‘A Creative Culture.’ Don’t worry, you’re not the only one who doesn’t know what it means and why it matters.

A Creative Culture’ is one of those often-used phrases that most people enthusiastically nod along to without being entirely sure what it means in practice, safe in the knowledge that they won’t get challenged on its definition, because no one else knows what it means either. The trouble is that it often gets used in sentences like: ‘A creative culture is key to businesses survival and success in the new world of accelerating change.’ And if you run a team, a department, or a business you’re probably thinking that it’s about time you did more than just nod enthusiastically.

So, I thought it might be helpful to offer a simple explanation to enable you to get to grips with it.

One of the key reasons why creative cultures are not more widely understood is that few businesses genuinely have one. (They aren’t as commonplace as everyone would want you to believe. After all, it’s not a good look to say: ‘nope, we don’t have one and resolutely don’t want one.’) This is partly because some business leaders don’t see the relevance of creativity to their business, or at least everyone in their business, and partly due to a fear of change and the unknown. Both are the result of a lack of understanding about what a creative culture is, what makes it such a business accelerant, and how to implement it.  

The confusion comes from how business, especially the creative industries, has traditionally defined creativity.

Creativity is typically understood to describe a creative product or outcome. By which I mean the executional output of people who have ‘creative’ in their job title, or fulfil traditional creative roles. Ads. Books. Films. Songs. Paintings. Fashion. etc. And the makers of these products are considered to be the sole custodians of this magical ability. This narrow definition of creativity has been the cornerstone of the creative industries for decades. It has proved highly successful for many years, and while there were a limited number of clearly defined and well-understood creative deliverables, there was no burning need to challenge it. Consequently, a creative culture only meant somewhere that creative people had pre-eminence and everyone else was there as an ancillary service. Nice and straightforward.

So, let’s clear this one up once and for all. Art, ads, fashion etc are the outputs of creativity, not creativity itself. Creativity is the ability to think in new and innovative ways and has limitless applications and expressions. And is in the gift of all of us. It is an innate human ability. And so, a creative culture is appropriate for any kind of business, not just for businesses in the creative industries.

Now, as I’m sure you’ve noticed, the world has changed dramatically in recent years, and the problems all businesses need to solve have grown more urgent, complex, and connected. Consequently, the need for new, diverse, and innovative solutions has come to the fore in myriad different roles that hadn’t previously demanded it. As a result, creativity is now considered the single most powerful business and life skill you can possess across all industries. Irrespective of whether they have a ‘creative’ output or not. A creative culture is now considered necessary to everyone’s future survival and success. A view endorsed and promoted by the World Economic Forum. When a business fosters an inclusive creative working environment, the collective brainpower increases your ability to adapt to the constant demands of change and enables you to apply your collective creativity in many more ways. 

Creativity is now being championed for its ability to transform the world for the better, drive global innovation and progress, encourage adaptability, resilience and embrace change in a fast-changing world. A business that is unwilling to embrace change is a business in decline. Without question, you will arrest your business’s development if you make creativity the sole domain of a chosen few. ‘Creatives’ may be the experts in bringing an idea to life, of creative execution, but not of creativity in general. There is a clear separation between the two. The more expansive definition of creativity, the one that encourages creativity in everyone, still leads to great creative output and does nothing to diminish the importance of creative craft, but it takes a broader view of how to get there, who is involved and what the potential output might be. It celebrates specialists and promotes collaboration. 

When a business fosters an inclusive creative working environment, the collective brainpower increases your ability to adapt to the constant demands of change and enables you to apply your collective creativity in many more ways. It stops the formation of silos that become set in their ways and uncompetitive. It will also create a far more enjoyable working environment that leads to fewer tension points, politics and factions. The other upside, of course, is that those employees are more productive and stay longer because morale is higher, and they believe in the business’s values. 

No department has the monopoly on creative thinking. Creative execution, yes, but not creative thinking. The more every department feels encouraged to think in creative and innovative ways, the more limitless your team’s creative potential will feel.

Hopefully, you’re now a little clearer what a creative culture is, and why it’s a benefit to have one. If you want to know how go about building a successful one, then get in touch. I run training for businesses called: ‘The Creative Culture Talk. What it is. Why you need it. How to build it.’ I cover the 10 key behaviours of a successful creative culture and how you can bring them alive in your business.