Demotivating Creative Workers

“Motivation” is often spoken of as if it is something that one person can do for another – to inject other people with a will to succeed and excel.   It is this sense that the football fan, shouting at the television from his living room chair, feels that he has contributed to the game – that his favorite team would have lost the game, or sat sleepily on the bench, if it weren’t for all his cheering.   In a similar manner, a boss who feels he has “motivated” his people by barking orders at them, telling them to do what they already know how to do, and nagging them to do it better and faster without providing any means of practical support erroneously feels that he has practiced leadership and caused his employees to perform better.

Browbeating people can “motivate” them to do something they are not interested in doing, but only to the degree that is necessary for them to escape nagging.   People who are truly motivated to excel do not need a cheerleader or slave-driver, and in fact such people often distract them from their goal and detract from their performance.    You can direct a person’s enthusiasm to a specific course of action (only if they had none in mind), you can clear barriers to their success, and you can provide them with the resources they need to succeed – but you cannot make them want to succeed if they are not already motivated from within.

Ironically, most methods for motivating people tend to demotivate them instead: telling them to do things that they already know that they need to do, giving vague encouragement (or threats) to do things “better” or “faster” without specific guidance or additional resources, and otherwise interfering with and distracting from their ability to do the good work they might have done if they were left alone to do it.

Consider that the things that people do in their leisure time is not so different from the things that people do for a living – the difference between a gardener and a farmer, between a woodworking enthusiast and a carpenter, between a home cook and a restaurant chef, between an amateur golfer and a professional athlete is negligible.   

Some highly motivated employees have chosen a profession that matches their interests, but more often the motivated employee has taken an interest in what they happen to do for a paycheck.   There are many people who are quite happy working as janitors, a job that is often regarded as low-paying, tedious, and unpleasant – but a janitor who takes interest in the work, who finds  mopping a floor an engaging challenge and believes he has served others by doing the work, can happily carry on for years.

Creative people are drawn to professions because they love the activity, but lose their passion because of the lack of autonomy: they cannot create at their leisure, and cannot create work that is “good” by their own standards.  Instead, they must work to deadlines and satisfy specifications, and are often beset by meddlers who have less knowledge or expertise – yet who still feel that it is their role to tell the creative worker how to do his job. 

This is where a domineering manager or a toxic work environment can drain the enthusiasm of creative workers.   Many people bounce out of “creative” jobs quickly.   Others persevere for a number of years but are worn down and burned out over time – they attempt to contribute but are unable to do so, they hold out hope that the next project will be better, and over time they realize that they will never be able to contribute in a meaningful way and resign themselves to becoming hacks.   And by so doing, the overbearing manager can drive performance metrics (which have more to do with quantity than quality) while undermining the morale of his employees and the quality of the work of his department.

How (not) to Crush Innovation

I was drawn to a discussion that was intended to be about fostering innovation – but which, like many, degenerated quickly into the typical litany of complaints about the barriers to innovation.   But there is some value in analyzing that, as removing barriers will achieve some progress and considering the reasoning behind the complaint (and its possible solution) would suggest a good practice that may not foster innovation, but will at least refrain from smothering it.

And so, I’ve taken some notes and added some thoughts.  This is likely not a comprehensive or systematic list, just an analysis of a conversation such as it was, but it seems like good working material nonetheless:

Innovation initiatives do not have a clear goal.

A group of people is assembled for the purpose of “being innovative” without a clear sense of the problem they are meant to solve or the goal they are meant to achieve.

Solution: Set a clear and well-articulated goal for innovation initiatives.

Innovation is used for efficiency improvements.

Rather than seeking a novel solution to a problem, the innovation initiative is geared to preserve business as usual while making process or technical improvements.

Solution: Remove constraints to solving the problem or consider a different approach.

Innovation is done by committee.

While many can contribute knowledge to an innovation effort, having large groups is poisonous to creativity: they tend to discuss matters superficially and seek to build consensus rather than exploring unusual ideas.  The result is groupthink and preservation of the status quo.

Solution: Separate the task of information gathering from the process of innovation and conduct innovation in smaller groups.

Innovation is squelched by institutionalized employees.

Long-tenured employees have a great deal of subject-matter expertise, but also a greater level of devotion to the status quo and are defensive if past decisions.   Newcomers with truly novel ideas area quickly intimidated or bullied into silence.

Solution: Moderate innovation sessions to ensure that every idea gets a fair hearing and every participant is able to contribute.

Innovation is squelched by risk-averse administrators.

Any new idea is perceived as being “too risky” to pursue, so the innovation team becomes reluctant to stray too far from the well-worn path.

Solution: Separate the evaluation process from the innovation process. 

Innovation is time-boxed.

While there is a need to come to a conclusion, innovation efforts that are too constrained are unable to spend sufficient time in the information gathering and brainstorming processes.  To innovate quickly often means leaping on the first idea.

Solution: Provide ample time for an innovation effort and set a goal of coming up with several different solutions before moving forward.  Ensure there is sufficient time for each activity.

The “innovation space” lacks quiet and solitude

Collaboration and information sharing are important parts of innovation, but coming up with a solution often requires time to think and reflect outside of a circus atmosphere.

Solution: Schedule both collaboration and incubation periods during an innovation effort.

Innovation efforts become competitive and contentious

In the struggle to have “my idea” implemented, participants in innovation efforts can be competitive with one another, attempting to silence others.

Solution: Moderate to reduce competition among participants, reward team rather than individual efforts, and eliminate the presence of supervisors and management from parts of the process where their presence might encourage participants to attempt to show off.

Innovation is relentless and participants burn out

The constant need to innovate creates a mental overload.  While many creative people will labor long hours when they are on the trail of an idea, long hours do not make people creative and often create weariness and drain enthusiasm.

Solution: Where intense thought and concentration are required, schedule short sessions with ample breaks.   Consider returning innovators to routine duties for a period between innovation initiatives.

Creativity is Unusual

It is often argued that studying creativity or even exploring what it means to be creative is an effete distraction from the more important business of getting things done in the moment.   This position is exceedingly short-sighted.   There is nothing meaningful to be done by practical men until creative ones have shown them what to do.

Certainly, it is necessary to deal with routine sustenance tasks in a competent manner, but this is a necessity rather than a goal.  One may focus on efficiency, but this merely accomplishes the same task as before with less cost.   Efficiency is accomplished in paying close attention to the existing processes rather than considering whether there might be a far more effective method of achieving the goal to which the process was originally attended – without pausing to consider whether there might be better goals to pursue.

The results of creativity, however, are significant accomplishments that effect dramatic changes and entirely new processes.  Creativity seeks to change, rather than perpetuate, the traditional methods of accomplishing goals that are laborious, tedious, and unfulfilling.   What creativity creates, in effect, is greater effectiveness by pursuing an alternate goal or taking a significantly different course to a given destination.   Where this does not occur, there is no creativity.

The same phenomenon occurs in academic situation where students are encouraged to think, but rewards are bestowed on those who toe the line and follow the canon.   Professors and students who pursue unusual or disagreeable ideas are shunned and discredited by any means necessary.   Students are not taught how to think, but told what to think, and are tested and graded on their ability to memorize and repeat traditional knowledge rather than using their minds in an original and creative manner.   And so, the firms that look to academia to provide “fresh” minds and “new” ideas are disappointed by constrained minds that merely find clever ways to support stale ideas.

Even the “creative” arts in the present day do not explore new ideas, but instead reproduce the ideas of the past.  The most creative minds of the present culture are not being creative at all - they are making sequels, remakes, and adaptations of the known.   The “alternative” has become mainstream and feeds upon itself rather than continuing to challenge traditions and offer new ideas.

Ultimately, the reason that creativity is so rare is because it is actively discouraged.  There is a conflict in each person when confronted with the risk entailed in doing something new and different, and it is tempting to retreat when there is a known and reliable method of achieving a goal, however onerous and wasteful its methods.   Creativity entails a much higher degree of risk than following conventions, and people differ greatly in the degree to which they are willing and able to tolerate that risk.

So in the current culture a great deal of empty praise is given to creativity and innovation while actual behavior favors traditional approaches that yield more immediate benefits with greater certainty.  In business, managers promote the idea of innovation while discouraging any risk-taking, and the system of rewards and punishments is rigged to discourage creativity even in organizations that loudly proclaim its necessity.   New ideas are actively discouraged in favor of business as usual, and even when they are adopted they are often mangled and stripped of their potential in sacrifice to the status quo.

8 Steps to Creativity

Defining the creative process is difficult.  Even people who are considered to be “creative” have a very difficult time pinning down quite how they manage to do it and generally end up confabulating and speculating about their own process and suggesting a process that seems entirely sensible, but is not something they actually do.   Most creative people go about the process intuitively, bumbling into a solution to a problem and then attempting to make a happy accident seem like a deliberate process.  

So to avoid falling into that trap, I’m going to avoid specific activities and instead consider the eight basic steps in the process: recognition, diagnosis, incubation, insight, elaboration, assessment, articulation, and production.   It is my sense that any successful act of creation requires all eight steps, though some of them are often shortcut or skipped and the outcome may be as accidentally positive as the process.

1. Recognition involves recognizing the existence of a problem that needs a solution (or an opportunity that needs a method of achievement).  Though it is not optimal, it is entirely possible to have a solution in search of a problem, but the real work of creativity does not begin until a problem is recognized.
2. Diagnosis is a quest for understanding the problem.  This step is most often skipped when people latch upon the first idea that seems to be a solution, a mistake that generally ends in catastrophe when significant resources are expended in implementation without sufficient diagnosis.
3. Incubation is a period of reflection in which the problem, in all its complexity, is considered and one or more possible solutions are discovered.   The problem with incubation is that it often occurs below the threshold of consciousness – an idea seems to arise out of the blue, without really thinking about it – but this mischaracterizes the nature of “thinking” because most thoughts are nonverbal and the process of discovery is nonlinear.   Moreover, attempting to verbalize and streamline incubation often prevents real thinking from taking place.
4. Insight is the “eureka” moment when a connection is found and a potential solution is discovered.  It is at this point that nonverbal and unconscious thoughts take a shape that can be described, that the connection that seemed intuitive becomes articulate, and that the idea can be taken from the mind of one person and communicated to others.
5. Elaboration involves the work that is necessary to translate a rough idea into a practicable plan of execution.   It is the 99% perspiration” of which Einstein spoke.  This can be the most difficult part of the process, and the point at which many would-be creative drop off and leave their ideas on the workbench because coming up with novel ideas is exciting and fun, whereas elaborating and detailing them is hard work.
6. Assessment considers whether the insight is worth pursuing: does it solve the problem and is it worth the effort to undertake?   To pursue an idea that doesn’t solve the problem is pointless, and to pursue a cure that is worse than the disease is counterproductive and destructive (and destruction is the opposite of creation).
7. Articulation is a process of communication: the idea must be described and illustrated in sufficient detail so that others who are necessary to its achievement can understand it and are motivated to support its creation.  This step is optional in processes where an idea can be produced by the work of a single person, but that describes very few instances in the present day.
8. Production is the task of bringing the idea into reality.  It is often considered to be a separate matter from creativity, but it should not be: in order to be “creative” something must be created – and the kind of “idea men” who come up with brilliant solutions but lack the interest and discipline to deliver them to the world typically fail to create anything.

Of course, this “process” of creativity often folds back upon itself.   For example, during the period of assessment, a new insight may arise and the creator will need to step backward in the process and chase a different thread.   This does not mean the process is not linear – it is a matter of abandoning one line and changing to another, or going back to a previous step to address a problem – as the creator then moves through the following steps sequentially.

Ultimately, I feel this is a pretty good high level working model of the creative process.   But “pretty good,” “high level” and ”working model” are all caveats – as this is merely the latest iteration of attempting to define the process.  I expect it will happen again, and when it does my understanding will have changed.   But for now, there it is, such as it is.