Dealing with Creative People

Managing a workforce of creative professionals requires a certain degree of sensitivity and individual skills. We all know how creative people have unique things that motivate and inspire them. Moody, erratic, eccentric, and arrogant, creative people are protective of their process and ideas. Therefore, suggesting a process or dealing with them must be done delicately. Luckily, there are a number of things that you can do to set creative direct reports up for success.

Identify traits of each individual with observing what can be considered as a creative inventory of each person. Because creative folks respond to healthy competition (as it inspires and motivates them to dominate) put people through competition whichever way organizational flow allows you.

Keeping creative people busy with multiple projects at once has been proved more productive. This way, there is always a lot on everyone’s plate which results in incubating ideas. Idea incubation takes place when you read your brief and do hours of work. Because creative brain works on it over time, you get a lot of work done while being in a healthy confused state. With time, creative workforce learns to cope with healthy confusion, resulting in job satisfaction.

Moody, erratic, eccentric, and arrogant, creative people are protective of their process and ideas.

Creative talent lives to create. When they get lots of free time, they get unhappy and creatively uninspired. Therefore, it’s important to ensure that creative people are continually put across new challenges so they don’t lose their perspective on work. Give your unconditional support and encourage creative employees to do the experiment. Such people are the natural experimenters, so let them try and test. It is also important to involve them in meaningful work only. Needless to say, meaningless work mirrors the bipolar temperament of creative performers, who execute well only when inspired.

Creative resources characteristically switch companies after a couple of years. It is your job to foster an environment that people don’t want to leave. Keeping your culture healthy is important as for creative resources it’s not just about money, but culture. Help them in shaping their careers through encouragement, keen pairing, and sometimes offering interpersonal advice.

Never force creative employees to work with someone like them as they would compete for ideas or simply ignore each other. Similarly, you cannot surround the creative pool with boring people as they would not understand them and fall out. In line with this, teams made up of diverse members are open to taking each others’ perspective and perform most creatively. Support your creative people with colleagues who are too conventional to challenge their ideas, but unconventional enough to collaborate with them.