“Spend time reflecting on what drives your own engagement at work, about what was happening on your best day at work, and why it engaged you. Doing so will help you make better choices about the sort of work you want to be engaged in going forward.”

Today on Getting Unstuck

Organizations thrive and survive on the creativity of their employees. But what constitutes “creativity”? Are we born with it? Can it be drawn out of us by our teammates, manager, or the type of work we do? And what is the relationship between creativity and employee engagement, and how do both impact problem solving?

We’ll explore answers to these questions in this conversation with Dr. Tracy Stanley, a social scientist and author of The Engagement Whisperer, and Barbara Wilson, an executive coach, and creativity facilitator and trainer. Tracy and Barbara are co-authors of Creativity Cycling: Help your team solve complex problems with creative tools.

Listen for

• The relationship between motivation and creativity.

• One simple thing managers and leaders can do to increase employee engagement and creativity.

• Why it’s critical for leaders to establish “psychological safety” in the work environment.

• The two competing priorities leaders must attempt to balance.

• The three phases of problem solving – and why teams tend to get the first phase wrong.

• The hierarchy of problem solving and how to manage it.

• Why “Yes and” is more fruitful than “Yes but.”

“As a leader or manager, you really need to understand how people show up – how their mindset is influenced by their education, their parents, their cultural orientation, and their perceptions about what they think they can and can’t do. You need to help people have an understanding about themselves and what might be their own barriers and mindsets that are stopping them from engaging and thinking differently. If you’re not sensitive that before you start, you’re not going to be very successful. ”

For reflection

As opposed to seeking an answer through a rational discussion, Barbara coaches teams to approach problem identification by having them draw the problem or develop a collage to represent the problem. What’s a problem you’re experiencing at work, and how might you illustrate it? What does drawing the problem open up for you that a rational discussion might not?