Creatives are the most misunderstood lot in the corporate world. They don't act like your 'normal' managers with MBA trainings, neither do they appear 'disciplined'. I've heard people call them everything from 'prima donnas' to 'they have issues' to down right 'useless'. But without your creatives, you won't have innovation, you won't have awesome content, and you certainly won't have solutions that came from outside the proverbial box. Creatives behave differently because they're creatives - they can't help it. It's a talent that they bring to the table. You need them to give you that extra bit of competitiveness. Once you can harness the power of your creatives or the creative team, you can do wonders to your corporate image as an organisation, market your products better, and communicate with your stakeholders and really connect to them. Here are a couple of pointers I've learned from my experience managing creatives for the past decade.

1. Know each of your creatives individually.
   Each creative person behaves differently. They have different motivations, different drives. Some like learning and the produce the best work when they're learning something. Some can't produce great work unless they know the bigger picture. Some like getting things done - it's like a confidence booster or another motivational factor that drives them. So if you're a manager or a team leader, get to know your people individually - once you know those buttons you'll know what they need to help them achieve.
2. Give them space but set ground rules.
   Some creatives make it look easy and simple. For example, the first Volkswagen ad that appeared in 1960 seems like a no brainer but it took a lot of thought and effort to really get it right. But when they did get it right, it was revolutionary. If you want revolutionary ideas, ideas the disrupt the norm, give your creatives some space. No use hounding after them to produce like mules. Give them some space. On the other hand, set some ground rules before setting them off into the wild. Give them deadlines. Give them guidelines. A lot of managers just ask, "This is what we should do so get it done." The creative process isn't as simple as that. Let them know what you're trying to achieve, what your company stands for, and what you want your brand to do. Give them a project brief if you can so they have it right in front of them, digest the project better, and give you what you want exactly.
3. Give them targets and goals.
   You can't have creativity for its sake you need goals and targets. Afterall you need to profit from their creativity right? Tell them what the point of what they're doing really is.
4. Value their opinions.
   It's a real shame that most managers I've come across really don't care what creatives are telling them. If someone tells you that your brand colors represent femine hygine product colors you should really pay attention. Unless of course you're trying to market that product. Creatives know instinctively what colors, what words, and what ways you represent your service or product will work best. At the same time, creatives are shy - so ask them what they think and don't cut them off in the process. Truly value their opinions and evaluate them. If you're not going to do what they suggest, at least have some respect and tell them why. If you don't do that you're the one who would look like you don't know what you're doing and you can stick to a decision. There's nothing worse than a manager or any sort of leader who can't make decisions.
5. Allow them to nap or even play around the office.
   I've let my writers nap in the office after lunch. As a result they produced better pieces faster. Sleeping is such an important activity for your brain and the creative process is ALL brains. That's why companies like Google have office places that encourage people to play. Making work fun will keep your employees satisfied, they'll wake up and look forward to being in the office more. I have my trusty slinky on my desk at all times. The creative brain needs simulation. Having a fish tank also helps -- studies find that watching fish reduces stress. So if you have a high stress office, get a fish tank. There was a company that even counted them as 'feng shui consultants'!
6. Stop monitoring their break time.
   There are some offices in India where you need to log your breaktime in the registry - that gets just get people angry, dissatisfied, and start hating the place they work in. I know of one office that started it did and all their senior managers resigned within two weeks. All of them were highly creative and talented people who would've taken the organisation to the next level. If you're monitoring your employees break time, it's time to end it. If you really really need to monitor the comings and goings of your employees, put a biometric security system or a card reader. There are some corporate which are going to have RFI tags on name badges - that's just downright a violation of privacy and people are going to hate you for it. If you don't trust your people enough - there's a huge underlying cultural issues going on and you need to get to the root cause of that not apply draconian methods to manage people.
7. Help your staff to be confident in their abilities.
   I've found that a lot of creatives question their abilities and are not so confident. (Of course there's a lot of cocky creatives out there, too.) Offer your prespective on why they're best at what they do and why they're valuable to you, to the team, and to the organisation as a whole. They need to feel assured that they're the right person for the job. Once you can tackle that As for cocky creatives - challenge them - give them challenges they can tackle. Tell them, if you're so great, just go do it. It is important to let them know that you believe in their abilities as a creative person.
8. Have a Simple IT Policy for Internet Usage.
   If you put up walls around your staff's Internet usage - they will find a way to break them. It's a waste of your resources and their time. You'd rather have them stimulated by other things they read and see online and spark ideas instead of wasting their creativity on thinking of ways on how to hack your IT policy. Stop blocking every social media site there is. I heard about a startup that heavily relied on social media outreach that blocked Facebook. They were shooting themselves in the foot. Again, trust them to use their time wisely in the office and they will value and honor that trust. Besides, young professionals value having their Facebook access at work more than their salaries. You shouldn't be dictating what browser they use or limit the cloud tools that they can use either. It limits their way of discovering new cool things that they can use later on to help the team or the organisation. An organisation I was interviewed once said that they could only use IE in the office - I said, "The most slow and insecure browser? And you want to be 'leading' in the digital world" Needless to say, they're still struggling.
9. Have a creative to manage your team.
   I hate to say this but in my experience MBAs make horrible managers for creatives. Unless they're creatives themselves who happen to have an MBA. Creatives tend to come from a liberal arts background and having an MBA as a boss creates an unnessary gap. A lot of MBAs also look down on creatives with a flare of, "I have an MBA and you just graduated with a regular degree." The feelings mutual from the creatives as well. They think, "What do you know about being creative - you can't do anything close to what we do because you're so process driven." It creates more challenges than what you need to get great results for the organisation. Read this Harvard Business Review article on Weird Rules of Creativity.

Photo by RHiNO NEAL.