Creativity Killers

I’ve been thinking lately about all the rules and policies I have written over the year. It seems that at each place where I have worked I have had the task of setting up policies and procedures in order to bring some sense of order out of all the chaos.

Now I’m sure that some of those policies and procedures were good and necessary. But I wonder how much creativity has been stifled in the process.

I remember working at one place where the controller insisted that you put only one staple in the top right corner of an expense reports. The first time I turned in an expense report I had stapled all the receipts together, (one staple) and then stapled that to the expense report (two staples). The controller rejected it and made me use only one staple. Now that man was a control freak!

I have worked at a number of companies which were required to get certified to various quality standards in order to do business. Such certification involves documenting everything which could impact the customer’s product, whether it were quality, reliability, delivery, cost, or anything else. You can imagine the thousands of pages of documentation, and the tens of thousands of man hours such a task involves.

Here is something I have learned from that process: Rules destroy creativity. The fewer rules you can get by with the better off you are.

This is doubly true when working with volunteers. Volunteers and rules is almost a contradiction.

Rules are for paid staff. You get to set rules for them because you pay them for their time.

Volunteers serve because they get to use their creativity. Take away their ability to use their God-given talents and you take away their reason for volunteering.

So ask yourself this question: Do I want my volunteers to use their God-given skills and abilities? If the answer is “Yes” then you must stop trying to control them.

Loosen the controls and let your volunteers fly! Let their God-given creativity boost your ministry beyond your wildest expectations!

But remember: you’re not doing this for yourself. No! You’re doing this for the glory of God!