Does Trust Harness Creativity and Innovation

To develop and maintain trust requires respect, repeat or predictable behavior, dependability, and the fulfillment of promises. 

There is a full cycle of emotions behind innovation. Trust is one of the positive emotions to harness creativity and innovation. Trust is a measure of the quality of a relationship between people, groups, or between people and an organization; and trust is a two-way street. Trust is multidimensional. It encompasses trusting self, trusting others, and earning the trust of others.

It's trust that is the key determinant of any collaborative effort, such as innovation: Nowadays, innovation is often the team effort, thus, mutual trust is crucial to improving its success rate. Trust can create a great positive impact on team members and encourage creativity. Conversely, the lack of trust can accurately predict the demise of any collaborative effort including innovation. Communication is the very way to build trust, and lack of trust is an often overlooked barrier to communication as well. Trust enforces openness by embracing divergent thoughts and respecting differences. Trust is based on credibility. Credibility requires competence as one of the factors that encourage where credibility emerges. Not all people have the same motivation to innovate. Trust through a deep understanding of people motivates them to develop themselves and become more innovative.

Trust starts with respecting which means open-door approach to value new ideas: Trust and respect go hand in hand. It is very difficult for someone to trust you if they do not believe you respect them, and probably vice versa as well. Mutual trust becomes much easier if one of the two or more parties give trust by respecting each other. Trust harnesses creativity because respecting to individual means open-door approach to value new idea. Trust reciprocity works because of shared innovation goals, which create less stress on the relationship and harness creativity. Leaders need to show staff that you respect them. Always appreciate the members’ contribution. First, understand what they care, trust them in a safe environment to encourage creativity. Help them not to fail, and if they do, show yourself to be trustworthy by supporting them. Communicate, delegate, trust and hold accountable.

To be able to trust you must also have the courage to learn when you fail: How much will you tolerate mistakes as part of learning and creating? Does your staff feel safe to try something innovative? Building a creative environment with a trustful relationship means that people take responsibilities for failures, be inclusive, and focus on learning and experimenting with better ways to do things. We all do every now and then, take responsibilities for the failure, learn from it and move forward. Blaming others instead of recognizing and taking responsibility for a failure in any affair one is involved in will ultimately destroy any existing trust. When a leader acknowledges and takes responsibility for his/her failures, the followers dare to fail as well by knowing that if they take responsibility for the failures, the leaders will continue to support them in harnessing creativity and innovation.

Trust takes the breadth and depth of collective cognizance and collaborative effort for building up a  creative working environment. To develop and maintain trust requires respect, repeat or predictable behavior, dependability, and the fulfillment of promises. All these things take time, but it is worth the effort to harness creativity and innovation.

Posted in: Creativity,Innovation