Creative Solutions for Business & Education

"We need more creatives."

"Where are our creative people?"

"Where will we find the next generation of creative people for our business?"

"What is creativity?"

"We've always done it this way; how can we change?"

These are all issues I've discussed with friends over the past month or so. Creativity is seen almost as the Holy Grail, yet like the Holy Grail, it is elusive, can't be found, remains a mystery. It is something restricted to certain 'gifted' artistic individuals, or to a group of social misfits who sit isolated in their own thoughts dreaming up ideas.

The truth is that creativity is not restricted neither are creatives 'misfits'. In order to be truly creative, interpersonal skills are prerequisite; interaction is important and the good news is that it is present in normal people! We all have the potential to apply creativity, whether we work in a scientific, mathematical, engineering, human science or artistic environment.

The question isn't so much,"Where are the creatives?"

but more

"How can I discover and apply my own creative abilities?"

We tend to think that the grass is greener on the other side; someone else always has better resources than us; someone else always has better ideas than us.

But is that true?

These 'other people' potentially start with the same resources as we do but develop them in a different way, or perhaps they are able to see the potential in who and what they have! The trend over recent years has been to hire the bright young graduates emerging from our centres of academic excellence, replacing existing experience with a new vibrant culture.

But how new and how vibrant is it? Sure there's lots of energy, so I guess in that sense it is vibrant. But how can people emerging from an educational system, still naïve in so many areas of life, experience and reality possibly hope to contribute significantly to our creative culture, if it's not been there in their education? And how can people who are uncreative (the majority emerging from this 'acreative' educational culture) then teach others to be creative? I would suggest that the answer is 'With difficulty.'

However, if we take time to look closer at our people we will surely see a wealth of potential. Perhaps the silver foxes with their experience do have something to offer after all! Perhaps their years of effort, challenges, mistakes and triumphs count a lot more than we realise towards a creative culture we seek after so earnestly. Creativity involves risk, experiment, a combination of experience with naïvity; bringing together different personalities, who perhaps don't naturally sit comfortably together, rubbing the corners off each other to produce a creative spark.

The companies that know the importance of creativity and the creative culture thrive and grow, identifying and releasing it within their existing staff, harnessing the benefits of experience and tempered persistence along with the enthusiasm of newcomers.

Companies that don't, including some of our big corporate players are likely to become historical names in the not too distant future unless they fail to embrace the concept and change accordingly.

Labels: business, business success, corporate business, creative potential, creativity, creativity in business, culture, developing a creative culture, experience, impacts of creativity

As a follow-up to a recent post ... I was very interested to read an article just now on corporate e-mail etiquette and was left asking myself the question,

"Do we really think about what we're doing?"

I suspect the answer is probably 'No' in many cases as we try our hardest to either empty our inbox, or look for someone else to solve the problem. Neither of these intentions is bad unless we are the one who should be solving the problem. But is the e-mail inbox the only problem? I think not. Myopia (short-sightedness) is common in so many areas of our daily existence. We have often become pre-conditioned to respond in such a way through repeatedly acting that same way; sometimes acting before thinking. The result is that we often, inadvertently (or intentionally?) overload others.

Perhaps you, like me, are looking to make 2008 a year where those knee-jerk and pre-conditioned responses are identified, addressed and resolved. This is not an easy or pain-free course of action and will undoubtedly need to continue to be re-addressed. However, I am confident that the benefit of my actions will be much wider than just myself: the change in me and my attitudes will impact those around me.

So, instead of looking for some kind of 'policing' in situations like excessive e-mail, might it not be a good idea to address the problem at the root: the people who are sending them and bring about a change in attitude and awareness. Rather than being reactive to something that has already happened, wouldn't it be better to stop it from happening in the first place?

Labels: business, corporate etiquette, email, helping others, improving quality of life, life, reducing workload, responsibility

Hi! I've not written anything down for a while because I have had my nose in books researching for my business. My entry for today is short and basic.

I never cease to be amazed how many of the triggers that release creativity are so simple. Nothing deep and complicated; nothing highly theoretical; nothing special really ... just a gateway to looking at the same problem in a different way. For example, take a problem, look at the key elements in that problem and then start thinking about the effects of opposites: What would be the situation if that wasn't to happen?

And as I looked at these tools, it struck me that some of the greatest stimulators of creativity are when opposites meet; when we are placed in situations, or with people who take a different, possibly contrary view to our own.

And I wondered whether we lose creative opportunities because we are afraid to engage in open, honest, frank debate and in some cases take an opposing view. I'm not suggesting that we look for every opportunity to put people together who go for each other's jugular, but I am suggesting that by encouraging honest debate between people or departments which don't naturally fit together, we may be able to stimulate some new, otherwise unidentified solutions to our problems.

I also think that some our meetings would also be more fun and productive!

Labels: business, business success, creative triggers, creativity, creativity in business, debate, honesty, ideas generation, impact on work, new ideas, office, stimulating creativity, teams

'Oh! I've known you for ages. I don't think it's my job to tell you when you've done something well ... just when you need to improve'

So ended a conversation with someone I'd known for years ... and it hurt ... and it set me thinking!

I see many people, especially young people/young adults with a desperate need to be affirmed, noticed, respected (in the true sense) and encouraged. They have many 'friends' and colleagues whom they have known for a long time, but somehow the familiarity has also put scales on the eyes of friends, so that they no longer encourage or feed positives into their life ... only a destructive neutrality.

And yet I am often just as guilty as my friend for either prejudging (appearance, comments from other people etc) or just looking for things I can improve in others, whilst missing the core values and reasons why they are my friend in the first place. What should be a relationship becomes a monologue: I forget their needs and aim to fulfil my wants.

I remember friends at school who were devastated when they had tried their hardest and yet weren't quite good enough because the standard of their work didn't compare to the standard of work submitted by other members of the class. Rather than being helped and encouraged, they were targetted by teachers and fellow pupils; they were the butt end of jokes; they were labelled 'thick', 'stupid', 'dunces' (and worse) ... and I was right there with the crowd taunting them!!

What effect did this have on the individuals concerned?

They responded in a number of ways. They became:

Discouraged ... they perceived themselves as not good enough.
Demotivated ... their enthusiasm and interest declined and not surprisingly, their marks got worse
Disillusioned ... long-term, some of my friends gave up in that subject
Some became Disenfranchised from the education system ... they continually got into trouble with teachers, pupils and in some cases the law, and very sadly, some lost hope.

But thankfully, some became very successful people, running their own business and enjoying life.

So what happened to buck the trend?

In most cases there was either an individual who took interest in them, coached and encouraged them, hung in there and made a difference. In other cases the inner drive of these people to prove to themselves that they had value and could succeed was so strong that they drove themselves to achieve what they had been told could never happen.

I hear sad stories about people like Robbie Williams and Mick Hucknall, two high profile, talented personalities in the music world who were told by teachers at school, 'You will never amount to anything.' Ouch! Wouldn't it have been so much better if their talents had been spotted, encouraged and nurtured so that they could reach and enjoy their success without so many hangups and low self image.

As we look to cultivate our relationships with others we should start by 'earning the right' to their friendship by building trust and demonstrating that we are worth having as a friend. And once we have built these friendships and relationships, it is the responsibility of each of us to accentuate the positive rather than highlight the negative or, equally as destructive, make no comment at all.

I believe that by applying these principles to our relationships, in all areas of life, we will benefit, our friends will benefit, those around us will benefit and ultimately our businesses and ventures will benefit.

Labels: business, business success, corporate business, customer focus, emotions, encouragement, failure, failures, feelings, honesty, integrity, relationships, success, teaching, values

I was reading an article in the headlines today which stated that fewer and fewer people trust what they read in adverts, and suspicion is at an all time high online as surfers are afraid to follow advertising links in case their e-mail address is somehow 'captured' and they are bombarded with unwanted communications from the company and third party associates.

Combine this with an all-time low level of trust in business marketing campaigns as a whole and we face a bit of a crisis ... We need to communicate with people about our products and services, but how do we achieve that without being thwarted at the first step?

Can I suggest that one word sums up the answer ... integrity.

Over the past few years there has been a significant change in both the offline and online business arenas, from being company driven to being consumer driven: What do our customers want? rather than What do we want to give our customers? Creative (or not so creative) techniques have been used to 'breech customer defences' and get them to buy. Unfortunately, a lot of these techniques, though very creative, were also one-sided, excluding the customer.

However, the wind of change now means that customers have what, to some, may seem like too much power in dictating markets.

As I looked a little closer at this problem something very basic struck me: this new modus operandi is sales and marketing (offline and online) driven by relationships. Sure, we can dress this up in all sorts of jargon, but the basis is now,

"If you want me to buy from you I want to know you, I want to know what you stand for, I want to know what you are trying to sell me, I want to know how I benefit from having it and then I can make a decision on whether I want to buy it"

Unique Selling Points (USPs), selling the benefits of products and customer focused selling have always been good techniques and known to bring improved customer response. However, now the customers have caught up! They are tired of being given half truths or part information about products; and rightly so.

Unfortunately, presenting only the advantages and successes of a product, whilst omitting to declare some of the disadvantages has been the accepted norm in many companies, particularly if those disadvantages have no associated health risk. However, the more scary fact is that this practice also occurs in the health and pharmaceutical industries where the consequences are nothing short of dangerous or life-threatening. Newspaper headlines with significant impact on the company, publicised when it is discovered that certain unwanted side effects or adverse effects were conveniently 'omitted' from the dossier submitted for approval.

If we take time to consider this, the effects seen in the relatively small, selected population used in clinical trials are certainly going to be seen when the drug is released to the wider community and used by millions of patients, often worldwide. Integrity is compromised in an effort to gain (often short-term) return on investment to please the shareholders. Creativity without the integrity leads to compromise at the least; disaster at worst.

But the impact on the wider business community in these situations. There is a massive loss of trust by the customers; not only against in the 'offending' company but against all companies in the same business sector. We all suffer from the lack of integrity of others.

So, I welcome much of the shift that has taken place because I see it as a return to the basics of human interaction and relationships. As businesses we are now accountable to our customers and we are required to be open and honest if we want their custom, business and loyalty.

Historically and in the future, the most successful businesses are/will be those that display integrity and use their creativity wisely. No longer can we simply sell to our customers ... we need to gain their trust and loyalty first, and we can only really do that by establishing a relationship with them, by including them in our decisions and listening to what they have to say, even if we can't act on every request we receive. However, once we have their trust, it is easier to be open about our mistakes and we are seen to be human and not just some corporate threat. We may also be creative in asking our customers their ideas for solutions to our problems?

2008 is a new start for me as I venture out in my own business. After 18 years in the pharmaceutical industry I have witnessed much that is good and bad. My priority is to take the best that I have learnt, be transparent in what I do and keep an open ear to those I deal with.

I want to ensure that my creativity is tempered, no, driven by integrity.

Labels: business, business development, business success, corporate business, creativity, customer focus, customer voice, customers, honesty, integrity, market forces, relationships, transparency, truth, USP

As Big Ben struck 12 o'clock, another new year dawned: a year full of potential to do good or bad, to help or hinder, to get stuck in or give up.

And yet with all this potential in front of us, we are probably still reeling and recovering from the previous year and its activity, demands, successes and failures.

If we are to adapt to the ever-increasing rate of change in our world it will be our ability to recognise the changes, be open to them and respond to them. It will be an ability to work together with our colleagues and friends. It will be our ability to be open to new ideas, to work with new people (perhaps even those we don't like) and be prepared to engage and increase our creativity for problem solving, product identification, relationship building, selling ... or whatever aspect of life impacts us most.

There is great potential in our schools, colleges and universities to inject passion into our students, to find new ways which enable them to discover their own talents and abilities, and not least, find new ways to resurrect and increase our own passion for what we do.

I'm excited by all that 2008 holds ... challenges and triumphs ... hope you are too.

I wish you all a very happy new year.

Stuart

Labels: 2008, business, colleges, creativity, creativity in business, education, increased productivity, job satisfaction, new year, reaching our potential, reduce stress, schools, teaching, university

Information Overload Predicted Problem of the Year for 2008 ... So reads one of yesterday's headlines.

Apparently, for 2008 the US-based advisor to knowledge economy decision makers, Basex Inc. have deviated from their normal practice of announcing a Product of the Year or Person of the Year to forecasting a Problem of the Year.

This problem is not new, but Basex's chief analyst Jonathan Spira says that it has grown as the technology we use increases our expectations for an instantaneous response to our request.

I believe that same expectation exists for instantaneous solutions to our problems.

Two causes of this overload are:

1. Copying someone in on an e-mail or hitting the reply to all button
2. The availability of more information to sift through for the correct answer (whether in an old e-mail or via a search engine)

These have resulted in more information and requests, more interruptions, more time wasted looking for the right information or answers, and perhaps most significantly, today's workers being much less productive. Spira indicates that workers get disorientated every time they stop what they are doing to reply to an e-mail or answer a follow-up phone call because they didn't reply within minutes, and estimating that they then spend 10 to 20 times the length of the original interruption trying to get back on track.

To put all this in context, it is estimated that such disruptions cost the U.S. economy alone, $650 billion in 2006.

Spira comments, "It's always too much of a good thing." None of these technologies we use are in themselves a bad thing ... it's just when they are used to excess. I worked in an office which was perhaps 20 yards long, contained only 25 staff and yet people in that office (who could see each other) often sent e-mails in preference to getting-up and talking to someone. Perhaps our lawyers have had too much influence with their 'Get it in writing' slogan or perhaps people are too afraid to make mistakes to cover their back.

So, is the issue really just one of too much information? Perhaps the problem is also a reflection of our corporate cultures and structures. In our thrust to please the shareholders we want instant response, instant results ... and instant show for our labours.

However, if we take a step back, we know that this is impossible!

I remember being taught in the early 90s that it is impossible to take anything less than a 3 or 6 month cycle in order to make a reasonable prediction of performance e.g., sales. Long-term planning (3, 5, 10 years) was the foundation of any successful business. Yet, only 10 years later we are predicting performance on a monthly basis or even less. The underlying noise and fluctuation is seemingly ignored ... sales increase in January and we're doing well; they decrease in February and it's someone's fault.

The development of ideas, development of products, development of our work cultures, the development of most things takes time and thought.

I would challenge us that the very thing we need for success, creativity, has been squeezed out of our businesses in return for short-term gain. We all want creativity, but rarely know what we're looking for, or how to implement or cultivate it within our business. Creativity needs space for experimentation, play, mistakes and improvements. It requires interaction between departments and people of different skill sets. Many of our company cultures pay lip service to 'allowing mistakes' but we all know the reality ... a blame culture.

Whilst this mentality persists, whilst we continue to stifle creativity, our businesses will continue to struggle, continue to lose sense of identity, continue to lose sense of direction, and most significantly, continue to lose our lifeblood, our best staff.

So, in order to counter the impact of this information overload, we need structures in place that provide effective support for staff, allowing them to develop and to do their job efficiently whilst reducing unnecessary interruption. We need to give them space to experiment and encouragement to take risks and then support them if these don't work out. And we need to allow them the time to do this.

Too much information and no structure to manage the problem has potentially catastrophic consequences for our businesses if we don't take steps to combat this cancer of the 21st century. We may resist the urge to immediately follow up an e-mail with an instant message or phone call, we may make sure the subject line clearly reflects the topic and urgency of an e-mail and we may avoid copying in more than necessary or using the reply to all button, but the problem is larger than just the amount of information out there ... The amount of information available will only continue to increase.

How we handle that increase within our businesses is a key to success or failure.

Labels: basex inc, business, creativity, e-mail, impact on work, inefficiency, information overload, lost revenue, stress, time out

So echoes the chorus of one of the most haunting songs of 2006. Jack Savoretti sings of dreams lost, the decline of true visionaries ... and the hole that leaves in our world.

For many of us, our dreaming was snuffed-out at school or in education...

'Stop dreaming boy!'

'If you don't stop dreaming and get on with your work you'll be no-one; get nowhere!'

'Get real!'

'What good is it if I can't touch it?'

'In your dreams!'

And yet, more recent discoveries show the important of dreaming in our creativity ... and it also shows the paucity and severe crisis in business because the creatives just aren't there any longer. Intelligence isn't just about answering questions that are posed ... sometimes it's about looking beyond those questions to the root of the problem, making connections that weren't otherwise there, being creative, dreaming a little, from which the true life-changing solutions arise.

A good friend with whom I worked for a number of years had come into the Pharmaceutical Industry from being a professional dancer and lighting engineer: one of the rare people who worked both sides of the stage. Her ideas flowed like water and it wasn't long before she'd established links with doctors that had previously been unreachable. Sales started to increase BUT this wasn't the way our company worked! She was told to stick to our tried and tested methods. Eventually she left and started working for another company who allowed her to use her dreaming and creativity ... and surprise, surprise ... she's been the top sales representative consistently throughout 2007.

Suppressing dreams is not only fatal to our own development and fulfilment, it is also death to our business and industry.

Innocent drinks works with an underlying ethos that encourages creativity and dreaming in all departments ... and celebrates when those dreams result in success. In just 8 years the company has grown from a 3 man outfit selling drinks from a stall at a small music festival into a business with an annual turnover of more than £76 million pounds. Try telling them that dreaming doesn't work or isn't reality.

Thankfully, there is a re-converging of the arts and the sciences ... a broadening of the definition of intelligence, a broadening of co-operative projects where both fields benefit.

And what is the source of this Renaissance?

A resurrection of the dreamers!

I often wonder what would have happened if I'd followed my inclinations to dream. What would have been the impact on me, my family, my friends, my business, my self-perception, my insecurity .. my life.

Never give-up dreaming. Dream against the odds. Bring about change. Challenge the boundaries and see the changes!

Labels: academic, business, creative, creativity, creativity in business, dreaming, dreams, education, human resources, impacts of creativity, intelligence

Today, I have a video for you. It lasts 19 minutes so get a coffee ... sit down .. relax ... watch ... and enjoy.

Probably one of the most encouraging and challenging talks I have seen in recent years.

If the video doesn't start use the following link (the video will open in a new window which you can close, using the 'Close Window' button after viewing) Watch Ken Robinson Talk

Labels: business, creative, creativity, education, ken robinson, ted

I was reading a book today and came across a quote from psychologist Daniel Goleman, which seems to sum up pretty well where we currently find ourselves in education, business and society.

Here are some of his thoughts:

'These are times when the fabric of society seems to unravel at ever greater speed, where selfishness, violence and a meanness of spirit seem to be rotting the goodness of our communal lives ... Those who are at the mercy of impulse - who lack self-control - suffer a moral deficiency. The ability to control impulse is the basis of will and character. By the same token, the root of altruism lies in empathy, the ability to read emotions in others; lacking a sense of another's need or despair, there is no caring. And if there are any two moral stances that our times call for, they are precisely these, self-restraint and compassion ... When it comes to shaping our decisions and our actions, feeling counts every bit as much, and often more, than thought; we have gone too far in emphasising the value of the purely rational, of what IQ measures, in human life.'

Goleman points at the changes needed to bring about a revision and resurgence of individual and community values and creativity. Stimulation and development of only one area of our personality quashes the full potential of us as people (individuals and in our communities).

Only when each of us we are able to redress the balance and open up ourselves to facets of our lives that have lain dormant or remained underdeveloped/undeveloped can we begin to release our true potential and creativity. Then, our crisis in the business and indeed world arena may begin to be challenged and effectively reversed. Until next time ...

Labels: business, community, community values, creative, creativity, education, gifts, releasing creativity, skills, values

For decades we have been educating and training people to be academics. Those who succeed take the highest places of honour, those who don't ... well, we'd rather not talk about them.

But who are the REAL losers in these systems. I think the short answer is ... everyone!

We focus on training people to become thinkers, but at the same time deprive them of a key aspect of their intellectual capacity ... creativity.

Creativity isn't just something done by a small subset of people, locked away in a special 'creative room' that most of us never see. True creativity is something in which everyone of us can engage and comes when we apply all of our intellectual faculties ... reasoning, emotions, feelings ... when we allow our whole brain in on the party.

Think about an athlete preparing for a key race. We wouldn't expect them to exercise only one leg and one arm. We may laugh at the idea, but our traditional education systems do exactly that with our brain ... one part thrives and the other part atrophies.

And worse still, what if our brain doesn't connect with these logical, deductive learning processes? In two words: we struggle. Worse still, we become convinced of our own failure because we don't hit the academic standards (which after all are only set against one dimension of criteria).

There are many amazingly creative people who fall by the wayside because they are never allowed to achieve their full potential. Even the so-called 'academic successes' fail, as critical areas of personal development involving the emotions, interactive skills and basic team player skills have been squeezed through the academic mangle and been left behind.

Business cries out for creative people but is rarely in a position to get any: it doesn't really know how to recognise and test for creative people within its own walls and the end-products of university or college education rarely have the necessary skills or abilities.

It's a sobering thought ... one I will be looking at further. But what do you think?

Labels: academic, arts, business, college, creative, creativity, education, emotions, failure, failures, feelings, intellect, intellectual, intelligence, reasoning, school, sciences, skills, success, university