Understanding the Importance of Creativity Towards Psychological Safety in the Library Workplace

Employee Engagement is one of the leading factors toward organizational success. Happier employees are engaged employees. However, employees cannot reach engagement unless there are feelings of psychological safety. One tool that libraries can utilize to increase the engagement of their staff is to invest in opportunities for workplace creativity

Smells Like Team Spirit: How to Foster Psychological Safety and Enhance Team Creativity

Creativity is one of the most sought-after skills of the 21st century, yet team members may be reticent to contribute to creative problem-solving out of fear of ridicule, retribution, or because of rigid hierarchical team structures. However, psychological safety is the underpinning of creativity; without it a culture of silence prevails, mistakes go unreported, and team creativity languishes. But how do leaders cultivate psychological safety in their teams? This project seeks to answer that question. Although the term “psychological safety” has become common in the corporate lexicon, misconceptions abound. Through the creation of a short, animated video, this project addresses these common misconceptions and introduces ways in which leaders can cultivate psychological safety in their teams. Key learnings include the popular understanding of psychological safety, script writing and animated video creation, and tools for leaders. Future creative possibilities are also discussed

A Framework for Introducing and Sustaining Play at Work

This paper presents a framework for introducing and sustaining play at work, focusing on its impact on creativity, problem solving, team performance, psychological safety, and organizational change. The author explores the concept of playfulness in a work setting and its potential to foster divergent thinking. Drawing on a real-life scenario involving a team of high school students participating in a Destination Imagination challenge, the paper highlights the role of play and risk-taking in problem-solving processes. The study emphasizes the importance of creating an environment that encourages play and experimentation while maintaining a sense of safety and support. The findings suggest incorporating play into work environments can enhance creativity, team collaboration, and innovative problem-solving approaches. This framework offers valuable insights for individuals and organizations seeking to cultivate a culture of play in various domains, including work, education, and social movements

The Impact of Administrative Buildings on the Psychology of Users and Its Relationship to Increasing Productivity for Occupants

This study aimed to investigate the overall impact of administrative building design on the psychology of users and its effect on the work environment and employee productivity. It also aimed to establish design criteria for creating a work environment that aligns with the physiological and psychological needs of employees. The deductive approach was adopted in this study, and a questionnaire was used to gather the necessary data. One of the key findings was the relationship between the built environment of the workplace and the psychology of users on employee productivity. As a result, several recommendations were made, including urging engineers to pay attention to implementing the necessary design standards that consider the physiological and psychological needs of employees, making them fundamental design principles for creating a high-quality work environment that not only enhances employee productivity but also has a positive impact on their physical and mental health, as well as their relationships with the surroundings, which, in turn, has a consequential effect on society as a whole

Playing at Work : Organizational Play as a Facilitator of Creativity

This thesis investigates how play may benefit creativity in organizational contexts. Play and playfulness have previously been linked to creativity in children and adults, but empirical organizational research is scarce. A widely accepted definition of creativity is that it involves the production of something that is both novel and appropriate. Play is defined as a behavioral approach that is characterized by play being: voluntary, fun, frivolous, imaginative, and in some way bound by structure or rules. An important distinguishing feature of play is that it is frivolous, which means that play is done just for fun and no other results or outcomes are expected. The first study was an exploration of how play is used by organizational consultants to promote creativity, how play was thought to enhance creativity, as well as how play is encouraged in organizational contexts. The results suggested that play promotes organizational creativity via the mediating factors openness, intrinsic motivation, and the collaborative relationships needed to co-create and innovate. The investigation also identified a number of encouragers and discouragers of organizational play. Playful contextual cues and explicit permission to play are examples of encouragers, while imposed play activities and a stressful work environment are examples of discouragers. The second study explored the effect of playful cues introduced during a scheduled workplace meeting versus a control condition receiving a conventional refreshments. The findings suggested that playful cues are a promising means by which to enhance the creative climate and playfulness in workplace meetings. The findings furthermore indicated that introducing play-cues does not risk meeting productivity. The third study investigated the impact of an intervention of playful improvisational theater on organizational creativity. Organizational teams participated in a play intervention that consisted of three workshops of playful improvisational theater. Compared with the control condition receiving no intervention, the intervention group reported an increase of workplace playfulness and scored higher on post-test measures of individual and group creativity. The combined results of these three studies support previously proposed creativity enhancing effects of organizational play. The implications for organizations wishing to enhance creativity and innovation are that fostering a climate of playfulness may be a means of stimulating organizational creativity