“You should feel like yourself at work, not a worker.” So says Becky Bermont of the design firm, IDEO, in a recent article posted on Quartz Ideas. Developing and sustaining a culture of creativity, important to a design firm, but increasingly important to every company, requires vulnerability. A culture of safety and collaboration requires that the team members know and accept each other and that they value both the contributions and the uniqueness of each individual. In the introductory paragraph the author says, “…the first step in creating innovative outcomes is building trust by allowing for vulnerability, especially as a leader, beginning by allowing individual team members’ passions to show through, even if they don’t seem initially ‘work-related.’ “

Read the full article for some ideas on how team members can be encouraged to know and value both the professional and the personal parts of the other team members, thus creating the vulnerability that leads to creative collaboration.