How about offering small surprises (health promoting – like a tray of sliced fruit) to raise employee mood? Remember, appreciation is the foundation of happiness, and hence enhanced employee engagement to unlock potential.

Then, as van der Heijden says, it’s about those strategic conversations, and as Olsen agrees, it’s relationship and interactions that shape emergent patterns. And remember creativity is about emergent patterns! Helping that to happen is what Mitleton-Kelly calls creating an ‘enabling environment’. Managers, hone your observation skills, notice what switches your employees on, and especially begin to engage them in casual but inquiring conversation (not interrogation!). Finally, notice what generates tedium – see what you can do about that.