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Issue #35: April 1, 2004
To our readers:
No matter who you are, where you work, or what kind of work you do, your creativity can improve your problem-solving ability, your career, your organization, and your life. The improvement could be as simple as a more effective way to keep your calendar, or as profound as a new product destined to change lives, like the cellular telephone.
In Thriving on Chaos: Handbook for a Management Revolution, (1988) Tom Peters wrote, ". . . I have long observed that one of the primary distinguishing characteristics of the best leaders is their personal thirst for and continued quest for new/small/practical ideas." And further, "The two people to whom this book is dedicated, Governor Don Schaefer of Maryland and Roger Milliken [Chairman and CEO of Milliken & Company]. . . depend upon a mass of small innovations -- from everyone -- to raise every element of their operations to stratospheric levels of performance."
Everyone can contribute a "new/small/practical idea" now and then, and most of us can create our own "mass of small innovations," and thus raise our own performance to higher, perhaps even stratospheric, levels. We can innovate in our routines, processes, products, tools, timing, routes, packaging, reporting--in every area of endeavor and activity. You might realize one morning that if you turn left here instead of going straight you'll arrive at your office from a direction that enables you to park more easily. That's a new way of getting to work that will benefit you day after day. Very small, but meaningful.
To build a mountain of improvement, make a slew of smaller innovations. Over time, look at everything, from your company's services and products to your own desktop. Make a point of looking at each task with an open mind. Step back from it, see if it might fit with other tasks in a different way. Assess how your company's service or product is designed, produced, sold, and distributed. Look at how you organize your day, how you plan your projects, how you schedule appointments, when you make your telephone calls, how you plan for a meeting, how you research a project, how you write a report. Let there be no sacred routines in your work that might dilute your effectiveness. Likewise, there should be no sacred processes in your firm that limit your firm's innovativeness and success.
As you arm your brain with the habit of innovation in small things, you will be more likely to innovate in large ways as well.
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A caveat: Some of you might work in organizations that don't value innovation. American companies adopt only about 38% of all creative ideas presented to them, according to Gary Vikesland at www.Employer-Employee.com. And since, as he notes, "you are likely to feel very frustrated if you are working in a company that does not appreciate creative thinking" and "your creative idea may threaten your coworkers' jobs, or even put you out of a job," creativity might actually be dangerous in your particular situation! So if you are currently working in a culture that is more inclined to kill creativity than nurture it, use your creativity to fuel problem-solving only in your own arena until you find a more receptive environment to work in.
Five Tips for Stimulating Your Creativity and Unleashing Your Problem-solving Ability:
1. Step out of your routine. Do something new.
Doing new things forges new connections in your brain and stimulates new ways of thinking. Take a new path home, read a different section of the newspaper, read a different genre of book. If you usually read business-related books, try a novel, perhaps even a fantasy or science fiction. If you read strictly novels, try a nonfiction tome.
2. Play.
Play a game, visit a toy store, engage in harmless practical jokes with someone you know won't be offended. Playfulness stirs creativity. It takes you out of your usual mindset and stimulates your imagination.
3. Immerse yourself in music.
According to Norman M. Weinberger, Ph.D., a founding member of the Center for the Neuro-biology of Learning and Memory and a Professor in the Department of Psycho-biology at the University of California, Irvine, "the findings to date provide solid support for the claim that music increases creativity. Moreover, it appears that active music making is more effective than passive music experience." If you haven't already, make music a part of your life. Attend a live concert, listen to different kinds of music, and better yet, play an instrument! It's never too late to learn. Dr. Weinberger cites the very accomplished New Horizons Band, formed largely of 60-85 year olds who'd had no previous musical instruction.
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4. Go to areas of your organization you wouldn't normally visit.
Go outside your normal area of interest. If you work in the office, visit the warehouse. If you work in the cafeteria, visit the offices. If you're in marketing, check out the Accounts Payable and Accounts Receivable departments. Do it on a regular basis. Become familiar to those in other areas of your company and they will be more candid with you. Listen to what they say, how they describe their experiences working for your organization, what they say could be done better, and how. This is information that will provide you a much bigger picture of your organization than you would otherwise have. It will enable you to see, and solve, problems others might not see. It will give you information, perspective, and insights you would not otherwise have. It will lead you to more innovative ways of doing things.
5. Cultivate a habit of really looking at what you see so you actually see what you are looking at.
Look at objects and view processes with a sharp eye, and really see what is there. You will often discover techniques you can apply to other tasks and processes. One person noticed that his metal real estate signs, hung cleverly by chain links from their posts, were buffeted by the wind, often breaking off from the posts they were hanging from. Later he noticed that banners, strung high across a street, didn't blow back and forth in the same strong wind. He learned that the banner-makers had cut half-moons into the banners so the wind could blow through the fabric, leaving the banner intact and reasonably stationary. He applied the same principle to his signs and they faired much better in the wind.
Don't let routine, in your habits or your thinking, dull your creativity and limit your problem-solving skills. Make sparking your creativity part of your job, and your organization and your career will benefit.
Books to read:
A Whack on the Side of the Head: How You Can Be More Creative, by Roger Von Oech, updated in 1998.
A Kick in the Seat of the Pants: Using Your Explorer, Artist, Judge, and Warrior to Be More Creative, by Roger Von Oech, 1986.
Seeing With the Mind's Eye, by Mike and Nancy Samuels, 1975
The New Drawing on the Right Side of your Brain: a course in enhancing creativity and artistic confidence, by Betty Edward, updated c1999
A Technique for Producing Ideas, by James Webb Young, 1965, and by James Webb Young and William Bernbach, Released 2003
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