In this article, we compare qualitative data from research in India (by Meta4Sight) and the UK (by Cappuccino Research). We have used the ZMET® approach, which uses metaphor and imagery to better understand how people really think. In both countries, office workers were interviewed during a period of lockdown and were asked to share their experiences.
There’s some debate amongst creative professionals as to whether ideation is an individual process, a collaborative process, or both. We initially wanted to see if there was a cultural dimension to this question. However, there wasn’t. But what we found in both markets was the need to create environments (whether physical or digital) where creativity can flourish.
In both countries, office workers complained that some tasks which required higher-level skills such as creativity and abstract thinking were suffering because of separation from colleagues. They felt a lot of the ideas & insights come from informal conversations. Working from home was fine for basic administrative tasks, but not where inspiration and creativity were required.
“At the office, sometimes you just go and get a coffee, and, you would feel like you were, solving problems or making progress. You could see a positive future; your brain felt creative; you’re making connections, and those connections weren’t daunting to you. At home, it feels like you’re going through a to-do list; do this, do this meeting, complete this thing. It feels like there is no movement, just getting through?” (Male, UK)
In both countries, we also found those who were more used to working from home and who, as a result, were better able to balance different types of work to different situations. For these individuals, hybrid working was positive and provided a choice of working environment. Respondents working from the office, with a day or two from home, talked about getting focused time at home without being distracted by people or more specifically, from watercooler conversations. While those who had been working regularly from home spoke about going to the office in between to keep connected with their teams. In a way, they were seeking these watercooler conversations.
For some, isolation is a special kind of hell (one UK male worker described this as being like a lonely dark cave where he was imprisoned). For these workers, the shared workspace, the brainstorming meeting, and the workshop are valuable, stimulating, and necessary. Conversely, some find it more difficult to contribute in shared spaces and brainstorming meetings. These are the people who claim to do their best work sitting alone in a small room with a screen or a blank sheet of paper in front of them.
What became apparent was that whilst people had different working styles and preferences for creativity (e.g., working alone versus working in a group) almost all seemed to require a combination of those things to flourish.
What, if anything, can we learn from the education sector?
Taking something of a lateral step, perhaps allowable in a discussion of creativity, in both markets members of the teaching profession were included within our samples.
According to creativity expert Ken Robinson, “teaching is a creative profession, not a delivery system.”
In our research, we had a teacher in India talking about her experience of teaching virtually from home. She was not enjoying the experience even if the teaching workload was the same. Interestingly, we had respondents from both India and the UK who found virtual teaching to be robotic. A teacher from the UK found it particularly difficult to engage younger children.
Although, in contrast, one music teacher in the UK found that his students (from a leading London drama college) were forced to better prepare for each virtual session. Consequently, this teacher felt that he was able to focus more on the expressive and creative elements of the performance.
Returning to the business world
Perhaps this serves to illustrate some of the challenges of creative collaboration at a distance. In an office situation creativity often stems from serendipity; the watercooler moment; the casual conversation. The social context creates an opportunity for creativity to percolate to the surface. In contrast, where workers are distanced and there is little serendipity, creative processes necessarily need to be more structured.
As our music teacher would testify, you cannot simply organise a ‘meeting’ and expect creativity to occur via osmosis. Instead, you need to ensure that planning and/ or preparation has taken place prior to the meeting and that the set of expectations on all sides are clear.
Because of the pandemic, businesses today have much wider choices in terms of ‘the workplace’. Earlier it was restricted to the office, while during the lockdown, it was restricted to the home. As things open up, successful businesses should explore various permutations and combinations of possible workplaces, and perhaps these need not be restricted to just ‘the home’ or ‘the office’
“Now, when you’re working from home, basically there’s only one place. The notion of a workplace as a social context is not there. The only extent to which the workplace as a social context existed was because there was a physical social context before. A significant proportion of the social context of a workplace has gone. There are ways to compensate for it. There are ways to live with it. But I don’t think it is the same.” (Male, India)
Successful businesses will exploit the strengths of all staff by deliberately creating environments where everyone can flourish. They will also develop ways of collaborating remotely which play to the strengths of that channel, rather than simply seeking to replicate the office environment digitally. If done well, this could lead to more creativity, not less.
