What are some initial steps I can take to build trust & cultivate creativity?

I.

Understand varied communication styles

While the common perception is that you have to be extroverted to thrive in collaborative environments, the reality is that group work can be draining for introverted team members. Understanding verbal and non-verbal processors, and providing avenues of support and guidance in preferred channels cultivates openness confidence in communication.

II.

Create individual and team habits that foster trial & error

Apart from more structured professional development roadmaps, milestones, and traditional ways of tracking performance, creating habits and behaviors around creative play can maintain the joy of making, and shift the trial and error of creative solutioning from an arduous and iterative process, to a fun and engaging routine. 

III.

Acknowledge and prepare for volatility

For those with experience in design innovation, you will know that many projects that are initiated hit the cutting room floor, and many good ideas may never see the light of day. This process of locating a success path that works well for both your client and your team is rarely a straight line between point a and point b. Because of this, ideating and maintaining resilience is sometime challenging for younger team members. In addition to traditional techniques of production and digital asset management, it's important to acknowledge and leveraging good ideas as they arise and cultivate them both for best practices among individual designers and for the creative capital that is produced organization-wide. 

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"Our role as creative leaders is to set the stage. Not perform on it."

– Linda Hill
Wallace Brett Donham Professor Business Administration Harvard Business School. 
TedX Cambridge 2014