. What a waste!!!
And that's just me. How many other employees not just in my department but across all departments was this going on. All of them. If there is not management training on creativity, creative team building and implementation, or a Innovation-Creativity Strategy, or Orientation Training on Creativity (there wasn't any orientation training at all - very very bad sign) then there is not Creativity and those who try to be creative will be shut down! Most people begin to hate their jobs if they are not engaged in the company, its processes and future - if they are only doing the technical aspects of their job. And what do employees do that hate their jobs? Leave, maximize sick time, and just do what they are asked to do and nothing more.
How much is this company losing every year because of their lack of Creativity & Innovation Strategy? Last I knew they had about 150 employees x $100k (rough guestimate at the loss of a good creative idea) = 1.5 million a year. Hmmmmmmmmhhhhh..........
To train their company to have a Creative & Innovation Strategy I would only charge them $100k. That would include the implementation of the Orientation Training and Training Their Trainers, Hiring for Creativity, Performance for Creativity, Management & Leadership Creativity, Team Creativity, Communication Skillls, and Process for Implement Ideas to be followed with an Employee Survey to see how employees felt about their jobs and the company after the program was implemented.
No comments:
Post a Comment