Why don’t good ideas emerge in the workplace? Where exactly is the problem: the people, the environment, or the organization that prevents employees from coming up with new or good ideas?
Many organizations say that creativity is very important to drive the business, especially in the current situation where changes are becoming faster and more severe. They expect their employees to be creative and come up with new ideas to save the situation or lead the business and the organization out of this crisis.
But in reality, it is the opposite. Most employees are unable to find new ideas or create inspiration to think of new things at work.
“Why don’t good ideas come to the workplace?”
It’s because the workplace doesn’t create good ideas or encourage creativity. In fact, there are many factors that prevent us from thinking of good work or coming up with good ideas. For example:
“Our work may be too much.”
With a large amount of work, there are many urgent, urgent, and important tasks that come up every day. This does not include the number of meetings that we have to attend. Just managing the work each day is already difficult. If it is like this, how will we have free time to think of new things or new ideas? However, some people may not really have a lot of work, but they end up spending a lot of time on other people’s matters. This makes it difficult to come up with new ideas as well.
“We have been stuck in our comfort zone for too long.”
Sometimes, doing the same job, the same position, the same type of work for too long can also cause our creativity to atrophy. Especially those who have been stuck in their comfort zone for a long time will have a fixed mindset, which means they are afraid of failing, afraid of losing face if they make a mistake, so they don’t like to do anything risky or dare to think outside the box. The alternative is to choose to do the same thing over and over again, without having to think of new ideas, so that they don’t have to risk their careers.
“Boring coworkers”
Working in the same place for a long time is not enough. Having to work with the same group of colleagues also makes it even harder to be creative because everyone has been doing the same work in the same context for as long as we have. If it continues like this, I can tell you that there is no way to come up with any new ideas. Furthermore, if you have boring colleagues who do nothing but make things worse, or who are the type that makes you tired when working with them, I guarantee that there is no way you will be able to think of anything creative.
“The boss is boring.”
Bosses are another problem that prevents creativity from occurring in an organization. Bosses are the main culprits that destroy creativity in an organization, whether it is a problem in management or team management, such as a boss who works in a way that is critical or does not give the team a chance to express their opinions because they are self-centered or discriminate against their own colleagues. These issues also block employees’ creativity. We can see this in many places where employees have good ideas but do not want to present them to their bosses because they are afraid that if they present them and the boss does not like them, they will be criticized anyway. So they choose not to present them and choose to just follow orders.
“Work culture is boring.”
Many organizations have a work culture that is not conducive to creating creativity, such as not giving children the opportunity to express their opinions or present new approaches, or sticking to doing business with the same old methods and approaches that have been done in the past, or not liking to do anything that looks different from the past, or executives being obsessed with their own opinions or policies. These things have a full impact on employees like us because it is almost impossible to present new ideas, cutting-edge ideas in an organization with this kind of culture.
“The work environment is boring.”
Our work environment is not conducive. The workplace may be full of documents, there is little working space, some workplaces are old, and there may not be enough common areas. We have to compete for the use of meeting rooms. These things create problems that cause employees like us to lack inspiration to think of new ideas.
“Why do good ideas always come when we’re not at work?”
It is because we are not stuck with the same old things, the same old atmosphere, the same old people, the same old problems, all of which cause us to not want to think of anything new. Our brains need to add some new things, such as reading books, meeting new people, going out to see the world, or doing new activities that we have never done before. These are also ways to stimulate our creativity.
Changing the workplace can also affect creativity. In this era after the outbreak of Covid, many organizations are more open, allowing employees to work from anywhere. Therefore, we see many coffee shops in shopping malls or other places full of working people who come to work or meet and talk about work more and more.
But many people choose to use their home space to work, perhaps because of convenience, so they don’t have to travel, or to prevent the risk of getting infected with COVID. So they choose some areas at home, turn them into work spaces, and create new ideas.
“How to transform your home space to promote creativity”
In this era, we can change the space in our house, such as the guest room or living room, to be able to be used for various purposes. We may add some necessary furniture or adjust the room by painting it, for example:
Green helps promote creativity. Research from Ludwig-Maximilians University conducted an experiment and found that green is a sign of growth, meaning development, extension and has a part in stimulating creativity.
In addition, a further study by researchers from the University of Michigan found that students were able to come up with more new ideas to solve complex problems after visiting a nature park, compared to students who simply went outside or exercised.
Therefore, green (or shades of green) is very suitable to be used in the area of the home or office because it is a color that stimulates both personal creativity and is also useful for brainstorming with the team to come up with new ideas.
For anyone looking for creativity and wanting to transform their home into a source of new ideas.
Here with DULUX https://www.dulux.co.th/th/decorating-tips-and-advice/preview-service
They have a free home color design service for us. We can send pictures of our room to the DULUX design team. They will design the room color for us to choose within 48 hours. We can choose as we like. This ensures that we get the color that suits our needs.
Home color design services from professional designers
Let our team of professional designers help you design your home’s color scheme in the style you like for free.
LINE : @Duluxdesign
For more articles on Growth Mindset and Fixed Mindset, please visit:
What are Growth Mindset and Fixed Mindset? And How Do They Affect Us?
Source:
https://www.hunker.com/13411283/what-wall-colors-inspire-creativity
https://www.fastcompany.com/3062708/four-things-to-do-outside-the-office-that-boost-creativity
