Q: I lead a customer services team at the head office of an advertising company. We are always very busy, but I want my team to be more inspired and creative. How can I achieve this?
A: Get them out of the office. Unfortunately, the office isn't the best place to seek inspiration. Carl Honore, author of In Praise of Slowness, estimates that the typical office worker is interrupted every three minutes by a phone call or email or other distraction. The problem is that it takes a further eight uninterrupted minutes to bring our brains back into a creative state.
Big businesses need a certain amount of bureaucracy for their rules, routines and reporting to run smoothly. But it's a fine balance. Bureaucracy mustn't become an obstacle to inspiration and creativity so people are "too busy" to be out there.
Your team needs to spend as much time as possible where their customers are, instead of sitting at desks reading the same research reports that all the competitors are most probably also studying. They have to find time to step into their customers' shoes and see what's out there, find out what's missing and what they can improve. The best ideas come not from sitting in a bubble in the office, looking at customers as a market segment with behavioural patterns but by seeing the world through your customers' eyes.
An advantage for entrepreneurs is that they don't have an office structure, or bureaucracy, so their focus is external. They are out there where it's all happening. By being in their customers' shoes they are constantly exposed to fresh stimulus and new ideas.
So ask yourself how you can free your team from bureaucracy—how many of the internal meetings are really necessary? Can you simplify processes? How can you make everyone a little bit less busy?
Sahar Hashemi's latest book is Switched On
