So what about creativity? Maybe you like to be free at work to make some decisions your own way. You don't want to operate like a soldier all day every day. Anyway, you might be thinking, your job actually requires you to take some risks and make a few mistakes. You are expected to be a little bit creative in your approach to work and you like it that way.

Maybe your whole job is about creating something new and different.

Here's what we've learned: The more creative you want to be in your work, the more critical it is for you to be 100% clear about what is NOT within your discretion.

You need to know exactly what the parameters are within which you are required to operate. If you are not to be held back in any way - no guidelines, no goals - then you still want clearly defined boundaries, some parameters. Otherwise you may find yourself completely adrift. Is there any time limit? Or will you be allowed to brainstorm ad infinitum? How will you know when you are "done"? How will you recognize the finished product or result?

If you are going to be free to take risks and make mistakes, then what you need to do is talk through the work with your boss until you have a concrete assignment spelled out so you can say: "So I am supposed to take risks and make mistakes. Is that correct?" Maybe you need to find out exactly how many risks you are allowed to take and how many mistakes you are supposed to be making. Maybe not. But somehow, you should try to get your boss to define some parameters in order to create a space in which risk taking and mistakes really are safe for you in the context of this job.

Sometimes when you have a "creative" assignment, what's really going on is just that your boss doesn't quite have a clear goal in mind.

Even if the goals of an assignment are unclear, it is still critical that you understand so that you know as much as you can about the assignment and what role the boss really wants you to play. Maybe you need to ask your boss, "Is this a case where you don't really know what you are looking for yet, but you want me to take a crack at it so I can give you an early draft and then you'll have a better idea of what you really want?" That's a perfectly reasonable assignment for your boss to give you. Maybe the boss is asking you to simply come up with a very rough draft. Maybe the boss is going to take over the project at some point and rework it. You just want to try to understand your role as clearly as you can up front so that you can understand what is expected of you.