In 2010 Annual Conference, 2010 Conference - Wednesday

C10_7252

Are you creative?

Get in the creative mindset: detox time. Conference attendees are doing the octopus, crab and flying fish dance to loosen up and get into a creative frame of mind. We need to strategically invest the time to dance like an octopus.

Google innovation, creativity and you’ll see thousands of results.

“The only way to predict the future is to create it.”

“Every organization must be prepared to abandon everything it does to survive in the future.” -Peter Drucker
For great creative folks, take a look at kindergarteners. They are the role models for creativity. Look at sixth graders. They aren’t willing to take risks; they stick together. What happened between kindergarten and sixth grade?

“All children are artists. The problem is how to remain an artist once we grow up.” -Picasso

Creativity is…

Intelligence having fun!

Brains need to come out and play everyday!

In this way our thoughts take wing.

“The loftier they are, the higher our thinking will soar.” – Joey Reiman

 Creativity is…

  • Bringing into being something that was not there before.
  • This “new thing” must have some value.
  • The creative output should not be obvious or easy…it must be rare, unique.

What’s the Big Idea?

It takes thousands of ideas (creativity) to find one that you can take to market and make stick (innovation).

Think about thousands of ideas and the process.  Get people to be surprised and surprise yourself. Talk about changing your business, changing your service, etc. We are the only ones to generate ideas.

Keep the customer in mind when you’re “jamming” ideas.

Jam with joy when you’re creating ideas.

Creativity tools…

  • Mindset: I am creative
  • Environment: Pick an inspirational, stimulating environment. Get above it all and see the big picture.
  • Detox
  • Diversity: Bring everyone to the table, not just the creative team. New folks, those with titles and without. It might be uncomfortable. Don’t question an idea: that won’t work, we don’t do that here, etc.
  • Six sense everything: touch, feel, hear, see, smell, nonsense! Loosen up and bring nonsense in.
  • Surprise your team
  • Surprise yourself
  • Task Tension – Risk
  • Fail-Fast-Forward: Don’t be afraid to fail. Embrace failure, learn from failure and try not to repeat.
  • Never stop learning an learn about everything!

Jumpstart your brain!

Lateral vs. vertical thinking

Creativity relies on lateral thinking.

Challenge One: Get in a group

Think of the different ways you can use a plain old cardboard box individually and then bring the ideas together in a group setting. Jot your ideas down. Build on each others ideas. Pick one to “go to market.” Discuss the benefits of the idea.

One of the results of this exercise is to get people talking and collaborating. Another result is the generation of ideas, lots of ideas!

Six Thinking Hats:

  • Blue hat: Facilitator
  • Red hat: Emotion; need to be handled separately, like other hats.
  • Green hat: Creativity (ideas). Brainstorm session.
  • White hat: Information (bring information to the table that is needed).
  • Yellow hat: Upside of ideas
  • Black hat: Concerns for the idea (use at the right time, not throughout the process).

Five Questions…

  1. Mood? What do you feel when you go into your organization? What’s it like in terms of creating ideas? Does it feel like a creative place, space?
  2. Mindset? We’re all creative!
  3. Mechanisms? We can all do better – create more ideas. What are the skill sets involved.
  4. Measurements? How do we measure up? What are we measuring now? How can we change them to double/triple innovation in our organization? What can we measure that is different to drive more innovation?
  5. Momentum?

Be committed to creativity, including leadership. Have fun!

Contact:
Tom Laughon
Catch Your Limit Consulting
tom@catchyourlimit.com
@tomlaughon

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