How to maintain creativity in the age of remote working (Learning to lead from a distance)

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credit:
Pixabay
How to maintain creativity
in the age of remote working.
Innovator Conference - January 2021
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credit:
NeemiasSeara
©BeckyMcB January 2021 How to maintain creativity in the age of remote working. - Innovators conference 2021

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credit:
Pixabay
A.K.A.
Learning to lead from a distance
Innovator Conference - January 2021
Image
credit:
NeemiasSeara

What’s our session today all about?
As the world changes, contracts and seemingly disperses it can start to feel
like all of the rules of creativity have changed. Many of us are starting to lead
beyond physical boundaries with teams around the city or country, and
indeed across the world.
How we embrace and succeed in the new ways of working, is about how we
manage and enable creativity in a time when proximity and spontaneity may
no longer be our secret weapon.
Here we look at what the pitfalls there may be as well as identify potential
superpowers to nurture in order to keep creativity flowing.

How will it work?
The aim of this session is to help us all to become better creative leaders.
We’ll do this by:
• Intro - to me, to Creativity as an industry
• Where we were - 5 basic needs for creativity
• The global move to remote working - 5 changes that has hastened
• 10 pointers to greater creativity in the era of flexible working

Creativity is a novel and appropriate response to
an open-ended task or problem. When someone
is doing something creatively, they are doing it
diﬀerently from the way it has been done before,
while fulﬁlling the goal of the activity at hand.
Teresa Amabile, Ph.D.
A Baker Foundation professor
Harvard Business School.
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credit:
Tamborine
Tuesday

A bit
about me
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credit:
Pixabay

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credit:
Pixabay
Becky McOwen-Banks
Executive creative director
VaynerMedia London
Over 20 years Ad Industry experience
leading and growing successful teams
both across Europe and in Australia.
Currently completing MBA in Creative
leadership at Berlin School of Creative leaders.

Where we were
5 basic needs for creativity
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credit:
Tamborine
Tuesday

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credit:
MarkusSpiske
Constraints
“Art consists in limitation” G.K. Chesterton

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credit:
Pixabay
Connection

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by Fabiano
Rodrigues from Pexels
Spontaneity

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by Magda
Ehlers from Pexels
Play

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by Paula
Schmidt from Pexels
Space

Quick 5 recap
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credit:
otografierende
Constraints
Connection
Spontaneity
Play
Space/Environment

3 necessities for Creativity:
- Creativity Expertise
- Creative thinking skills
- The social environment
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credit:
Tamborine
Tuesday

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credit:
Tamborine
Tuesday
©BeckyMcB January 2021 How to maintain creativity in the age of remote working. - Innovators conference
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credit:
Nasty
Sensei
Where we are now
Eﬀects of global pandemic on remote work and creativity

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by Free
Creative
Stuﬀ from Pexels
Separation

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by Prateek
Katyal from Pexels
Reliance on technology

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by Prateek
Katyal from Pexels
Sameness
‘Blursdays’

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by Prateek
Katyal from Pexels
Rigidity

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credit:
Min
An
at
Pexel
Cocooning

Quick 5 recap
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credit:
otografierende
Separation
Sameness
Rigidity
Cocooning

Quick 5 recap
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credit:
otografierende
Separation
Sameness
Rigidity
Cocooning
Constraints
Connection
Spontaneity
Play
Space/Environment
What creativity needs What remote feeds

Flexible working is accepting
that our teams will no longer
all be in one space at the
same time - or even ever.
Image
credit:
Tamborine
Tuesday

So, what have we learnt?
10 pointers to enabling creativity in the era of flexible working

©BeckyMcB May 2020 Learning to lead from a distance

Creativity requires pace and ﬂow
The flattening of hierarchical structure has never been
more important.
We need all people to feel responsible for the projects
they are on and empowered to make suggestions and
decisions in order for the greater whole to succeed.
Eﬀective teams need to be able to reach their own
intelligent solutions and take projects to completion.
Be a curator and guide (and get out of the way),
not an oracle or superhero.
Photo
by Miguel
Á.
Padriñán from Pexels

Creativity thrives in the now
Find ways to cultivate crossover moments between teams.
Rather than a predictable team meeting pattern, is there
a way to insert happenstance, narrative and invite
contribution above the tasks at hand.
Photo
bP.C. from Pexels

Creative ideation suﬀers in isolation
It is the unscripted everyday moments that enable lateral
leaps - without casual conversations, interactions and even
the inspiration from the journeys to work or just getting a
coﬀee big creative leaps that connect become harder.
What tools do we have at our disposal to encourage
creativity, overlap and unexpected combinations?
Using unfamiliar combinations and partnerships to
encourage spontaneity.
Psychological safety is key for true flow of ideas.
Photo
by Nataliya
Vaitkevich from Pexels

Creativity-promoting environments also
included work groups that were supportive,
trusting, and receptive to new ideas,
but also willing to constructively challenge
each other’s ideas.
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credit:
Tamborine
Tuesday

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by Jan
Kroon from Pexels
4. Leadership and mentoring loses
the personal touch on remote
Without the moments of overlap and informal encouragement,
mentoring can become a more regimented - and less personal.
• The balance between ‘public’ and ‘private’ needs greater attention
• Disaﬀected remote workers will find it easier to change jobs (as
they are less connected to the individual culture)
• A truly personal approach for team members will become key
• Recognising people as more than the day job is imperative.

Clarity, clarity, clarity
Recognising the importance of being
clear and timely as a leader.
The need to set clear, simple goals
and expectations, where previously
we may have left room for
interpretation.
Set the goals or mission and
repeat, repeat, repeat.
Photo
by Magda
Ehlers from Pexels

Support from supervisors also appeared to be crucial.
The most creative projects were done under supervisors who
fostered clear, honest communication, valued individual
contributions to team projects, and set clear goals.
And organizational supports, such as a free ﬂow of ideas
within the organization and mechanisms for developing new
ideas, were also important for high creativity.
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credit:
Tamborine
Tuesday

The lesson for managers is straightforward:
Pay attention to what your team need to make progress in
their most important work, tell them why that work
matters, and provide the progress supports—
whether they might be clear goals, freedom in achieving
those goals, suﬃcient resources and time, encouragement
to learn from failure, or any one of a number of other ways
to ease inevitable setbacks and keep people moving
forward with strong intrinsic motivation.
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credit:
Tamborine
Tuesday

But don’t be speciﬁc about
the ‘how’
Building on our Agile principles, we are here to set
the course and mission - not to dictate the path to
completion. This is where Creativity thrives.
This allows responsibility and ownership to team
members, and builds trust and loyalty. People perform
better when allowed to grow and personally
contribute to results.
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by
SkitterPhoto from Pexels

Complete and open collaboration can
(particularly in isolated working) result in cyclical
thinking - meaning lots of work gets done but
very little progression is made.
Collaboration is key to maintain connection and
sense of self, but not at a cost to individual
performance and momentum.
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by
SPlanet
Football
Know when collaboration is needed
(and when it isn’t)

8. Creativity has different needs for individuals,
groups, tasks and projects
Leaders need to maintain the balance of individual needs
and efficiencies, with collective creativity and belonging.
Understanding which tasks - and for which individuals -
need the energy, spontaneity and chaos of face to face
development. And which can benefit from the
controllable process remote working can facilitate.
Knowing how to guide effective thinking - as an
individual pursuit - and as project groupings dependent
on the task at hand.
Photo
by Polina
Zimmerman from Pexels

Creativity is crucial for our organisations; it’s one of the
elusive abilities that managers are desperately seeking in
their employees so their companies can survive in today’s
competitive marketplace.
My research suggests that organisations would do well to
remember that creativity isn’t simply about ﬁnding the
right candidates; it’s also about setting up the right work
environment to allow people’s motivation and creativity to
thrive.
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credit:
Tamborine
Tuesday

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by Logan
Kirschner from Pexels
9. Creativity depends on
the decentralisation of
leadership
The leaders for now will be faced will balancing the
requirements of many moving parts - and be charged
with deeply understanding the benefits and risks of all
The culture of your business becomes the game
changer - helping you define what is right and what is
wrong, when people need to be face to face and how
often. It is also the glue that holds people together.

10. Add your learnings to the study
https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/CQZDWZL
Learning to lead from a distance survey

1. Creativity requires pace and flow (so get out of the way!)
2. Creativity thrives in the now not the stale (so cultivate crossovers)
3. Creative ideation suffers in isolation (so encourage and enable play)
4. Leadership and mentoring loses the personal touch on remote
5. Clarity, clarity, clarity (set the vision, mission and goal)
6. But don’t be specific about the ‘how’
7. Know when collaboration is needed (and when it isn’t)
8. Creativity has different needs for individuals, groups, tasks and projects
9. Creativity depends on the decentralisation of leadership (Culture matters)
10. Share your learning

A diversiﬁed and remote
working team does not
threaten creativity, but it
does mean that there is no
longer a level playing ﬁeld.
Image
credit:
Tamborine
Tuesday
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by
Mike
at
Pexels

How to maintain creativity in the age of remote working (Learning to lead from a distance)

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