Companies that want to survive today’s hostile business environment need to be creative. In some companies, that is not the case. The case is that they don’t want to be creative. They don’t want to take risks. They want to do things the way they have been doing it.

Let’s take a look at how managers kill innovation and creativity in their workplaces. But before we do that, let’s look at what experts have said about creativity.

James Russell Lowell said, “Creativity is not the finding of a thing, but the making of something out of it after it is found.”

Erich Seligmann Fromm said, “Creativity requires the courage to let go of uncertainties.”

Another scholar, Jean Piaget said, “If you want to be creative, stay in part a child, with the creativity and invention that characterizes children before they are deformed by adult society.”

Now, let’s get to how managers or companies kill innovation and creativity:

Managers get in the way of creativity.

Sometimes managers think they are helping their employees by controlling everything that they do. No, They are not. When smart and creative employees feel that they don’t have control over their own jobs, they are not motivated to do anything. As a result, morale and productivity will suffer. As a manager, if you want the best employees to stay and work well with you, you have to create an environment that supports creativity, not the one that stop creativity.

Risk is not acceptable.

A person cannot be a creative person without taking risks. A company cannot be a creative and innovative company without taking a calculated risk. Without risks, there is no success. Without risks, there is no advancements. Without risks, there is no growth. As a manager, if you want your company to do well in today’s hostile economy, you must allow your employees to take risks. You must allow your employees to experiment. 

Managers don’t want chaos.

Creativity and innovation are chaotic. As Carl Jung once said, “In all chaos there is a cosmos, in all disorder a secret order.” If you want to be successful in business, discard the old way and adopt a new way of doing things. In addition, allow your employees to be free to produce something from nothing.

Managers don’t work with experts.

In order to be really innovative and creative, you need to work with experts. People who understand the art of creativity. You need to work with internal and external experts. According to Niels Bohr, “An expert is a man who has made all the mistakes which can be made in a very narrow field.”

Werner Heisenberg said, “An expert is someone who knows some of the the worst mistakes that can be made in his subject, and how to avoid them.