Specialty Food Magazine is the leading publication for retailers, manufacturers and foodservice professionals in the specialty food trade. It provides news, trends and business-building insights that help readers keep their businesses competitive.
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the educated retailers' guide Building a Creative Culture Follow these 9 guidelines to build a work environment that fuels creativity and fosters innovation and fun. BY ARI WEINZWEIG I n my world, creativity is a universally sought-after skill. The challenge, of course, is to figure out how to make it happen. You can't create creativity—all you can do is build an environment in which creativity is more likely to occur. What follows are insights and out-of-the-box ideas about innovation and quirky creativity that have come to me from studying the subject. Each has contributed to building the creative culture we have at Zingerman's and also in many other settings around the world. If you're looking to increase your creativity quotient, here are good ways to start the work. 1. Experience a Creative Environment The biggest thing anyone can do to increase his or her innovative ability is to go hang around in a creative environment. Ideally, one of those places would be work, because if you work in an organization that's highly invigorating and regularly innovating, it's likely you'll soon be coming up with cool stuff too. And if an organization is filled with creative people, they attract other creative folks—in our case, staff, customers and suppliers. But if your organization isn't there yet, then individually you should work to boost your creativity connections. 92 ❘ SPECIALTY FOOD MAGAZINE specialtyfood.com