In the second study, the researchers changed the creative task and increased the number of rounds from two sessions to five, depending on the amount of time they had to complete the task. In the final study, they used two different creative tasks over two rounds, both of which were one minute long. In line with the first study, these studies found that individuals with high power were more creative than individuals with low power in the first period. But the creativity of low-powered individuals “caught up” to the creativity of high-powered individuals after the first round. The results of the third study demonstrated that a different creativity task could warm-up even low-power people to an unrelated creativity task.
“The experience of being creative can in itself have positive psychological consequences,” Lucas said.
“Given the high value of creative ideas to organizations and to the careers of the employees who champion them, it is important to develop strategies that empower all employees to harness their creative potential,” he said. “The low power warm-up effect suggests a simple intervention that does exactly that and addresses the power gap in the workplace: When performing creative tasks, allow employees to warm up first.”
