It is to the creative that opportunities come. Creativity is a means of looking at old things in a new way. Creativity is the discipline of not being confined to how things have been done. Creativity is stepping back to gain new perspective.
Creativity is not the sole possession of a few. It is not a gift that is bestowed on others, and held back from some. Creativity can be cultivated. It is best cultivated with others.
Poet and civil rights activist, Maya Angelou, said, “There has to be a climate in which new ways of thinking, perceiving, questioning, are encouraged.” This climate is the responsibility of the leader.
John Maxwell, on his Leadership Podcast on establishing creative climates, shared seven ways to promote creative thinking.
Question old assumptions. This can be done by asking why? Or why not? What was the reason this has been done the way it has?
Get people together to generate as many ideas as possible. This is the practice of brainstorming. How do we improve what we have been doing? How do we change what we’ve been doing? What else?
Make sure the best ideas win. Brainstorming is to get ideas on the table. Every idea is not great, but the point is to generate lots of ideas. Once you have ideas captured determine a means to get the best ideas filtered out
Learn from failure. In implementing new ideas you may fail. When this happens don’t ask why did we fail? Instead, ask what did we learn?
Adapt new ideas to new challenges. When things change, and they will, you have to determine new means of addressing them.
Find a way to capture good ideas. If you don’t develop a means of capturing ideas many will slide between the cracks of creativity. A new idea is limited if you have no way of implementing it.
Share the credit with the people who have good ideas. Creativity is done as a team. The team ought to share in the credit, not just the leader.
Creativity helps you to expand your influence. Ideas + influence = Inertia