A frequent concern among people in the business world is that of how to institutionalize creativity in your business. And the most convenient answer is to name a person, or a group, to act as a spur or impulse and as a processor of new ideas.
This initiative should not be bad in principle. Unfortunately, it stumbles upon a series of circumstances that turn that creativity promotion committee into its opposite, that is, into an entity that obstructs it. As that somewhat cynical saying goes: " if you want something not to work, entrust it to a committee."
The need for any entrepreneur to implement channels that stimulate new ideas in the organization is legitimate. This requirement assumes that an internal body responsible for promoting and gathering ideas among employees will bring more benefits to the company.
The obstacle that hinders this idea is mainly that novel results will not emerge, as expected, from a traditional machinery, clinging to its conventional rules and regulations.
It is not unlikely that some committees have actually carried out their mission. However, the obstacles that these must overcome in organizations that seek to renew themselves from an internal section or molecule are considerable.
Realistically, neither miraculous nor revolutionary results can be expected if the committee has neither the effective authority nor the resources to support its initiatives. Any change or germ of change must have the real support of senior management. This support must materialize in the delegation of authority in the committee and in the essential inputs so that it can fulfill its objectives.
There is also another prerequisite. Collaborators with a traditional mindset and completely removed from a full understanding of creativity cannot be expected to act as promoters of change and creative solutions. In the best of cases, such a committee will act as one more instance of the company. And that's what all your momentum will be limited to.
Without the corresponding autonomy, this instance will soon show its infertility. In the worst case scenario, this committee will dedicate itself to overloading the proposals of the collaborators with objections. And the result will be the same. Ideas and projects that will be covered in dust in a drawer or, if it is a digital file, will be discarded the next time a computer's hard drive is cleaned.
A committee founded specifically to promote creativity in the organization should be made up of people trained and aware of the imperative of renewal. They must have extensive experience in the management and supervision of projects. Likewise, they must have the ability to generate a heterodox vision, in the sense of original, of everyday reality. Its role should be justified due to its previous role in generating profitable solutions. For no reason should it be made up of collaborators unrelated to the subject or who are there because there was no other place to locate them.
