Combining Creativity and Efficiency

It can be a struggle for businesses to have a culture focused on innovation and creativity while still maintaining the necessary work processes to run the business efficiently. Some companies think that you can either have one or the other, but not both. There are some cases where having the entire organization focused on R&D/innovation or having a very vertical structure is needed. But in today’s ever-changing market, it has become clear that organizations need both elements in order to thrive.

At Volaris, we manage to maintain that balance through accountability and initiatives.

In order to balance creativity and efficiency, each of our companies separates the business into its core business (efficiency) and initiatives (creativity).

Core Business/Efficiency

This side of the business focuses on everyday operations and ensuring that the business is running smoothly. Your typical metrics are used here – revenue, profitability, etc. How accountability comes into play is through our performance scorecards.

Every employee has a scorecard with goals that they need to achieve throughout the year. They will be held accountable if they do not reach these goals. Having the scorecards in place motivates employees to hit their targets and keep the business efficient.

Initiatives/Creativity

In our organization, creativity is just as important as efficiency. We allow it to thrive by having dedicated teams work solely on initiatives for each business unit. Organic growth is essential to any business, so we encourage it and make it a priority.

One of the ways we help inspire creativity is the annual initiative competition held at the Volaris Academy. We ask each business unit to develop a new initiative, test it with customers, and work on eventually implementing it into their business. To ensure that our business units continue working on it post Academy, we award the best performing initiative at the following year’s Academy.

Your Turn

How does your company encourage creativity in the workplace? Is your company more creatively focused or efficiency focused? Let us know in the comments below or reach out to us on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Google+.