Deliberate Creative Teams: How To Lead For Innovative Results

Deliberate Creative Teams: How To Lead For Innovative Results

| Dr. Amy Climer, January 2025

What’s It All About?

Does creativity have a role on the manufacturing floor? While you might not associate creativity with the technical world of manufacturing, Dr. Amy Climer’s Deliberate Creative Teams: How to Lead for Innovative Results is here to change your mind!

As a renowned innovation consultant, Climer has dedicated herself to working with teams to bring out their creativity and get results in cost savings, innovations, safety, quality, and productivity. In her book, she offers a practical, innovative guide for inspiring creativity and unlocking your team’s creative potential.

We’re all creative, even if we don’t think we are. Creativity is teachable and learnable skill, and in Deliberate Creative Teams, Climer outlines the three factors you need to be creative and unlock your team’s full creative potential.

Team Purpose. To unlock your team’s creative potentials, think about prioritizing projects, managing energy, and focus on what matters. When you have more clarity on your team’s purpose, you can make deliberate decisions that better support your goals.
Team Dynamics. With the right dynamics, you and your team can find something Climer calls “creative abrasion,” or the type of conflict that occurs when you can disagree on concepts without disagreeing on personalities. To foster a culture that allows for creative abrasion, you need to focus on building more trust and vulnerability into your team’s dynamics.
Team Creative Process. To build a more creative deliberate framework, think about what you’re missing. Ask questions to find about what conflicts are hindering your team’s creative process, and then find productive ways to channel your energy into removing distractions, building more emotional connections, and finding ways to improve your organization’s creative processes.

Favorite Quote

“I know it seems obvious. But obvious does not mean easy.”

Biggest Takeaway

In her book, Dr. Climer offers exercises and tools for sparking creativity. I loved the visual cards (which she drew herself) and how they show that if we want a different result, we need to take a different approach. I’m looking forward to using this with my next client, and think they’ll be a great new tool for combining visual image and metaphors to spark deeper conversations and connections.

Bonus Information

After reading Dr. Amy Climber’s book, tune it to the Mindfulness Manufacturing podcast on March 5th to hear her talk more about creativity!

Mindfulness Manufacturing

Our show is about providing listeners with real stories that come from a place of experience, transparency, and authenticity. Most importantly it’s about what we learn from these stories and applying Mindfulness in our everyday work and personal lives.
Our intention is to create an environment where people can learn through open honest discussions on how we apply Mindfulness. Although our experiences and stories come from time in a manufacturing environment hence the title “Mindfulness Manufacturing”, we still see our discussions and topics relatable to any organization or profession.

In manufacturing, we’re all familiar with stress. But did you know that a lack of challenges and too much comfort can also have a negative impact on your health, mindset, and productivity? This is the core concept Paul Taylor presents in his great book Death by Comfort: How Modern Life is Killing Us and What We Can Do About It. As a former British Royal Navy crew member and a current Ph.D. candidate in applied psychology, Paul has in-depth knowledge about stress, resilience, and performance.

In this episode on stress, comfort, and psychological safety, Paul draws from his own experiences and research to delve deeper into why discomfort and challenging situations build confidence and resilience, plus shares some of his favorite methods for rethinking how you perceive stress and engage with your team.

2:20 – In manufacturing, stress can be inevitable, so you need to find the right level of stress in your environment 3:36 – You can use principles from physical fitness and apply them to stress management 7:11 – To stay healthy and keep a productive mindset, you need to balance stress and recovery 11:54 – When you practice self-efficacy and do hard tasks, it builds your confidence 16:21 – Uncomfortable yet necessary conversations play a key role in workplace environments 17:38 – To change and improve how you give feedback and have challenging conversations, use the SBI (situation-behavior-impact) model 18:36 – Use the OARS model for motivational interviewing to encourage open questions, affirmations, reflective listening, and summarizing 24:58 – Take time to understand your purpose and the impact of your work 24:58 – Don’t overlook the role of accountability in psychological safety

Connect with Paul Taylor Visit his website Listen to The Paul Taylor Podcast Buy Death by Comfort on Amazon or at your favorite bookseller Read my book report on Death by Comfort