Why do you pay people? No, really?
I think the only reason why we (must) pay people is so they bring ideas to the workplace. New, big, fresh, stolen, borrowed, bold, controversial, unscientific, unproven, risky, weak, potential gamechangers, disruptor of status quo, creative, ridiculous, audacious (big hairy audacious is even better), slayer of mindless bureaucracy, harbingers of change...just about anything will do as long as they bring something to the workplace, as opposed to just being a plug-and-play part in the giant corporate machinery whose daily activities are pretty much pre-decided as per the giant process manual....
Creativity at Workplace ???
Most of us have been told in our appraisal discussions to be more creative, and many of us have, in turn, told our team members to be more creative. Sadly, most of us have no clue what is really means to be creative at the workplace. We normally associate creativity with creative or performing arts - things that we did long back as kids but feel we can’t apply those principles at workplace. Is creativity limited to dressing informally, or calling people by nicknames, or is it installing the coolest screensaver, painting the walls blue, wearing pink socks or something else ? Definitely, some of them might be every creative efforts, but how do we channelize those creative energies and urges to solving little more meaningfull business problems ? As a manager, is ‘creativity’ available to me as a resource ?...