Creativity in Business and in life - Part 2

As fostering creativity in the company

Ask a special person to say "can not" why something would not work and you will hear the reasons more "creative" imaginable. Apparently, creativity is not necessarily positive pro.

Yet here we propose to introduce techniques for the development of creative thinking for use proactive. Here are some:

Create a climate for creativity

Tell your team that has this or that problem and solution you are looking for. Do not forget that solutions can appear where least expected, so much so that creative solutions often come from the company's management team.

Encourage the creativity of others

Always express public recognition to those who offer their creative ideas, whether they worked or not. This is essential to encourage other initiatives.

When you bring a problem for you to solve, before submitting a response accustomed to asking, "What do you think needs to be done in this case?"

Be receptive to ideas, even apparently absurd. If someone 120 years ago we would have raised the idea of creating a device that fly through the skies even be heavier than air, carrying 300 people and travel at a speed faster than sound, probably would have said that this was a absurd idea ... Is better not to dismiss ideas!

Mount in your company a PROGRAM FOR THE INCUBATION OF IDEAS.

I use the term "incubation" in order not to discard ideas but put them, ripen, grow, merge and manipulate them until they germinate. The program conditions for the incubation of ideas are open to your creativity.

It is a valuable contribution to the initiative of people and I guarantee that impacts the culture and ability to plan for the company.

Eliminate sentences killer of creativity.

Identify which are the killer phrases and hear around them. Replace with phrases that promote creativity: "Every problem has a solution," "Maybe. Only lack discover how, "" Everything can improve "

"We are doing well and we can improve it and others of their own.
Challenge the creativity of their team. Raise a culture of creativity in your organization. Ask questions that "require" people to question.

I share this experience: After explaining some techniques in the Creativity Workshop we carried out in a five star hotel, I proposed the following topic: "The hotel now offers an excellent service to customers.

What can we do to improve it without incurring the costs? "Even today I'm amazed at the quantity and quality of responses we got a motivated team in a friendly environment.

Do not marry the first idea

Do not settle for the first answer that comes to your head. Find alternatives. Write as many ideas as possible, without judging. Or better yet, plan to deliberately a minimum number of possible answers. At the end evaluate, add, extend, merge, disaggregate, mix, re-collect, assemble the best answer to the problem that needs solving.

The search for alternatives is undoubtedly one of the most effective techniques both for the development of creative thinking to find a solution.

As you know, lifting weights serves as preparation for a weightlifting competition and also to move a heavy desk. Similarly creativity training is useful for applications in various fields.

So train your creativity through games, dynamic and other useful resources for creativity in any field. There are many useful exercises to train your brain in search of alternatives.

For example, you travel by road. Suddenly, go to the side of the road to a family that includes medium-sized stones to throw them in the back of his truck. People passing by the road watching and wondering: Why collect these stones? Write a minimum of ten responses.
Convene meetings for the construction of creative ideas

Brainstorming sessions, also known as uncritical of ideas sessions are based on the principle of "trial postponed". To stimulate responses to a question without those answers are evaluated immediately.

The basic rules for a session uncritical ideas are:

• Any criticism is forbidden
• Every idea is welcome, though it seems wrong or absurd
• Gather as many ideas as possible
• The exhibits should be very short
• Associations of ideas are important in the process.

The evaluation of ideas should be done preferably at a later meeting, after which it becomes a photocopy of the notes reach all participants.

Curiously, many experts recommend making uncritical sessions with 10 or maximum twelve participants. I always wonder: Why? That is "to what is known for good". Group may achieve a richer supply of ideas, but I can attest that when this procedure is done individually also gives excellent results.

Do not let him escape ideas

Always have handy a recorder, a calendar, a pocket computer, a notebook or any other resource that allows you to save an idea.

Have not woken up at midnight with a brilliant response to a difficult problem? The next morning you have forgotten the idea and never captured by any means. Do not allow ideas to escape.

It is said that Mary G. Agnesi, one of the most prominent figures in the mathematics of the eighteenth century, often waking up at midnight with the answer to a problem that had been torturing. He wrote the solution and returned to bed.

Prepare to not let go of their ideas.

Consider the "opposite solution"

Often the "opposite solution is the answer you're looking for. An example of "opposite solution is the" distance learning "progressed today with the" virtual education ". Rather than expect the student to go to school, it is he who "reaches" the student.

The service of "home delivery" is another solution otherwise. To get the wine from the bottle usually pulled out the cork, but we could also get him, right?

Here is a problem that has been widely and answer:

In the Middle Ages a man of recognized quality was unjustly accused of murdering a woman. In fact, the real perpetrator was a very influential person in the kingdom and, therefore, from the outset sought a "scapegoat" to cover up the guilty. The man was taken to court and knowing that it would have little or no hope of escaping the terrible sentence of hanging. The judge, who had been bought, took care to give every appearance of a fair trial and the defendant said: "Knowing your reputation as a man of just and devout man of God, we will leave your fate in the hands of Him

In two separate papers write the words 'guilty' and 'innocent'. You will choose and so define your destiny, "Of course, had prepared two papers with the words 'guilty'. The judge ordered the man to take one of the folded papers. The room fell silent.

The question is: How could the man overcome the problem?

Let's skip the answer for you appeal to the art of looking the opposite solution.

Consult an "incompetent"

Discuss the problem you want solved by a competent person in an activity completely different from yours and have a suggestion. The more dissimilar your profession, occupation, hobbies, political affiliation, etc., The better.

Take advantage of your ability to understand things differently. We're doing much better when we work with brains from several different angles when we do it only with our own.

Also ask a child. It's great to discover the results of this suggestion. Firstly because you are forced to simplify the problem in order to explain and that's a benefit. Second, be surprised by the responses you get. Remember: Do not discard ideas. Collect alternatives.

Break routines

Breaking routines is an opportunity to see and do other things or the same things differently. It provides the opportunity for seeing the world through different eyes to our brain and expanded the horizon of possibilities.

Explore activities that regularly does. Change the type of reading. If you usually go to his office by car, go by bus or taxi and see the city like a tourist. Change the type of films that usually sees. If you are a regular viewer, television is no longer a few weeks and spend that time reading or other activity. Go eat at a vegetarian restaurant, read a book in the company, prepare a dinner with his son play a sport foreign to you.

In short, do things that usually do not. Allow yourself to see things from a perspective that is novel.

Everyone can practice techniques and habits to cultivate the development of creative thinking. He now has 10 suggestions for easy application in business and in life. You can begin to implement them or continue to ask: "WHY NOT happened to me?"

Creativity in Business and in life - Part 1

It is no secret that creativity turns out to be elusive for many people. Fortunately you can turn it into a permanent position, which applies to the most diverse areas of human activity.

The Creativity is now the condition is the main competitive advantage of firms. This is especially true in such sensitive areas as advertising, promotions creating, finding business opportunities, customer service and decision making.

Some people grow techniques and skills that allow them to create different businesses, different solutions to everyday problems or issues far more complex ... while others are amazed and simply go on asking: "WHY NOT happened to me?"

To expand our ability to conceive ideas and solutions, we must first identify what are the barriers that prevents it. Here are some of them
Reasons that prevent us from being creative

Low self-esteem

People with low self-esteem also have creative ideas. However, their low level of self confidence that makes them think their idea is not worth it and is not taken into account and make fun of him or her and her idea, and so on. These people often are surprised when they discover that another person described the same idea and thought insignificant surprise!, Everyone celebrates the wonder of that above stated idea!

Fear of making mistakes and looking foolish

Two reasons for the price of one. The absence of a culture of assertiveness and ignorance of our rights lead to fear of being wrong. Our culture has led us to the pleasure of "having always right" and stand by it. Not know the right to make mistakes and the power of the error. The sweet pleasure of being right and contribute to the error to arrive at what is possibly correct.

Staying with the first idea

The fact believe that the first idea is always the best, is limiting. Married with the first answer that occurs to weaken the other options. When this happens, subsequent ideas are compared with the first and will be discarded.

To consider what is known good

Have you ever heard the phrase "always done well? It is perhaps the most effective sentence for killing creativity and desire to contribute ideas in business. Other phrases that are in the same direction: "That is the norm," "that has already been tried and not worked," "it works in other companies," "the system does not allow," "it costs too much" "If that were possible, since someone else would have invented."

Let me share the following reading:

A group of scientists put five monkeys in a cage at the center arranged a staircase leading to a bunch of bananas, so that, whenever a monkey climbed to reach it, scientists launched a jet of cold water on the left in the ground.

After some time, when one of the monkeys tried to get others to ground it sticks until it was time that none of the five dared to indulge their instincts, despite the temptation of the bananas.

Then, the experimenters replaced with one monkey by another rookie, as one can imagine the first thing I tried was to climb the ladder, an action which was barred by the four old, who went down to the strength and gave him a beating, which followed each time by giving the upstart monkey tried, until the day that the lesson learned, would not go any higher.

Achieve this, a second old monkey was replaced. Same thing happening with the enthusiastic participation of the first rookie. And so a third and fourth, until the group of five there were none left.

Scientists were then compared with a group of five monkeys, even though they had never received a cold shower, continued to beat anyone who tried to reach the bananas.

Then came to the conclusion that if the monkeys were asked why their conduct at all was seen as unnatural and they reply, the answer is, no doubt, "do not know, here things have always been well”.

Sound familiar?

I invite you to uncover what are the killer of creativity phrases commonly used in your business and your environment.

Limiting beliefs

The set of ideas that people have intimate and unconsciously of themselves define their beliefs, behaviors and outcomes. Phrases like "I never think of anything" "I'm not clever" to me creativity does not concern me "and other wording that speak of the beliefs that govern the behavior of a person and thus his achievements.
Many times we think we can do something and eventually the only impediment to doing so ourselves!

Disdain for the difference

The healthy clash of ideas can find creative options. So the difference is desirable, necessary and, going a step further, desirable.

The quest for unanimity usually occurs when people do not want to appear when there is conflict or a boss or an authoritarian leader, who always believes to be right.

The most creative work teams are those confronted with maturity difference and summon the sake of creativity.

Now. What are the techniques we use to develop creative thinking?