Nearly every job involves some aspect of creativity, from jobs we consider to be creative (such as media or teaching) to those we think of as more mundane (such as accounting or cleaning). Creativity covers the spectrum of innovation, from the ability to see new ways to accomplish familiar tasks to the capacity to envision entirely new processes or products.

Creativity and productivity are not mutually exclusive, although channeling creativity into productivity can be a significant challenge for a manager. You just need to identify people who are naturally creative thinkers and make sure they have the flexibility — in terms of assignments and environment — to express their creativity. How can you stimulate and support productive creativity without squelching the creative process? You might try these ideas:

• Present assignments in general terms, explaining the desired end result but allowing employees the latitude to find their own ways to that result. Establish timelines to keep productivity on track, but don't structure the work process.

• Allow people to express risky ideas without immediately shooting them down. “Let me play devil's advocate” is the surest way to cut creative thinking off at the knees.

• Let people work through mistakes to find their own solutions, and allow time for this as part of the creative process. It takes a lot of coal to make diamonds.

• Learn how to praise someone's efforts without focusing on the result or product you want those efforts to generate.

• Ask employees what you can do to provide a stimulating and supportive environment. You might be surprised at how simple some of their requests will be.

• Sponsor workshops conducted by outside resources. Creative people are always looking to broaden their base of knowledge and expertise. New faces bring fresh perspectives. Employees are sometimes more willing to question and raise issues with outsiders than they are with internal trainers or consultants.

Remember, though, that new approaches are sometimes threatening. Everyone's neck is on the line these days, and managers don't like to take risks that will stretch theirs. Too many people, up and down the corporate ladder, notice. Many managers take the easy route and stay with the tried and true, no matter how tired or even nonproductive that approach has become. This reflects an insecurity that employees pick up on, even if you yourself don't. But it's critical to take risks now and again, to explore new ways of doing things. Familiarity breeds repetition, which soon becomes complacency and stagnation. No company, no matter what its products or services, can thrive (or even survive) without fresh ideas.

Creative Jobs

Although you can find them in just about any job, creative people tend to gravitate toward creative jobs — work that requires them to come up with new processes or products. These jobs are often in fields such as advertising, marketing, electronic media, publishing, design, and architecture. You might define these people as writers, artists, or programmers, or they might have a combination of talents that defies definition.

Creative people tend to make managers a little nervous — it's hard to tell sometimes whether they're working or goofing off, and they seem a bit, well, unleashed. Creative types can often be characterized as follows:

• They appear to have little regard for authority, rules, structure, and routine, viewing these as elements of the work world that do not apply to them.

• They establish surroundings within their work environments that support and feed their imaginations.

• They have unorthodox or eccentric methods for stimulating their productivity.

• They appear disorganized and to “fly by the seat of their pants” when giving presentations.

• They find humor in, and even make fun of, just about everything (and might not understand why others don't or why others may find these “funnies” offensive).

• They work in spurts of intensity that can last for hours, days, or even weeks, then go into a “down” phase, when they appear to accomplish very little.

• They arrive late or even fail to show up for staff or other general meetings that don't apply directly to their projects.

People in creative professions require tremendous flexibility in management terms. Emotion, not logic, rules the creative process. The result is often behavior that goes beyond what others might consider conventional business behavior. The office of a creative person might look more like a preschool classroom or a toy store than a workstation. Creative types also need to be able to shut themselves away, to get away from the structure of rules and decorum, to give their ideas space and time to evolve.

Companies or departments that rely on creative people, such as advertising agencies or media companies, often use brainstorming sessions that to the uninitiated (or those who require structure) might appear to be wild free-for-alls. People laugh, yell, throw things, draw pictures, and tell jokes as they toss about ideas. Political correctness stays in the hall; there's plenty of opportunity later to run the censor filters. The entire mission is to let brains wander freely through the vast seed bins of ideas until some start to sprout.

Appearances Are Deceiving

Despite appearances to the contrary, most creative people are highly organized. It's just that the organization doesn't necessarily take the form of neatly labeled files and calendars that record meetings and commitments — the standard trappings of structure. Those “seat of the pants” presentations often reflect not lack of preparation but instead a deeply assimilated knowledge of the topic acquired through intense and often extended research or observation — sometimes with a dash of intuition thrown in. This less tangible organization can have the appearance of chaos, but it's not. For the creative individual, it's as close to logical as it gets.

Not surprisingly, too much structure stifles creativity. As a manager, this can be a difficult balancing act for you. On the one hand you have a creative genius (or even a team of creative geniuses) whose ideas generate most of the products that make your company successful. On the other hand, you have the company, which wants to make sure the time it pays for is productive. Perhaps you are also responsible for managing other people whose work is more traditional and who might believe that anyone who's having so much fun at work isn't working hard enough.