Alexandra Hyland, Global Head of Capabilities and Culture, Kraft Heinz [NASDAQ: KHC]At Kraft Heinz, we are in the midst of transformation, accelerating profitable growth and driving innovation to deliver shareholder value over the long term. We have a laser focus on enhancing our Agile@Scale capabilities – which allow us to be nimble but with the scale of a large company – through partnerships with technology giants and cutting-edge innovators to lead the future of food. What's most exciting to me as a learning professional is the courage, curiosity, and confidence required for us as an organization to fuel this transformation from the inside out, focusing on supporting our people as champions of our brands, our consumers, and our company culture.
Not long ago, our global chief people officer Melissa Werneck pulled me aside and asked me a question that I found both exhilarating and confounding: “Let’s make HR more creative. How can we do that?” Exhilarating because creativity is my calling. Confounding because I had never given much thought to how to ‘teach’ creativity.” Like emotional intelligence, some believe creativity is innate, and those who believe it can be developed. I firmly believe the latter.
Parkinson’s Law claims that work will expand to fill the time allotted for its completion; I believe similarly that creativity grows, or withers, on the proverbial tomato vine, based on the time and attention paid to it. Since the HR field is often associated with policy and procedure, how can we, as HR professionals, see ourselves anew? Creativity is a critical skill for all tied to problem solving, innovation, and strategic transformation.
HR can be the unexpected leader in accelerating business transformation, paving the way to create the conditions that will best equip and empower teams to drive new ways of working.
This sounds great in theory, but pontificating and executing are two very different things. Therefore, here’s my recipe (I work for one of the world’s largest food companies, after all) for how to cook up creativity in your team.
Set the Temperature for Courage – Practice ‘loud courage.’ Leaders set the temperature through their actions, like a thermostat. Without ‘loud courage’ from leaders and open and honest dialogue about rewards and risks with managers, creativity becomes an uphill battle at best and a losing self-fulfilling prophecy at worst.
Creativity grows from a willingness to try something new (and a recognition that with some of these trials, there will be discomfort, some successes, and, frankly, some failures). Outcomes lead to learning either way, and the tone and temperature the leader sets send a very strong message. Celebrate accomplishments, even if those accomplishments include recognizing what won’t work.
"HR can be the unexpected leader in accelerating business transformation, paving the way to create the conditions that will best equip and empower teams to drive new ways of working."
Combine Courage with Curiosity – Curiosity reflects the desire to learn things that aren’t immediately required. It requires extra effort and time – something in less than short supply. Do we throw up our hands and say that curiosity is a luxury only for academia? No! In my experience, the degree of curiosity within a team is tied to its engagement – the level of discretionary effort they are willing to expend.
Engage your team to build curiosity. My team has adopted one of my favorite expressions, “Is there a world where…?” Drawing from design thinking’s approach of “How might we?” this expression invites possibility free from constraint. It encourages curious engagement in ideation, allowing us to think without self-imposed limits before the constraints of brass tacks. Too often, we put up barriers before we even begin, but once there is an idea, we can find a way through those barriers. When you notice yourself being held back with all the reasons something won’t work, shake it up. Dare to remove the barriers we put on ourselves and ask yourself, "Is there a world where…?”
Flavor with Confidence – And a ‘yes, and’ mentality. Confidence means knowing that the first idea is not always the best, but when given the space to be fed and watered, it can grow into something great. Confidence comes from knowing that your first idea doesn’t need to be right. In fact, sometimes the ‘worst’ ideas can be turned upside down to create game-changing outcomes. How can you build on ideas to create something entirely unexpected?
I don’t necessarily believe in Silicon Valley’s ethos of ‘move fast and break things,’ but calculated experimentation – trialing ideas on a small scale, with minimal investment to see if the roots take hold – has tremendous value. At Kraft Heinz, our Agile@Scale methodology has allowed us to move faster, collaborate further, and innovate beyond previously thought immovable boundaries. Far from reckless, leveraging the minimum viable product (MVP) model allows you to test the waters and iterate with speed. This freedom within a framework can give us confidence when faced with uncharted waters.
When encouraged and supported, new ideas evolve, teams engage, curiosity is sparked, and courage is rewarded in the form of effective and transformative creativity. How are you breathing creativity into your HR organization?
