Creative Solutions for Business & Education

No matter how much business operators try to convince me, I have never fully bought into the idea of using outside, contract staff.

Let me explain ...

There are times when new people bring a different dynamic to what we do and how we operate and these individuals can play a key role when we don't have the internal expertise. However, whilst working in the Pharmaceutical Industry I used to become exasperated when managers declared that 'we need to hire in external expertise' before they had taken any steps to determine whether that expertise already existed in-house.

All of us have many talents and abilities which have become latent or hidden over the years.
Perhaps we've

• Forgotten about talents we once had or hobbies we once enjoyed
• Assumed we'll never need softer, touchy-feely skills so have locked them away and forgotten about them
• Always wanted to give something a try but haven't had the chance
• Been told at school that we'd never succeed in a particular area, even though we really enjoyed it or worse still, were good at it!
• Been told we'll never be successful

... the list goes on and I'm sure you can add your own reasons.

Let's consider one or two ways in which companies would benefit if they used in-house expertise over hired-in expertise. Companies would have

• People working who are already fully conversant with the culture
• People already established within the social networks of the company, with established relationships across multiple disciplinary areas
• Chance to develop their people, thereby increasing their sense of belonging and resulting in potentially greater job-satisfaction, commitment and input

I would also suggest that they'd save considerable costs and time delays that inevitably occur when new people are brought into existing structures and cultures. Contract staff cost more, it's just that we perceive that they're easier to get rid of when we know longer need them without worrying about pensions etc and we can often 'hide' their costs elsewhere in the figures by keeping them off the headcount! But what happened if we had people that were so flexible that we didn't have to adopt or pay homage to the 'hire and fire' methods we have become accustomed to?

The problem is that bringing in people from outside or looking outside of the company is simply too easy. We don't have to ask too many questions and we don't have to worry about changing who we are or what we do.

But coming one step back, wouldn't it be much healthier for all concerned if companies di take time to help their staff discover and develop talents, whether they are forgotten or hidden, so that at least they knew what was in the melting pot. With information, it is possible to make reasoned decisions. Making these decisions in the absence of information is dangerous and potentially life-threatening to a company.

Sometimes it is unavoidable that external talent is required to achieve a goal. My challenge would be, how often could we avoid it and enjoy the benefits by a bit of preparation and enough conviction to take the risk?

The results of ignoring what and whom we have can be very telling and equally catastrophic. In 1917 Forbes first quoted their top 100 Companies. When this list was re-visited in 1987, 61 of the original companies were no longer in existence and of remaining 39, only 18 were still on the Top 100 list. The main reason for dropping off the list or going out of business was that these companies had stayed still and tried to fight what was going on around them. The 18 companies that stayed in the Top 100 were those that adopted a strategy which embraced change. And for this, discovery and implementation of creativity within each member of the workforce was key.

We are all creative. Do our bosses and companies know that? Have they looked for it or do we perhaps need to find our talents and let those in our place of work know?

Labels: applying creativity, business creativity, company culture, creative crisis, forbes 100, hiring staff, using in-house resources talent

Self-esteem is the foundation on which confidence can build. People who feel valued and know their self-worth are then more able to try new things and be prepared to fail. Unfortunately, failure has become a dirty word in business and we love to make scapegoats of those who have failed. But in so doing we continue to hammer the nails in our own coffin, because unless we are prepared to try something new, to put ideas together that have never been put together before, to experiment with them and see if they work, creativity and innovation die. If we stifle or kill self-esteem, we stifle and kill creativity and our success. The three are intimately associated with one another. The most successful and rapidly expanding businesses today are those where creativity thrives; Innocent Drinks and the Virgin franchise are just two examples.

And where creativity is lost? The businesses die.

As pressures increase to be successful, we often exclude the very things that can save us. One of those things is risk-taking, of which we are sorely afraid. We continue to work harder at what we’ve always done in the hope that ‘this time it will work’. Why should it if it hasn’t worked before? If it has worked before but we’re struggling now, why use the tried and well-trodden path to the cemetery? Risk-taking is the basis of creativity and the foundation for success. But in order to take those risks we need the confidence, and to build confidence we need a foundation of self-esteem.

Simple ways to build self-esteem include basic rewards such as a verbal or written ‘Thank you’, recognition in front of peers, recognition of a team in a company publication, a small gift, anything that says ‘We appreciate your efforts.’

Perhaps we should re-learn the art of celebrating our failures. They don’t have to be big announcements (there are undoubtedly people waiting in the wings to pour on scorn). But by celebrating the failures with those who’ve tried it is possible to learn from the mistakes and to move forward. Punishment achieves nothing apart from a misplaced sense of dispensed justice. We forget that the greatest discoveries affecting our lives today were the end of a line of repeated failures. People like Thomas Edison went through hundreds, even thousands of prototypes before they came up with the end product. Underlying that tenacity and perseverance was undoubtedly high levels of self-esteem and self-confidence which enabled them to face the failures, learn from them and move on. These inventors would undoubtedly have been inspired and encouraged by others and needed to draw on that as onlookers criticised and ‘commented’ on their failures. But it is their self-esteem that is likely to have held them on-course through the storms.

Sometimes we just need to let people have a go and discover for themselves. This is the basis of my workshops. I can show them plenty of what I can do, but in the end it only really works when each person has the opportunity to try for themselves. Having discovered that they can or can’t do something they can move on, either to something new or build on what they’ve started.Sometimes we need to revisit where they’ve been and help them change a wrong perception. For example, they may have tried something once and decided that they can’t do it, when in fact they just need to try it again.

There are many ways we can help, but perhaps the biggest part is through our relationships with others. As we develop and use these we have the opportunity to encourage, correct, draw alongside and help. These things also take time, effort and patience, so it can be useful to weigh-up how much effort and time we can/are prepared to give.

Benefits from the results are potentially huge and long-lasting and the return on investment greater than we can ever perceive.

But we need to take that risk ...

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If you are interested to learn how we may be able to help you, please either visit our websites:

Waywood Creative: http://www.waywoodcreative.com/

Waywood Training: http://www.waywoodtraining.com/

Or contact me directly on

Tel: +44 (0)1509 553362
Mob: +44 (0)7814 628123
E-mail: stuart@waywoodenterprises.com

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Labels: applying creativity, barriers to self-confidence self-esteem, building confidence, building self-confidence, business, increase confidence, inventors, relationships, reward failure, risk taking, thomas edison

I often get into discussions about creativity and I'm amazed how few understand what the word means. Most seem to apply the term creative to a strange breed of artistic misfits, 'the creatives' who don't really fit in but are a necessary evil for success of the business.

But many people are really surprised when I begin enthusing about each of us being creative. I see furrowed brows as they wrestle with the idea that they may possess something that is so 'out of the ordinary.'

But is it?

I guess that for many of us the idea of creativity is alien because we haven't engaged it since primary school. Thankfully, there are those who have managed to retain their creative skills, through hard work, battling against the odds, a good teacher/tutor or just out of passion for what they do. From them we can all learn a lesson. To them, creativity is nothing special; it is a part of who they are and what they do.

And I think therein lies the secret. As we engage with our creativity more and more often, our practice becomes a habit, and our habit begins to influence whatever we do, wherever we do it. It is no longer something out of the ordinary; it becomes part of our ordinary.

So how creative is creative?

The answer is different for every person. I think that the question is not one of quantity but quality and of how we apply what we have.

What we need to do is discover and identify just what our creativity is ...

Labels: applying creativity, creative, creative potential, creative secrets, creativity in business, misunderstanding, ordinary people extraordinary potential, the creatives