Dr. Hugh Doherty

Your practice undoubtedly has some creative employees. Some of them are easy to pinpoint and many others are brimming with untapped potential that can help your practice thrive in an ever-changing market. Many practices unintentionally hinder creativity, so learning how to motivate creative team members can give you an advantage over your competition. The way you treat creative team members has a snowball effect on the organization as a whole. "Doctors forget that they talk to each other." "The positive and negative effects of a practices response to creativity often spiral, so you want them to spiral in a positive direction.

By creating a culture that inspires creativity, you can motivate team members to offer more ideas. Try these four tips to motivate team members and encourage innovation:

1. Give feedback on new ideas. Generating new ideas takes time and effort, so team members need to know that their creativity is valued. Why? You are asking your employees to give you feedback and suggestions. That needs to be a reciprocal road.

When you solicit creative ideas, establish a point person to give feedback on each of them. You can also involve the total team by utilizing a live brainstorming session. The more employees understand why their ideas did or did not work, the more motivated they will feel to offer ideas again.

2. Recognize and reward collaboration. Creativity is typically an iterative process, where one person says the initial idea and others jump in to improve it. The best teams build off each other, so they need to be motivated to work together. Prizes or recognition for the best idea often encourage competition instead of cooperation. Not a good idea / This stifles creativity and upsets those whose contributions go unrecognized. Instead, acknowledge everyone involved. That way, you encourage future teamwork and fuel creativity.

3. Put creative work in context. When doctors think about innovation, they think five or ten years out, while employees tend to focus on immediate improvements. That discord can lead employees to suggest ideas that get dismissed for being off target -- a missed opportunity that saps motivation. When you solicit creative ideas, tell your team what you hope to accomplish. Put people in a different mindset. The Doctor might say, 'here's how the market seems to be changing, so what can we do now to put us in a good position five years from now?'" That specificity empowers creative employees to succeed.

4. Celebrate even if well-considered ideas fail. Inspired ideas often fail, even when the idea is well vetted before it's released. Being creative is risky. To motivate creativity, reward well thought out ideas, even though they are not selected .Celebrate the effort and audacity to innovate, that sends a message to the team that you're rewarding the mindset and the willingness to try to improve.