Review of Fast Company Article by Bill Berning From Jan/Feb issue "Mind Games"

The employees at Plays, a marketing company, believe that they cannot sit in boring meetings nor boring conference rooms if they want to generate creative ideas. The owner, Andy Stefanovich, says the basic idea is simple: "When you turn work into a place that encourages people to be themselves, have fun, and take risks you fuel and unleash their creativity". He also believes everyone is creative and that creativity just needs to be discovered within each person. He believes this can be accomplished when people feel valued and respected.

His company does many things to encourage creativity. In one hallway there is a chalkboard that has daily random topics, such as "H20", "City", "Teens", or "Marathon running". People that pass the chalkboard write down related words or thoughts. Mr. Stefanvich believes this helps creativity by putting old ideas together in new ways.

One must also lose their fear of looking foolish. One way to lose your fear is to offer the worst possible idea you can think of and build off of it by refining it into a workable idea. Everyone tries to "hook on" to an idea by adding to it to make it better.

I think that many creative ideas are thought of by people everyday but they do not express them for the fear of being rejected, laughed at or the fear of appearing as a work place reckloos. Th type of environment Mr. Stefanovich is promoting is successful because he helps channel everyone's energy into something constructive. I believe his ideas will work but a leader must keep oder. I also believe a leader must work with individuals to help them overcome their fears and make them feel part of a team.

I showed the article to a co-worker and he thought that the key to creativity is to feel free to express ideas that need some refining. He believes that businesses often get caught up in wanting final, well thought out ideas by individuals and not as a team. Often the person that succeeds in a company is one who thinks like the owner and does not question the ideas of upper management.

-- Anonymous, January 12, 2000