Who is More Creative – Individuals or Teams?

It is a crucial question to answer who is more creative, individuals or teams. They are closely connected but are different too in nature. Some organizations deliver better results as a team-based work to enhance their responsiveness while individual creativity and potential are given more importance in some organizations according to the company culture where the expertise of an individual is required.

Team creativity is the sum of the individual creativity put together, but some organizations do not recognize individual creativity as organizational creativity. The two seem similar but are different too. The connectivity between the team and individual performance depends upon the nature of the project and the distribution of the tasks to the employees.

Key areas of concern

Individuals and organizations function and respond differently. An organization has to be predictable and responsive, but individuals can behave differently. It can be troublesome when it comes to individual contribution and creativity. Sometimes the innovation management of an organization may not go in sync with the response of employees. It can result in stagnant company culture. So, how should companies counteract this? 

Companies should focus on the following areas to overcome this problem:

Innovative employees – Organizations always require innovative people in their team as they contribute to enhancing the performance of an organization. The growth of a company depends on the creativity and innovation of individuals working as a team. The company needs to motivate the employees to optimize their creativity to get the maximum benefit of the new ideas of all team members. The motivation can be in the form of incentives or position promotions. A progressive company needs to be proactive to grasp all possible opportunities by creating innovative employees.

Environment – Many multinational companies have set examples of enhancing organizational creativity by providing a supportive environment for their employees. Any organization that aims to stimulate the creativity and innovation of its employees must create a better company culture and environment for them. Employees hesitate to accept any change or innovation for fear of failure or demotion. The encouraging atmosphere of the company can motivate employees to come up with their creative ideas and share them without any hesitation. Thus the company can best utilize the individual creativity of employees by providing a progressive company environment and recognizing the abilities of all employees.

Generation of a Smart Process for successful idea management – Building a robust and achievable idea management process will help enhance organizational and individual creativity. Some employees shun the responsibility of submitting new and creative ideas on their own when the ultimate result of idea generation is not known. A streamlined process of idea management can increase the team performance manifold as all employees will contribute wholeheartedly. An intelligent system with a quick feedback system and encouragement may yield incredible results in an organization. 

Individual vs. Organizational creativity

Both individual and organizational creativity have their specialty and drawbacks. Both are inseparable and interdependent. As an organization cannot succeed without the support of its team, the same way the creativity of an individual may remain unrecognized due to the lack of a suitable organization and platform. Organizations need to recognize and reward the creativity of individual employees in the related industry. 

Get a solution to improve the employee experience in your organization to boost their creativity.

Roman Kučák, CEO