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“We train people to think about improvement all of the time, to have what I call a culture of creative dissatisfaction with the status quo.”  - Ananth Krishnan, Chief Technology Officer, Tata Consultancy Services [Business Week, How To Build A Culture of Innovation]

Creative dissatisfaction….I like that term.

Employers are always so worried about the satisfaction of their employees. They conduct survey after survey to measure the dissatisfaction. Employee dissatisfaction is seen as a liability.

What if employers changed their perspective and viewed their employee dissatisfaction as an asset? An asset to be used as fuel to drive significant, creative, innovative, positive change.

What if employers said to employees?…….

We recognize that you aren’t satisfied with the way things are. Neither are we. Our mission is not yet accomplished. Our vision is not yet achieved. We want a culture of creative dissatisfaction with the status quo. We want to hear your ideas on how to move forward. Where creativity, innovation, and change are needed, we want you to have the freedom and power to create, innovate, and change.”

Listening to ideas and giving employees the freedom and power to create, innovate, and change are key. Without that, then your employee dissatisfaction is, well, just a liability.

I think we need to expand our definition of creativity. I think most of us think of painters or sculpters or musicians or singers or designers when we think of creativity. Even if you can’t paint, sculpt, play music, sing, or design, you can still create. We serve a creative God. Should we as His followers, not also be creative?

This weekend I listened to a podcast message from Erwin Mcmanus. In the message, he explained how the Biblical story of David and Goliath is not just a story of strong faith and great courage, but a story of creativity.

Here are a few quotes from the message that were worth sharing……

• The creative act, in its essence, at it’s core, is the most selfless, sacrificial, beautiful act of humanity.
• You’re never going to discover your full, creative potential until you’re willing to step into a crisis, a challenge, a problem, an issue bigger than you.
• Somewhere along the way, we became convinced that the people, the tribe of Jesus, needed a place to be safe rather than an opportunity to step into the dangerous.
• The moment you begin to break beyond the line of other people’s fear, people will begin to despise and resent you………..Everyone around you who lives a life of apathy and mediocrity will despise your ambition to do something that matters in the world. Creativity always comes with a price.
• You know when you become most creative? You become most creative when you find yourself in a challenge, in a crisis, in a circumstance, that it seems as if you never prepared for.
• Is it possible that God is trying to take you from the area of your comfort and security and of your expertise and move you into an entirely different arena so that God can do something that has never been done before in the world? And maybe something that has never happened in you.
• If you keep trying to control your world, you’ll never be part of creating a different world. If you spend your energy trying to control your life, you will never use your energy to create a life.
• The power of the creative act is when you have the courage to step into a moment filled with crisis. You face a problem, a challenge, an obstacle, and you have the courage to take off all the previous suppositions that caused everyone before you to fail and say “God, I’m going to stand here, stripped of everything I know that should bring me success and allow you to engage the creative act in me to do something that has never been done before.” No one had ever killed the giant with one stone.

I have been in the workforce for almost 10 years now.  So not really a veteran, but also not a rookie.  I have spent time in a number of different roles on many teams in various organizations at 2 large companies.  Each role on each team in each organization at each company was a unique experience, but interestingly there are 6 common attributes that I have found, in varying degrees, in most of my work experiences.

{ 6 Common Attributes } 3 positive attributes & 3 negative attributes.

The 3 positive attributes that I have found in most of my work experiences are…….

1)  Talent, Talent, Talent

I have had the privilege of working with so many talented people.  People with leadership skills, great communicators, star project managers, technology gurus, etc.  A shortage of talent has rarely been an issue in my work experiences.

2)  Effort

In my experience, most people are willing to work hard.  Most people take pride in what they do and they are willing go above and beyond to accomplish great things.  I have also found that people will go out of there way to help their coworkers.

3)  Ideas

Light bulbs are flashing on above people’s heads all the time.  All the innovative and creative ideas needed to transform teams, organizations, and companies are sitting there in the minds of current employees just waiting to be unleashed.  People in the trenches live with organizational frustrations, problems, and inefficiencies daily and they have tons of ideas on how to eliminate them.

The 3 negative attributes that I have found in most of my work experiences are……..

1)  Lack of a Clear, Consistent, Compelling Vision

In some cases, there has been a vision, but it wasn’t clear.  It was confusing and people couldn’t follow a vision they couldn’t understand.  In some cases, there has been a vision, but it wasn’t consistent.  Leaders would cast the vision, and then it would disappear or reappear in a different form.  I recently heard Bill Hybels say, “Vision leaks.”  So true.  People need to be reminded of the vision, consistently.  In some cases, there has been a vision, but it wasn’t compelling.  People like to follow a vision that they can get excited about.  The lack of a clear, consistent, compelling vision means that Talent, Talent, Talent gets wasted, wasted, wasted.

2)  Disorganization

Organizations are not organized.  Documents and files are scattered in various locations.  Project data is not typically documented and maintained properly and made visible to project team members.  Enterprise project management tools that enable task management, resource management, and project collaboration are rarely used.  Knowledge is not shared across the organization.  Time gets wasted on processing email and sitting in meetings because other more efficient forms of communication are ignored.  In disorganized organizations, employee effort is spent going sideways instead of moving forward.

3)  A Status Quo Mentality

In most of my work experiences, a status quo mentality has been strongly embedded into the culture.  I call it the “That’s the way we’ve always done things” syndrome.  Innovative and creative ideas die a quick death in organizations with a status quo mentality.  And worse, employees within a culture like this will eventually stop presenting their ideas out of fear of rejection.  An organization with a status quo mentality will often, unintentionally, kill the very ideas that are needed to transform it.

I’m not saying these 6 common attributes are present in every organization.  Obviously, there are some organizations without one or more of the 3 positive attributes.  For example, a company with a talent shortage.  And clearly, there are some organizations where one or more of the 3 negative attributes are not an issue.  There are many cutting-edge technology companies that definitely do not have a status quo mentality.  But the fact that these 6 common attributes stand out so clearly to me over almost 10 years, makes me think that others must have experienced the same thing to some degree.

Have you experienced something similar in your work experience?  If so, I would love to hear about it.

Have you experienced a work situation with the 3 positive attributes, but without the 3 negative attributes?  I would really love to hear those stories.

I have 2 young children and that means when we watch movies they are usually animated.

And to tell you the truth, I don’t mind at all.

No one does animated films better than Pixar.

Monsters Inc………Finding Nemo…….The Incredibles…………Cars…………….Ratatouille

Pixar’s films are oozing with creativity.

Pixar has 3 Operating Principles that help them foster creativity……..

1)  Everyone must have the freedom to communicate with anyone.

2)  It must be safe for everyone to offer ideas.

3)  We must stay close to innovations happening in the academic community.

Pixar’s philosophy………..

You get great creative people, you bet big on them, you give them enormous leeway and support, and you provide them with an environment in which they can get honest feedback from everyone.

Pixar tears down barriers that get in the way of the creative process……….

Getting people in different disciplines to treat one another as peers is just as important as getting people within disciplines to do so. But it’s much harder. Barriers include the natural class structures that arise in organizations: There always seems to be one function that considers itself and is perceived by others to be the one the organization values the most. Then there’s the different languages spoken by different disciplines and even the physical distance between offices. In a creative business like ours, these barriers are impediments to producing great work, and therefore we must do everything we can to tear them down.

To read more about how Pixar fosters creativity check out this great article in the Harvard Business Review by Ed Catmull, cofounder of Pixar and the president of Pixar and Disney Animation Studios:

How Pixar Fosters Creativity