There is no limit to what you can do with your brain! If this is an overstatement to you, I have no apologies. Sorry about that. I will tell you why. Apart from some things that are naturally embedded in our environment, every other thing around us that we use was invented or was an innovation by human. Have you taught about this? What makes you think you cannot invent or innovate something? And you will join in the race of becoming one of the worlds billionaires! Come with us on this website and you will understand better what we mean and become empowered. Determination and effort can help you achieve your dreams and aspirations. Even with the two words alone, you will also be able to promote your health. We’ll take you to your destination!
Creativity And Innovation – Stepping Stones to Success
If you prefer to be poor and unaccomplished or you are so rich that your wealth cannot be quantified, please this article is not for you. We know or hear about the two words – Creativity and Innovation. Have you ever thought of how to use them to realize financial freedom? This article is intended to inform you or broaden your knowledge on creativity and innovation whether as a corporate body or as an individual. You can be creative and innovative if you want. You start from what you know to what you do not know. All you have to do is engage your brain – we will tell you how. If you keep visiting this website, you will see and understand the practicality of creativity and innovation and that will help you to work and achieve financial freedom which is major in our mission. Please read on.
For years, big business icons focused on factors like process efficiency and workforce planning seeing them to be keys to success. But in time of economic turmoil, an unprecedented picture of traits toward achieving success in modern era is revealed. Those leading companies have realized that there are other success drivers – and they are creativity and innovation. In order for any business to achieve its potentials, there is need to infuse creativity in practically all aspects of the business, both at employee and organizational levels.
Creativity can be defined as the ability to go beyond preset method and entanglement of repetition and come up with your own ideas on how to achieve a unique presence. It is actually a process of considering what has not been discovered yet. Creativity borders on how we imagine things. A school of thought tried to relate creativity with language. But language is a medium of expressing oneself while creativity manifests through sensations and can be really difficult to express in words. This is why it is said that pure and true creativity begins where language ends.
Abraham Maslow, a popular American psychologist, categorized creativity into two levels. The primary level of creativity serves as the source of latest discovery of ideas or real novelty and that is the reason for one to depart from what already exists as a custom. He defined secondary creativity as a trait that is possessed by people in their collective search for discovery and is achieved by working as a team – extending the already done researches and exercising caution about their new ideas. Creativity is basically a characteristic of human nature as can be universally found in all humans. In children, the phenomenon can be easily observed but it seems to get lost in adults because of many reasons and has to be triggered up again and again.
Adobe and Forrester recently conducted a study and found out that companies that encourage innovative culture and creative prospective along with practicing creatively unique methodologies actually outperform in two important aspects – market share and revenue growth. 58% of those companies reported that they have a commanding market leadership position and that their revenues have strong growth rate compared to their competitors.
Here are some of the facts to be aware of regarding creativity as serving the main part in a business’s success:
- Creativity Is Top On The List Of Strategic Priority All Around The World: There is an annual strategy survey running for the past 8 years by the Boston Consulting Group and for 7 out of the 8 years, the top ranked strategic imperatives are creativity and innovation. Both of these enable the development of a business in new and improved ways that ensure profitability.
- Creativity Is Part Of Every Job: Creativity is undoubtedly an integral part of modern work as it concerns generating ideas that are original and useful to exploit opportunities that are encountered. When you begin to consider creativity as an essential part of everyday problem solving, you will realize that sometimes it may not be so much of “you can” but rather “you must”. If you are a music lover, listen to this track – Adele – Send my love (to your new lover). You will appreciate more what it means to be creative.
- Organizational Profitability Depends Upon Individual Creativity: The creativity of every employee makes a substantial contribution to the competitiveness and development of an organization. Nowadays, the biggest challenge that organizations face is the identification and development of individuals with brain power who have the ability to think and work creatively.
- Creative Teams Perform More Efficiently: The teams that are creative definitely score high on objective measures of performance and, not only that, they also work efficiently within the budget. These teams are willing to think creatively and find innovative solutions to concerns and issues which in turn is helpful to the success of their business.
- Creative Institutions Make Bigger Profits: Creative organizations harness creativity to invent and innovate latest processes, products, services and strategies. All the successful organizations are aware of the fact that they have to have the ability to cultivate, manage and nurture creative thinking which is directly linked to achievement and growth. Moreover, the speed at which a company grows majorly depends upon its ability to catch up with creativity for profits. Also in a recent study, it was found out that flexibility and speed of reaction is strongly dependent on organizations’ creativity. They have to prepare their firm to innovate and experiment with emerging technologies using creative approaches, work practices and service concepts. There were huge amount of research frameworks and they all point to the fact that the main characteristics of highly successful companies feature creativity.
- Creative Leadership Is Essential: It is already clear that creativity is indeed vital for an individual, teams and institutions, and along with these, it is the number one trait of leadership for the future. Leaders are required to be creative in management discipline and integrity in order to stay abreast of continuous change. They have to orchestrate creativity across all levels, starting from developing it in individuals and building and nurturing it in teams to setting up the culture to promulgate it in the whole organization.
- Economies And Societies Adopt Creativity: The demand for creativity does not end at organizational level as economies and societies also have to use it in cash and commodities management. There is a vast number of people entering the workforce in the presence of continued globalization and huge improvements in productivity. If one trains to be creative and innovative, the rewards are surely great.
The above points demonstrate the importance of creativity and its role as a major stepping stone to success. Over the recent decades, creativity and innovation have been considered the most critical traits and skills to achieve success and maximum profit in developed economies. The need to solve problems creatively has risen as there are so many management problems that require creative insights to find the best solutions.
Creativity goes hand in hand with innovation since there can be no concept of innovation without creativity. Let us look at it this way – creativity is the concept of thinking and coming up with the brightest and most unique ideas while innovation implements the creativity. Creativity can be regarded as the hyper force behind innovation. It incorporates viewing things from another perspective with freedom from all restrictions by regulations and written or unwritten norms. You can measure the success of any individual by understanding how innovative the individual is. A person needs to be creative in order to be truly innovative and this is the trait that separates a good business establishment from its competitors. Creativity has the potential to accelerate profits much better than other factors because it is unique to the creator which can be an individual or an organization. It means that there is always need to encourage creativity. Why rely on old concepts and methods?
The good news is that everybody can be creative. Of course for some people, it can take some practice but it can be achieved as all they have to do is to start with inspiring things and then give themselves a chance to explore their creative self by taking these actions:
- Observe: Catch up the details while using all your senses. Creative people are great observers. Common people take situations as circumstances beyond their control but creative people consider the endless possibilities therein. They are curious about others’ lives and in the process they come up with creative ideas – as they observe others.
- Create Opportunities: Creative people turn their failures into opportunities to learn what went wrong and how they should come up with better ideas to prevent similar mistakes from occurring again.
- Learn: Creative people are always passionate about gathering new data through observing, reading or doing any kind of constructive experience. Their curiosity drives them to have multiple perspectives and ask questions like why, how, what if, etc. All these make them learn.
- Play: Visit your inner self daily and understand that you have to play like a child if you want to remain creative like a child. Even as grownups, creative people tend to find ways to be playful at work.
- Foster Flexibility: Creative people have to be in good terms with their internal clock of creativity. You could know when you are most likely creative – whether early in the morning, in the middle of the night or whenever. Always remember that flexibility is the key.
- Stay Open Minded: Creative people do not judge quickly. They prefer to sit, evaluate and question their observations before drawing conclusions on any task.
- Daydream: Spend some time alone to allow your mind to daydream and wander to bring out your creative self. When you do this, you actually stimulate the interconnections within your body system which in turn provide insights that you may not have considered.
- Nurture: Creative people know when they should take a break as this provides them the needed time to carefully observe, play, daydream and find interact with their inner self. When you change your scene, you recharge your creativity and this change of scene can be achieved by going for a walk.
- Take Risks: It is good to take risk as long as there will not be loss of life or major loss. Take risks for it will give you the sense of power which is intrinsically rewarding and motivating. Surely, it is risky to imagine a product, create it and then present it before others. But creative people eagerly practice this kind of risk-taking every now and then.
- Imagine: Creative people not only focus on the success of what they are offering, they actually feel the success of any product with every part of their being while using their senses and this is called imagery. You can use imagery to feel and see the possibilities before you and this improves with practice without you knowing it. Research has proved that even 10 minutes of imagination or imagery can lower cholesterol level, reduce blood pressure and ameliorate pain. So what are you waiting for? Start imagining how success will truly feel like.
Think Outside The Box With The Help Of Creativity
What usually happens is that even the very successful entrepreneurs, inspired by shiny ideas, just quickly establish principles and rules in their businesses and these cause them to suffocate if not adjusted on occasion. As a result, their actions go on autopilot with their minds becoming numb. Creativity allows someone to not only think outside the box but also to breathe outside the box.
Creative Thinking
This is the ability to come up with varying and new ideas or viewpoints on any particular topic. It basically involves breaking down and restructuring your knowledge about a topic to gain improved insights. It should be kept in mind that creative thinking is not limited to one person or a field. Business owner, client stockholder and every employee have to be involved in searching for better ways to improve the organization’s products, services and system. This is the way of thinking that takes the company from good to better and to astonishingly successful. Developed companies like Apple, IBM and Nissan are well aware of this fact and they allow their employees to practice creativity at all times. If you are a business leader, it is your duty to let your workforce listen to new ideas from consumers in order to nurture creative thinking. This is because developing creativity is a collaborative effort that needs to be practiced, nurtured and of course respected. It is totally fine for you if you are taking your time to regain confidence in thinking creatively. You have to understand that creativity in business is the most important commodity to broaden your enterprise since the survival of your company depends upon it.
Qualities Of A Creative Person
Creativity is a trait that confines itself in the way people go on with their lives. Creative people exhibit following behaviors:
- Challenge status quo
- Question the preset assumptions
- Investigate new possibilities
- Are highly imaginative and think visually
- Are future oriented
- Are prepared to make mistakes and not afraid of taking risks
- Adopt different work environments
- Spot underlying patterns in events
- Exhibit curiosity
- Synthesize diverse elements
- Cope with paradoxes
Some Examples Of Creativity In Business:
- Like many other organizations, Novell has a program called “Incubator” that encourages and rewards employees who provide business proposals for unique solutions that deserve development funding. As results, different and completely original ideas are taken to the market every year. This is the scenario that actually demonstrates how you can take development initiatives from employees of your company and how a creative approach that is eventually accepted by everyone in the organization plays a good and significant role in gaining market leadership.
- Apple’s creative genius with the iPad is not some technical marvel. It is an innovation in developing and delivering platform from the creative contributions of lots of developers whose creation is used by millions of iPad enthusiasts. It is the efficient application of the understanding by creative minds in Apple that people are willing to buy. There is no doubt that today’s commercials of Apple will be studied as classics by coming generations. It is the corporate culture and the developmental approach that make the creative multiplier to truly differentiate the company.
How Do You Become A Creative Leader?
Creative leaders embrace disruptive innovation, thus encouraging others to leave outdated approaches and take new risks. They are inventive and open minded in expanding their communication styles in order to engage new and targeted audience including employees, customers and partners. True leaders embrace uncertainty and complexity as creativity catalysts that further invite and demand innovation. They view constraints at each step of business development as exciting challenges and major source of creative responses. Additionally, creative leadership is also about taking risk and not being afraid of failure if ideas do not work out fine.
Creative leadership does not encourage the behavior of taking your ball and going home when things do not go your way. The business issues that we are facing today have given the chances to lead like never before. This opportunity should be embraced to generate a creative environment for people to offer unique and functional ideas.
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There is nothing wrong with being a dreamer – it is a great step toward success. But as you dream, incorporate thinking and give yourself time to develop and explore your creative ability. Learn to use your time well. Since everybody is wired to be creative, there is no reason why you, as an individual, cannot create something if you really want. An old saying goes like this – business before pleasure. This is where most people do not get it. Do your business now and let pleasure come later. Nothing can be more accomplishing and satisfying!
Bignedu
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