Give Time and Support for Ideas

Imagine you are a participant in a workshop. The facilitator gives you a photocopy of a picture of a strawberry and says: "I want you to recreate the strawberry using these basic shapes: circle, oval, square, rectangle and triangle. But you can only use two of them and they have to perfectly match the size of the strawberry in that photocopy. You can use color markers to make your strawberry, and you only have five minutes to complete it. At the end of the activity, I shall come round to check if you have done the activity correctly."

As you go through this exercise in your mind, try to remember your reaction to the instructions. If you are feeling extra motivated today, you can even try doing the exercise and time yourself. When you're done, the facilitator gives you another photocopy, but of a durian picture.

She says: "I want you to recreate the durian using the same basic shape. You may use any or all of them, it's up to you what you use. Other than the color markers, you may also use origami papers and scissors. I also have these pre-cut basic shapes so you can try arranging them over your durian picture to help you explore the shapes and possible ways of creating a durian with these materials. You have twenty minutes. I am not looking for a correct answer, please explore and we'll share the possibilities you have come up with at the end of the activity." What was your reaction to this set of instructions?

We usually conduct these two activities in our creativity trainings to illustrate what makes a creative environment. During the first activity, we often remind the participants that they only have five minutes and constantly remind them of the time remaining. In the second activity, we encourage participants to explore different possibilities and take their time before deciding on how to create their durian.

As you may have already guessed, in the first activity, participants end up with rather unoriginal products. In contrast, in the second activity, participants come up with a lot more variety and more creative ideas to represent their durians. Some use color markers elaborately, others fold and cut origami paper, while others combine the color markers and origami paper.

Upon reflection with participants, we ask why they were able to express themselves better in the second activity? What made them more creative? In the first activity, many felt constrained because of these limitations: time and limited availability of shapes and materials. They also felt pressured because they are being rushed and some even feel stressed by the thought that their results would be checked and evaluated. In the second activity, participants reported that they felt they could explore more because they were given more time and materials. They also felt more relaxed because they were told they were allowed to explore and not expected to come up with a pre-determined answer.

This "idea time" and "idea support" are two of the ingredients in the making of creative environment as indicated by Goran Ekvall, a Swedish organizational researcher. As the two activities above illustrate, giving time and support for ideas to develop play a key role in the variety of products participants come up with. Teresa Amabile, a professor of business administration at Harvard University, cites insufficient resources as a barrier to organizational creativity, highlighting the need not only for sufficient time and psychological support and encouragement to work on ideas but also materials, facilities, funds and people.

Take for example 3M, a company that is hailed as a visionary company in James C. Collins and Jerry I. Porras' book Built to Last (1994). Founded in 1902, 3M is well-known as manufacturer of Post-It notes, Scotch tape, and waterproof sandpaper. William McKnight, one of the early leaders of the company, created a working atmosphere that encouraged idea time and idea support; or in Collins & Porras's words: a "give-it-a-try atmosphere".

The products of this atmosphere, among others, are 3M masking tape and Scotch tape -- both of which were not planned products. The idea for 3M masking tape was invented when a 3M employee, Dick Drew, visited an auto paint shop and encountered a man who was trying to paint a car in two different tones by using improvised glue and adhesive tapes. But the tapes failed to mask properly, leaving behind ugly blotches and uneven lines. When Drew went back to 3M, he was resolute to create a solution, and invented the 3M masking tape.

The Scotch tape was invented when companies contacted 3M looking for a waterproof packaging tape, which 3M didn't have at the time. According to Collins & Porras, "Drew built on the masking tape technology and invented a product destined to become a household item worldwide: Scotch cellophane tape."

What makes such "accidental" products possible? Apart from the "give-it-a-try atmosphere", one of 3M's mottoes is: "Encourage; don't nitpick. Let people run with an idea." This kind "idea support" is necessary to give employees the courage to pursue their idea and initiatives. Apart from this, 3M also gives "idea time" for their employees.

3M has a long standing tradition where employees are encouraged to spend time for "experimental doodling", spending up to 15 percent of their time on projects of their own choice and initiative. Post-It was the product of this "idea time".

Art Fry, co-inventor of Post-It notes, came across the idea of the Post-It note because the slips of paper he used to mark the songs he was going to sing in church often flew out at the wrong time. This made him think of the adhesive that "didn't stick" invented by another 3M employee, Spencer Silver, who had mixed certain chemicals "just to see what would happened".

As Collins & Porras pointed out: "Although the invention of the Post-it note might have been somewhat accidental, the creation of the 3M environment that allowed it was anything but an accident."

Google is another company that has adopted "idea time" -- enabling its employees to divide "70 percent [of their time] devoted to Google's core businesses, search and advertising; 20 percent on pursuits related to the core; and 10 percent far-out ideas" (Time Magazine, 20 February 2006: 38.)

Giving support and time enable ideas to develop to a state when they can be analyzed fairly. Premature judgment kills ideas too early in the process and will discourage people from exploring and playing with possibilities.

As Collins and Porras quoted McKnight: "Mistakes will be made [by giving people the freedom and encouragement to act autonomously], but the mistakes he or she makes are not as serious in the long run as the mistakes management will make if it is dictatorial and undertakes to tell those under its authority exactly how they must do their job. Management that is destructively critical when mistakes are made kills initiative and it's essential that we have many people with initiative if we are to continue to grow."

At times, we may feel we have no control over allocation of resources and time for projects and ideas. However, we do have control over how we give psychological support to new ideas. How can we react to new ideas to give them a fair chance to grow? We can first look at what's good about the idea before pointing out the weaknesses. The weaknesses or potential pitfalls of a new idea should then be turned into questions, questions to which solutions can be sought.

For example, when a colleague of ours proposed a plan that we immediately reacted to as an impossible idea; we held back and said the following instead: "The plan will definitely make our company known and help create a strong network. How might we gather enough human resources to put the plan into action? How might we create enough interest in our company to increase our chances of success?"

After some initial exploration of how to make the plan workable, we are now in the midst of implementing what began as an impossible idea. We have processed many new ideas in a similar way and many ideas have been shelved after the process. The value in going through this process before rejecting an idea is that the idea giver feels that the idea has been given a fair hearing and fair share of support. This in turn encourages people to continue to think up new ideas.

Ideas don't grow by accident. Give ideas time and support to grow!