In a world of intensified competition and shorter product cycles, you must be able to imagine new products, develop innovative ways of doing things, forge unusual alliances. In short, you must be creative.
“These days, everyone is smarter and faster,” says John Kao, an entrepreneur and lecturer on creativity. “So, the key skill for remaining competitive, whether as a company or as a person in a company, is how you can innovate.”
Fair enough. But we all know the creative juices flow only through a select few, right?
Wrong. “Everyone is creative,” insists Bill Shephard, director of programs for the Creative Education Foundation in Buffalo, N.Y. Some of us simply have been unwilling, or unable, to tap into our creative core. And companies, even those that crave innovation, mistakenly think it requires nothing more than a few brainstorming sessions.
There are plenty of workshops around, offering a wild array of tips and techniques. Edward de Bono has managers mentally donning different-colored hats (green for creativity) to stimulate different types of thinking. Author Doug Hall has been known to show up at seminars in a strait jacket and place whoopee cushions on participants’ chairs.
These consultants have their loyal followings, although they’re not my cup of tea. To tap your creativity juices, you must first understand the qualities creative people share: keen powers of observation, a restless curiosity, the ability to identify issues others miss, a talent for generating a large number of ideas, persistent questioning of the norm and a knack for seeing established structures in new ways.
Creative people can also perservere through countless rejections.
“I did 40 presentations before I got approval to set up the creativity lab” at Polaroid, says Suzanne Merritt, who has the title of senior creatologist for the camera company. Her program was such a hit, she now offers it to other concerns through her new company, Insightout.
Here are some common-sense ways to nurture your creative muse, from consultants and managers who have done some creative thinking on the subject:
The encouragement of creativity has to take place all the time, not just at meetings. “Creativity doesn’t happen by chance,” Ms. Merritt says. “You have to put in habits and behaviors that become part of your daily life.”
Build your tolerance for bad ideas.
Part of Steve Finken’s job as writing and editorial director for Hallmark Cards’ Shoebox division is to build self-esteem. So he tries never to seem negative about ideas. Every day, his writers jot down their new ideas and Finken reads them at a 4 p.m. meeting–anonymously. “We don’t dwell on the failures and we celebrate and savor the good ideas,” he says. “And even those ideas that aren’t accepted as product ideas get a big laugh.”
Think big.
Stanley Gryskiewicz, vice president, global resources, at the Center for Creative Leadership, Greenboro, N.C., says you can imagine ever more creative uses for products if you look beyond short-term goals. He cites the glass beads used to illuminate highway markings. Other designers who looked beyond the immediate use developed beds for burn patients and fluidized glass beads for taking time-released medicine.
Seek out diverse friends.
Mary Ann Norris, director of strategic planning for Mattel, cultivates a circle of bright friends for social gatherings. She stresses she isn’t networking. “I’m not pumping them for information,” she says. “By just hanging out with them, cross-pollination of ideas occur.”
Trained as a cognitive scientist, she believes people gain from learning how other people attack problems.
Hallmark Cards sends its artists all over the world to be inspired, says David Welty, director of new product development. “Some recently returned from England where they sat in famous gardens and painted landscapes,” he says.
The company also maintains a large farm a half-hour’s drive from its Kansas City, Mo., headquarters, where employees can go for workshops, to work on crafts or just do some creative thinking.
Discipline your creative urges.
“To be truly creative, you have to do something different that maintains the basic needs,” says Clar Evans, a manager in Hallmark’s Creative Advisory Group.
