Creating a Culture of Innovation

HOW TO IMPROVE YOUR CREATIVITY -PART 2: TEN GOLDEN TIPS

In my last article I gave a background to how every human being has God given latent creativity potential, today I will discuss how you can actively cash in on your latent and make it vivid. I have developed some ways you can accomplish this both for your business, company and society.

1. Relax your brain: when I say this I don’t mean you go on a binge of doing nothing, on the contrary you relax your brain by subjecting it to mental challenges and exercises, do a series of crosswords or Sudoku, personally I love word search. You also relax your brain by getting enough sleep between 6-8 hours daily but don’t over sleep because that becomes counterproductive to your work ethic. Also try to eat food rich in vitamins and proteins you get from fish. Legumes are also good for brain development. See you nutritionist on more of that. Regularly exercise to allow free flow of blood to your brain and keep off drugs they are bad for your brain. Remember a healthy brain in a healthy body.
2. Guard your mind: you have heard the common saying of GIGO-garbage-in-garbage-out. The brain works like a sponge, it will imbibe anything that it is exposed to, if you are thirsty and you put a sponge in water, you can press that water out to your mouth, on the other hand put that same sponge in urine, and press it to your mouth, I don’t think you will like the outcome. Therefore watch what you let into your mind, through your eyes, ears, feelings and mouth. Let me give you a small guide; ask yourself, whatever you feed your mind with,

• HOW DOES IT? – improve my thoughts

• Solve any problem
• Reflect on your personality
• Improve your life or make you better.

Watch less TV and read more instead, reading stimulates your brains ability to create images and relate more with the surrounding in your life. Stop watching negative and violent stuff instead watch things that cause you to think more, feed your mind with things that teach you something positive

3. Keep an open mind: to be more creative you must be flexible and open minded, allow yourself to be shocked but mostly allow yourself to learn something new. Organizations and people that stop learning will ultimately stop growing.  Try to observe more the next time you go somewhere new, or walk through a familiar place and look for something unfamiliar. Always internalize before you advertize, by now you will have collected a lot of information but before you utilize it by expressing yourself, internalize it, let it sink in before it flows out, as you meditate and mule over it, you are likely to get insights that were not obvious before. Before I write or speak at events I will collect a series of articles and books on my topic, read them, running them through my head, when I get my epiphany, at the moment when I can relate then am I open to communicate, but this all needs an open mind because there is always a better way, and as a creative businessman you don’t want to miss it.

4. LEARN FROM CREATIVE PEOPLE: I love biographies; I like to study other successful and more creative people than myself. Always remember there is nothing new under the sun, so instead of trying to reinvent the will, study the deeds and disciplines of creative people and model these successes. Interestingly while we are animals or originality we are also animals of association, don’t be afraid to take an idea from napoleon and modify it to suit your current need. This is called adoptive creativity. Learn from people that have done it before.

5. Become curious: creativity is about solutions, you can’t have solutions without questions. Despite serendipity, you can’t find what you are not looking for. So develop a curious personality, seek to know. I could break this down into 2 routes Firstly; investigate: look things up don’t take things for granted, delve a little deeper than the surface, ask questions like, how does this work, where did it come from, chances are if you know the origin and history of a challenge you could forecast the future solution. Secondly, study: by studying you develop a wider perspective of a given subject, personally I have made it my goal to know as much as I can about creativity and innovation, so I collect and read a series of magazines, books, I speak about it, I surf about it.  I am a continuous student of this phenomenon called creativity.

6. Keep a journal: You can buy a special journal or an ordinary book, record and track your thoughts, you need this book everywhere you go, because you will be surprised where an idea could jump at you, you could be in a taxi, in bed and if you are like some of us in clean bathrooms, I personally like reading in a clean toilet- true story. Write down all your ideas, track them, and verify which ones are sticking on your mind the ones that recur. You will also find that you will throw away 90% of your ideas but the 10% will be invaluable.

7. Accept the challenge: don’t shy away from a debate, a competition, a problem solving session, always take the challenge, in any case life will always confront us with challenges , its not until we face our challenges that we are made aware of our capability at problem solving. Remember you can’t shine if you don’t play, so take the challenge, play and shine.

8. Develop a positive outlook: creative people are always looking for a possibility and not at a problem, even when they are looking for a problem, it is to solve it. Likewise if you want to improve your creativity have a positive outlook, look at things as they could be not as they are, and see yourself with the solution to the problem. It will set you back miles if you allow yourself to whine and complain, instead remember what Henry ford said, “failures are an opportunity to start over, more intelligently.” I was reading recently in the Entrepreneur magazine about this guy- TosTee who built a multi million rand business and just in a year he was broke and burst with a debt of 11 million rand, but because of his positive outlook on life, he turned that failure round, rebuilt his business, only this time, less of the previous usuals. He didn’t give up on himself, he didn’t complain about credit crunch or interest rates; he remembered that there is no problem that can’t be solved.

9. Accept change:  Rigidity and creativity are mutually exclusive, because it takes change to have creativity. If you are going to be creative, you should learn to embrace change, because it happens and will always be here with us. you need to develop your mind to accommodate change and uncertainties.  You will always find that there is more than one way to skin a cat, so relax when people around you use a different approach compared to what you are used to. Many organizations like things to remain the same, systems, beliefs and so on. In a world that is rapidly changing, creativity and innovation are the only sure way ticket to the land of survival and promise, so make friends with change.

10. Attend the OUTSIDE-THE-BOX SEMINAR. CREATIVE MINDS will be running a 1 day workshop open to the public on the 3rd July in creative thinking skills. You could find out more about how to be creative by attending this workshop for only 50k.

Creative challenge

Try to put these into practice and share with me how you think you can solve the garbage disposal challenge in your neighborhood.