Where do you need more creativity

- A tech team wants to be able to come up with more creative solutions. 
- A healthcare group wants more interesting and creative meetings. 
- A business owner needs to offer more clever and creative services. 
- A service business wants to stand out from the competition and work more creatively across the entire organization. 


These are some of the situations in business, work and life that can benefit from more creativity. 


Where would you like it?

🔲 YOU
“I need more creativity” 
We can make things more interesting and work more productively and effectively when we bring more creativity. 

🔲 IT
“The task or project needs more creativity”
To accelerate progress, attract interest and support, or run more effectively, greater creativity can boost project success.

🔲 THEM
“They need more creativity”
Participants, attendees, guests, customers and clients deserve more creative communications, interactions and experiences, particularly if what we’re doing is a little dry, detailed or repetitive. 


Where would you like more creativity? 

Try starting with one and let it spread throughout the others. 

Sitting with the problem longer

The pressure of meetings, deadlines and things to do can mean we accept the first idea. 

But try and stay with the problem longer. Really pick it apart, with other minds and perspectives. 

It might be easier to fall in behind the first or dominant voice with a solution, rather than offering up something else. 

If you’re leading the meeting, it’s vital that additional contributions are invited at solution time and that those suggestions are welcomed when they’re given. 

Or when problem solving alone, allow time to work longer on the problem, to ponder and wonder over it. 

The race is not for the first or quickest answer. It’s for the most effective solution with the time and resources available. 

If you usually jump in first ... wait. 
And if you usually wait ... step in as soon as you have something. 

A little more creativity please

You can see I’m a fan of regularly applying the skills of creativity: in thinking, writing and idea generation. 

The World Economic Forum said the top 3 skills we’d need by 2020 would be
- Complex Problem Solving
- Critical Thinking
- Creativity.

In their updated skills list for 2025, creativity features in half of the top 10 skills, in one form or another. 

And here we are… in a world where we’ve been adapting to a global pandemic, working from home, leading remotely, changing business practices, generating new products, serving customers in new ways and ... keeping it together!

Sir Ken Robinson said “...we don't grow into creativity, we grow out of it. Or rather, we get educated out if it.”

It’s worth putting some of that creativity back in, and learning to be even just a little more creative! 

We need creativity now and for our future.

When you’re stuck for ideas

It’s tough running on the idea wheel, waiting, searching for ideas. 

We often need ideas for:  
- projects
- business or branding
- writing and blogging 
- product naming
- workshops and meeting activities
- presentations and pitches
- problem solving. 

Every day we need to draw on our creative abilities to add our opinion, get something started (or finished) or make something happen. 

If you’re focusing on doing the work of a task, it’s tricky to then switch over into a more creative way of thinking. 

We might expect the magic will just flow... but no 😢

While there are plenty of tips on how to come up with ideas, we don’t usually think of those tips when we’re under pressure to make ideas happen. 

I’ve shared previously my use of an ideas book: a journal or sketchbook that catches what I’m thinking about. I can fill a book every few weeks! 

Then it’s an easy flick through a few pages and something will connect. The power of our creative mind swings into action, connecting something with something else and ... boom... 💥 an idea is born! 

Wait forever for the perfect idea to show up or better still, collect them as they come to you, whenever they come to you. 

Developing a creative mindset

As problems and challenges persist for our customers, clients (and ourselves), a more creative mindset might help us and them out. 

How do you solve a challenge?

Do you go with what you’ve done before? Or seek out the possibility of a new solution and idea? 

Existing or well known solutions are safer; someone’s already done them, we can copy or replicate, change a few things and we’re good to go. 

Or are we?

The more we all keep replicating what’s already out there, thinking it’s working, the more limited our thinking becomes. 

Having the confidence to adopt a more creative mindset is risky yes, but with the risk can come incredible gains and rewards. 

The links to commercial success are clear. 

A more creative mindset helps us design and deliver better services, solutions and success for our clients and customers.