Independence and Constraint

I had an interesting discussion recently with a couple of colleagues about how to foster employees' creativity. We discussed a number of things, but one of the ideas that stuck with me was the interplay of independence and constraint.

At first blush, the terms seem to be diametrically opposed. Independence is about an individual having control, while constraints allude to limitations or restrictions placed on an individual that are outside of their control. How can you have both?

But the two ideas can work together in the workplace to foster creative employees. Giving employees autonomy, or independence regarding how something gets done, is a great way to enhance intrinsic motivation and encourage employees to find the best way to do or create something. But to do or create what? There needs to be some constraint imposed that directs the behavior in the intended direction. Basically stated, there should be clearly stated goals for the employees to work toward, and clearly established boundaries regarding the resources available. When employees have clarity in their purpose and the resources available, this clarity empowers them to focus their attention on how to achieve the desired goal using those resources. Once those parameters have been clearly set, the employee is free to creatively work within those constraints. They are told what needs to be done and the tools available, but they are not told how to do it.

Maybe an example from my own life will help illustrate my point.

When I was in college, a roommate received a magnetic poetry kit - you know, the kind where each magnet is a word and you can stick them on your fridge and move them around to form all sorts of funny sentences.

(image from lessonplans.dwrl.utexas.edu)

This particular set was a genius magnetic poetry kit, or at least something very similar. It included a lot of words that the average person (like myself) would have to look up in the dictionary to understand.

My roommate challenged me to come up with a poem using only the words from that magnetic poetry kit. This gave me a clear goal (to write a poem) and clear resource boundaries  (only using words from the box), which helped instill intrinsic motivation to see what I could accomplish using what was available.

From that experience came the following poem:

Verbose

To question admonition

And every sound you see

Is to understand the mind of man

And spurn society

Above an almost salient space

I languish upon feeling base

Expunge myself as I eschew

The miscreant I make of you

How clever and curious our repose

Obscured by words no scholar knows

Time has lapsed this turgid zeal

Hence forming only her vapid will

I wrote dozens of poems in high school and have written dozens of songs as a singer/songwriter. But I think this is one of my most creative works. Why? Because of the clear goals and limited resources, along with the latitude in process, I had to think about things in a different way than I typically would when writing a poem or a song. In other words, those constraints aided my creativity by forcing me to think outside the box (or inside this specific box, in this case), while the independence allowed me the freedom to experiment and see what worked best.

- - - The Bottom Line Tip - - -

To foster creativity in your employees, try giving them a specific goal and outlining the resources available to them to achieve the desired goal. Then let them go and see what happens. The results just might surprise you.