“Please follow the process!”. “Why aren’t you following the process?”. “The processes are there to help you”.

We hear such lines all the time in our working environment. Processes, processes, processes. They are there to assist us to be more productive. They are there…well….to calm down the bosses because if we follow processes, things won’t easily go out of control. Well, not THAT much anyway.

To be honest with you, processes are fine but sticking too much to the processes can be counter-productive. But most importantly, it dulls the creativity of your people because they are being given a pretty tight constraint to work within. After all, most processes exist in order to control the people so that they don’t stray too far away from what they are supposed to do.

The funny thing is, after introducing such limiting processes, the bosses will start questioning their employees why aren’t they using their creativity at work? Then they will try to come out with MORE processes to promote creativity among the employees.

I guess the bosses or whoever that wants to come out with processes, should remember that creativity is not something that can be calculated – unlike the results of following a process. And it is not something which should be restrained by the processes. If you want to promote creativity, then remove the processes. Those 2 can hardly work together – there are occasions where the 2 can work together, but companies have the thread carefully…because not everyone can do that successfully without screwing up or making the bosses angry.

So yes, processes do dull creativity. Tell me if you think otherwise. I cannot think of how someone can be creative when he/she has to follow step (1) to step (10) as per the process.

Last but not least, people should remember that nowadays, companies need to rely on creativity and innovation more than they need to rely on boring processes. Processes are there to help, but creativity and innovation are there to make them win in the competition. So which should you be focusing on? It’s your choice.

p/s….. having said that, I don’t deny that certain processes should always be to keep things under control. Imagine what is it like if your HR person or account person try to be too creative by ignoring the processes.