“Curiosity about life, in all its aspects, I think, is still the secret of great creative people.” – Leo Burnett
Creativity is surely a messy thing; it has no rules, no regulations, no beginning and no end. Once a creative person has completed his creation, just ask him how he did it and you will get an idea. Steve Jobs once said that creative people are always guilty when asked how they did it, reason being it seems so obvious to them. They have an idea, and they just implement it.
The most interesting thing is, the creative person is never sure whether he has really completed it or not.
If creativity has any practical implementation, then it is surely business operation. In today’s hyper-active markets and the spread of social media where your competitors are just one click away, you have to be creative in order to survive. Creativity helps to prevent stagnation among the business processes, and helps the company to see things in a new angle.
In case you are facing a tough business problem, and there is no way out, remember this: There is no business puzzle which cannot be solved by creativity. In fact, thinking out of the box, and coming in with creative solutions in place of your regular tactics can prove to be a major boost for your overall business. As we have observed it first hand, common business issues such as staff management, sales and marketing, customer retention, customer service, delivery, billing etc can all be resolved using little bits of creativity here and there.
The most important thing is to believe that your idea is a best seller, and keep on experimenting.
Contents
Creativity Is Thinking & Acting Upon It
In very simple terms, creativity means to create something new and innovative. Creativity involves two parts: imagining and producing. In case you just imagine ideas, and not actually produce something in reality, then at best you are a dreamer, not a creator. Acting upon the idea and bringing something in reality which others can see, read, touch or feel is very important.
Two other popular views on creativity:
“Creativity is the process of bringing something new into being. Creativity requires passion and commitment. It brings to our awareness what was previously hidden and points to new life. The experience is one of heightened consciousness: ecstasy.” – Rollo May, The Courage to Create
“A product is creative when it is (a) novel and (b) appropriate. A novel product is original not predictable. The bigger the concept, and the more the product stimulates further work and ideas, the more the product is creative.” —Sternberg & Lubart, Defying the Crowd
3 Creative Strategies For Your Workplace
On the backdrop of these definitions of creativity, let us explore ways to introduce creativity in your workplace, right this moment:
Role Playing To Get Maximum Perspective
You can ask your team members to forget their current designations, and simple role play. It can give your employees a new perspective to virtually everything. For example, the sales manager can become a Writer for a change, and the Writer can become the marketing manager and so on. With role reversed, everyone can behave differently, act differently, and bring upon ideas which were previously impossible to even imagine.
Role playing is an important part of the ‘business simulation’ process and has been included in curriculum of several business schools as well.
Brainstorming To Get Variety of Ideas:
Brainstorming involves collectively thinking and working upon several ideas to solve a problem. Typically, a brainstorming session goes like this: A problem which has arisen suddenly needs a solution, which is not visible to the manager. He will call all his team members in a room, and present the problem. Then, he will ask all of them to share whatever ideas which come to their minds. Everyone is supposed to write down the idea or share it with the manager who will write it down. There is no rule or terms for sharing ideas; you keep on writing whatever solution comes to your mind.
Brainstorming a problem is the best example of thinking outside the box: yes, 80% of the ideas wont be practical enough to be implemented, but there would be rest 20% out of which some will exist to perfectly resolve the issue. Although some psychologists claim that brainstorming is overrated, and it doesn’t work; meanwhile there are others who say that brainstorming always work. We need to understand the psychology behind brainstorming, and we will have to tweak it to work.
Po: Lateral Thinking
In case you feel that brainstorming has gone out of fashion from the creativity world, checkout ‘Po’ , which is a shorthand for Provocation Technique. The term Po was coined by Edward de Bono to denote lateral thinking process. Under this method, which is a primitive form of brainstorming, where an idea is thought to be too radical or unrealistic to be ever implemented.
Then why do we do it?
We use this technique to break the mental shackles which sometimes bind us. Imagine there is a sales meeting which is going to happen in the next 10 minutes, and being the sales manager, you don’t have any idea what to propose. The clock is ticking without any stop, and you can experience sweat being formed on your forehead.
Using Po technique, you can instantly break the deadlock and induce surprisingly new ideas which earlier would have been impossible. In other words, we ‘provoke’ our mind to think forward and think innovatively.
To solve the problem of the sales manager, here are some ideas generated by Po technique:
Problem:
Sales are dropping, we need new ideas asap!
Solution:
- Change the color of the packaging
- Change the name of the brand
- Open a new museum and dedicate your product to it
- Hire 50 people who will shout your product’s name on the road
- Sponsor Indian cricket team
- Sell the product to adults, and gift it to youngsters
- Hire Angelina Jolie
Yes, some of these ideas are absurd and totally crazy, but your mind is now more active, and full of even better ideas!
Do you have any creative ideas which can help any business? Have you ever induced any creative idea in your business?
Do share your views by commenting right here!
