Friday, April 18, 2014

Can Creativity Come Out To Play?

The solutions to all your business woes lie right above everyone’s nose

It's not complicated — just let loose the creativi-whee!
Need solutions for ongoing business worries? Need great ideas for uncovering new business opportunities? No problem! The insights needed to conquer all these issues and more are right there, close at hand—locked up inside the heads of the good people you work with every day. All you need to do is find a way to shake the creativity loose. 

Exactly how much elbow grease will it take to liberate the genius that silently surrounds you? That is dictated by institutional culture; some groups just don’t have the history or inclination to suborn themselves to the ethereality of mind-magic.

While others, let’s face it, are just drunk on the stuff. These are the companies that eschew stairs in their office suites in favor of bouncy slides and fireman poles. They’ve got massage chairs in the power-nap room, and foosball tables on the ceiling. They reckon that a workday has to resemble a trip to Chuck E. Cheese, if you’re to have any hope of coaxing out the elusive creative mind.

And to some extent, you have to give them credit for success. This is arguably a proven formula for the creatives of the entertainment industry, Silicon Valley, and, we can assume, the wizardly boffins at ARPA and DARPA.

But what about the rest of us? What if we haven’t the square-footage for an employee Romper Room in our leased storefront office spaces? Are we to be denied the fruits of creative labor just because we lack the budget or penchant for sumo suits for everyone?

A bouncy-slide salesman would never tell you this, but we will: Creativity isn’t that hard to coax out. Creativity is the child gazing out the window, desperately hoping for an invitation from the other kids in the neighborhood to come play. It wants to come out.

Start by fostering an environment where input and creative suggestions are universally understood to be welcome. Ask for advice and opinions, from everyone and on every subject. Ask lots of follow-up questions, to make them deeply examine their own ideas and thought processes.

For your thorniest issues only—don’t want to pull out the big gun too often—convene brainstorming sessions, peopled with as many of your SMEs you can fit in a room. Brainstorm your own way, there are endless ways to structure the sessions, but always follow the two cardinal rules of the storm of brains: No ideas are out of bounds, and no one gets criticized.

Lastly, don’t try too hard to control the creative process. Set it in motion, encourage it to continue…then get out of its way. Creativity will rise to the occasion, so long as it’s not stifled by close-mindedness. Your team wants to perform; they’re pining to put on their thinking caps. Sure, they’ll take a ride on the bouncy slide if one’s being offered—but if not, they’ll still amaze you with their creativity. All you have to do is ask.

The C4:
1. There are three ways to solve any problem and to unlock any door: Muscle your way through, buy your way in, or think your way around it. Can we all agree the third is preferred, if only for the bragging rights?

2. Leaders are accustomed to hogging all the thinking for themselves. That’s a habit we need to break. Intelligent, engaged people who want to lend their brainpower to the common cause surround us. Shame on us if we’ve got resources like that available and we’re not using them.

3. So, foster creativity in your workplace. Create an environment where deep thought and unexpected solutions are not just welcome, but expected.

4. Nothing against bouncy slides. If you’ve got the space and the budget, by all means bounce away. Just don’t think that’s where the creativity comes from. Slide or no slide, the creativity is already there.