Processes and Creativity: 5 Strategies to Change Mindsets and Organizations

“Processes kill creativity.” “Processes take away our freedom.” We’ve all heard similar phrases and probably even said them ourselves. No, processes do not kill creativity or take away our freedom.

Creativity is not synonymous with chaos or disorganization, but rather a process that must have at its base a solid structure that supports it and allows it to develop. Well-implemented processes allow us to free up time and focus on other priorities, while ensuring clarity in operations and guiding us towards results.

But the perception of the value of processes and systems for the life of organizations is not linear and clear to everyone. Process is associated with bureaucracy, routine work and wasted time.

What then do we need to ensure to change this mindset about the importance and benefits of processes in creativity and business development?

1. Response to real needs. It is essential to ensure that processes respond and adapt to those who actually use them. These cannot be the result of top-level decisions that are not adapted to the real context. The expression “Eat your own dog food” is certainly not new to many and applies in this case.

2. Involvement of everyone . It is essential to involve people in the organization in identifying new internal needs, in their design and creation, and in the continuous improvement of the implemented systems.

3. Decentralization in process management . It is common for process management to be the responsibility of a specific department, but this can be a decentralized responsibility bringing numerous advantages, two of which stand out: increased accountability in the implementation of processes and greater involvement of employees in decision-making.

3. Reinforce the why. Our professional routine can easily lead us to lose sight of the bigger picture and focus solely on carrying out our work. It is necessary to frequently remind ourselves why we are using a process/system, the benefits of it, understand the continuous improvements needed and maintain a critical eye. For this to happen, the need to realign the goal we want to achieve must be constant.

4. Internal Journey Mapping / Mapping the organization. Journey Mapping is a technique commonly used for customer experience design, but it can be applied internally. The logic applies in the same way:

• Identify our internal personas (the internal marketing team, the support area, new employees in onboarding, and so on);

• Identify all internal interactions, their origin, the recipients, where and how the various parties interact;

• Identify points of pain, system entropy, and rupture;

• Focus on the identified points, creating or modifying the processes that resolve them;

• Establish measurable metrics, measure and monitor.

5. An increase in the number of processes is not synonymous with evolution. There is a clear lesson learned about process management and that it is more difficult to implement than expected: processes are often implemented that may fail, but due to the costs of their implementation (or simply because leadership teams are afraid of assuming failures) they remain in operation but inefficient. This fear must be eradicated, in exchange for a more functional organization and teams with greater respect for their management teams who make the necessary decisions for the good of the functioning of the entire organization.

These five points reflect the importance of more transversal process management, adapted to the reality of each organization and with clear benefits for company performance. In the end, the achievement of business objectives.