Becoming a Creative Business

A few years ago, I bought a great book called Ideas Generation by Rosemary Herceg and Tim Flannery. In an effort to keep myself out of bookshops, I have been re-reading it, hoping to refresh my memory and perhaps see things in a new light, considering the change of context.

I suppose the first thing on reading it was that it brought home the fact that corporate life just wasn’t me.

They describe highly creative individuals:

1. Curious about many things (tick)
2. Generate large numbers of ideas, offer ‘way out’ solutions, question the status quo (tick, well on my good days)
3. Be uninhibited in expressions of opinion (despite trying very hard to contain myself, tick)
4. Risk-taking (maybe)
5. Often caught fantasising and daydreaming (tick)
6. See humour in situations that don’t appear humourous to others (tick, I was always getting into hot water with this one)
7. Heightened emotional sensitivity (tick, sob, tick)
8. Non-conforming and individual (depends what day it is)
9. Unwilling to accept authoritarian pronouncements (tick)

Corporate life, even in an organisation that was quite innovative, was stifling all of this in me. No wonder I wasn’t happy.

But why is it so? (see No. 2) Why aren’t corporations more creative (as a rule)?

Particularly in these times of economic turmoil, creativity should be paramount in business. After all, as the saying goes, if you keep doing the same thing, you’ll keep getting the same results. Sure, lip service is paid, and maybe even the odd off-site brain storming session is held, but I am sure that if you look at the most successful businesses, they are the ones that put aside time, week in, week out, to look for creative solutions.

My previous company ran an innovation program for several years, and it produced some excellent results. In fact, the three most profitable marketing programs run by the company last year (in terms of ROI) came out of this program.

However, after a few years, everyone got stale, and the same old stuff kept cropping up. Without new ideas, funding the program became hard to justify. Not only that, but the program’s structure favoured the quick fix. You needed to get the project up and running and deliver results to prove the idea’s worth within 6-12 months. The ‘big picture’ ideas just didn’t get a guernsey. They may well have been the very ideas that might have lifted the company to another level.

Being creative is not intuitive to most of us. It takes practice, discipline and good processes.

1. You have to generate a lot of ideas to get some good ones. A once-a-year brainstorm just isn’t going to do that.
2. Synergy is important, so you need to work in a group to build upon others’ ideas and have them trigger better ones. If innovation programs have only a few individuals actively participate, or ideas are submitted individually and voted upon without further development, you may miss out on finding the gem hidden within the rough.
3. You need to understand HOW the creative process works and put in place procedures that support it. The 3M ‘sticky note’ story is a case in point. Were it not for the company’s policy of allowing X amount of time to work on “black projects” we might never have been invaded by useful little yellow paper squares. I know of design firms who have weekly “show and tell” sessions, where the team members each share their inspirations and discoveries as part of their work-on-progress meeting.

So, as my special project for the year, I am going to research the creative process, particularly in relation to business and share my findings with you. I’ll aim to include a little exercise that will help you improve creativity, either personally, or for your work. Postings will be each Wednesday, just as you are hitting the “hump day” slump.

Everyone can be creative… you just need to know how.