Creative Reaction

A Harvard Business School study (in progress) on “how the work environment can influence the motivation, creativity, and performance of individuals and teams” is already yielding some encouraging, and sometimes sobering, findings.

The link above is to an interview with the study’s researcher. Since it involves research, it is dense with insights, so we’ll stick to one insight per posting.

Todays thought: “ordinary, seemingly mundane things (Managers) do or say carry great influence on workers” We’ll focus on the positive behaviors today.

Quoting the researcher, Professor Teresa M. Amabile:

“There are five leader behaviors that have a positive influence on people’s feelings…

One of these is supporting people emotionally.

The second is monitoring people’s work in a particularly positive way… giving them positive feedback on their work or giving them information that they need to do their work better.

The third behavior is just plain recognizing people for good performance, particularly in public settings.

The fourth is consulting with people on the team—that is, asking for their views, respecting their opinions, and acting on their needs and their wishes to the extent that it’s possible.

And the fifth category was a grab bag of things. But the most important aspect here was collaborating—that the team leader rolled up his or her sleeves and actually spent time collaborating with somebody on the work.”

(Is it just me, or has anyone else noticed that it’s uncanny how much of this parallels the Dale Carnegie classic, How To Win Friends and Influence People published in 1936?!)

As we see, there’s a direct link between “people skills” and good creative. What are we doing to improve our skills? If you have any tips, please post them in the comments.