Creativity in small and medium-sized enterprises is the combination of skills that are becoming increasingly important among professionals. A creative company is one with great long-term survival prospects; therefore, stimulating it within organizations is an investment in the future.

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The importance of creativity in SMEs

Creativity is important in organizations, but also in people’s daily lives. Its benefits are multiple—not only in terms of productivity or profitability.

According to a recently published article, creativity in recent times has been framed mainly around the possibilities of selling more and better. However, its usefulness goes far beyond consumerism. Obviously, a company must focus on selling its products and services, meeting the changing needs of its consumers or clients. But creativity also means questioning an established model, looking for better ways of doing things, and thinking about improving the lives of others—as well as one’s own.

From a profitability perspective, creativity is a tool for generating new ideas, a growing value in organizations. In an increasingly competitive and innovative environment, the creativity of people and teams is essential for companies to remain competitive—especially in certain sectors. By fostering creativity in SMEs, businesses can reach new levels of success; but they can also improve the work environment and help overcome limitations.

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Benefits of creativity in SMEs

The main benefit of an SME that fosters employee creativity is improved competitiveness and long-term sustainability. It also enables the generation of innovation, which is the application of creativity in the market to meet its needs.

But it also has a positive impact on employee motivation. Participation helps employees grow personally and professionally, increases loyalty to the company, improves relationships between colleagues, and more. It can even make the workday more enjoyable and less stressful.

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Challenges to fostering creativity in companies

The main obstacle to promoting creativity in SMEs is an excessive focus on production. Heavy workloads and results-driven mindsets can hinder the ability to propose new ideas or projects.

While results matter, they are sometimes viewed too narrowly in the short term. Properly channeled creativity can bring immediate benefits to a company, but its tangible outcomes are more long-term. As a result, creativity—especially in certain businesses—is sometimes seen as a waste of time. Another related barrier is the “we’ve always done it this way” mentality or simply fear of change.

Not fostering creativity can create long-term problems for a company, but even in the short term, it’s one of the main causes of employee dissatisfaction, especially among younger staff. These individuals tend to feel demotivated and believe their contributions are not valued, which leads to lower productivity for the company and more serious problems for employees (insecurity, unhappiness at work, etc.).

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How to foster creativity in SMEs

Fostering creativity is always a good investment, because creative people—if not encouraged—will eventually stop being creative. That is, it’s not just about allowing or not penalizing creative attitudes; it’s highly advisable to actively promote them from the management level. Below are some ideas on how to do this:

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Provide security

Creativity means stepping out of one’s comfort zone. Proposing new ideas involves taking risks. That fear can be a barrier; and it’s important to remember that being creative is a personal decision, a bet each person makes. The company’s role here is to understand that mistakes can happen, to demonstrate that no idea is stupid, and above all, that every failure is a learning opportunity.

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The role of managers

They are responsible for improving their team’s creative environment—from something as simple as accepting criticism to more elaborate initiatives like organizing regular group dynamics. A manager should start fostering creativity by questioning their own decisions and how they are made, while also allowing their team to do the same. Building an innovative culture also means acting as a safety net for the team’s failures, while giving people space, time, and resources to develop ideas.

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The importance of people

As mentioned earlier, creativity is ultimately a personal choice. While the “company” has the duty to encourage a creative mindset, the organization is made up of individuals—people who can inspire and support each other, or the opposite. Questioning new ways of doing things every day, practicing tolerance for failure, experimenting, staying open to proposals, being proactive, and sharing ideas with others is what drives progress.

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Training: learning and unlearning

Training is essential—but practice is even more so. And training should be understood in a broad sense, beyond courses and degrees. Attending interesting conferences is always inspiring, especially to hear others’ experiences and exchange ideas with colleagues. But so is connecting with people whose profiles are radically different from your own.

As Teresa Amabile puts it: “Creativity depends on knowledge and experience, combined with motivation for the tasks and the use of tools.”