A Wealth of Ideas

Don’t let them go fallow.

There’s a precious business asset that is ultimately responsible for all success. It costs nothing to own, so it’s present at every startup. Amazingly, though, some businesses stop using it. They let it go fallow, forgotten.

We’re speaking of creativity, the art of ideas.

You were creative when you went into business. You must have been. You must have devised something new and untested. You thought of a new way of delivering services, or an innovative way to sell a product.

Which is laudable, of course. But how creative were you today? How creative will you be next week? You’re not sitting back and letting your earliest ideas define your future, are you?

The most creative companies — Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, and others — constantly innovate because they encourage their people to constantly create. Many set aside up to 20% of their employees’ time to work on emerging ideas. A lot of those ideas, maybe even most, go nowhere. But there’s brilliance enough in the rest to make the exercise worthwhile.

We said creativity costs nothing to own, and that’s true (hint: you were born with it, as was everyone you know). That doesn’t mean it’s free to nurture, though. It takes time and care and a loving environment. It’s rather skittish. Demand it to come forth and it’ll run and hide. Be gentle and inviting and it’ll trot right up and feed from your hand.

There’s creativity permeating your organization. Everyone for whom you sign a paycheck is teeming with ideas, ideas that have the potential of catapulting your success.

All you have to do is let it happen.

The C4:

1. Creativity was the founding asset of every business, and it’s the cause of every future success. Some businesses forget this at their peril, thinking that first good idea was all they’ll ever need. That’s folly.
2. Smart businesses realize that a constantly changing world calls for constant new ideas. They foster creativity as a way of eternally reinventing themselves.
3. Creativity is free, but harnessing it for business success takes investment. Invest in the time and environment needed for a free flow of ideas, and those ideas will greatly repay you.
4. Creativity abounds. You’re a font of ideas, so are your managers and entry-levels. So is the guy who cleans the floor. There’s a wealth of this resource all around you. Harvest it.