Closely related to establishing organizational conditions favoring creativity is choosing effective methods for managing creative workers. The suggestions that follow supplement effective leadership and management practices in general. Give creative people tools and resources that allow their work to stand out. Creative workers have a high degree of self-motivation and therefore want to achieve high-quality output.

Give creative people flexibility and a minimum amount of structure. Many creative workers regard heavy structure, like fixed hours or required approvals, as counterproductive to creativity. Give gentle feedback when turning down an idea. Creative employees are emotion-ally involved with their work. As a result, they are likely to interpret criticism as a personal attack on their self-worth.

Employ creative people to manage and evaluate creative workers. Managers of creative workers should have some creative ability of their own so that they can understand creativity and be credible as leaders. What constitutes creative output is somewhat subjective, but the output can be tied to objective criteria.