How to work a little more creatively

Storyboards are powerful thinking and communication tools in films and advertising ... and we can use them too. 

Just as film creatives map out the proposed scenes of a movie, we can be story boarders too!  

A creative tool I use often with teams to think and work more creatively is storyboarding. 

Six cells or scenes are a starting point or a summary of a bigger and deeper story. 

🔲 Capture one point or theme per cell. 
🔲 Use a storyboard to take notes. 
🔲 Deliver your presentation or pitch with a storyboard. 

Boring notes? Nope. 
Boring meeting? Nope. 
Boring presentation? Also nope. 

We love stories! They hook us in and keep us engaged, curious to what’s coming next. 

Our colleagues and clients need us to be a little more creative - not just to hold their engagement and attention but to get to the most creative and effective outcomes we can. 

For something more memorable, practical and sensible... storyboard it.

Thinking we’re not creative enough

Many of us think we're not creative. 

At all. 

Perhaps it's more that we don't feel 'creative enough' to respond in the ways we need to today. 

We all have creative potential in us, but the cry of doubt, ‘I’m not creative’ is enough to make an idea run and hide! 

If we could be a little more creative than we are... if we could achieve a lift in our creative capability, we could tap into the clever solutions we’re truly capable of.

There’s little evidence that brainstorming produces more or better ideas. Group brainstorming in particular is a waste of time. 

So what do we do instead?


Focus on shifting your thinking to be:

🔶 CONFIDENT - From ‘I’m not creative’ to ‘I can be creative’

🔶CLEVER - ‘I can generate creative options’

🔶COMMERCIAL - ‘I can put these ideas into practice’

We have ongoing needs to generate ideas. solve problems and make decisions in more creative ways. 

And being confident, clever and commercial is a great path to take. 

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 and it's worth asking for a little more creativity please, and being able to deliver a little more creativity. 

Getting started when it’s all too much

Waiting for the perfect time? Waiting to launch an idea, press ‘go’ on a project - there may not be a perfect time. 

When we wait for the right time, perhaps we’re just waiting until we feel right. 

But if we keep waiting until we feel ready, brave, complete, right, correct and as perfect as can be, we will be waiting a long time. 

We can burn and waste a mighty lot of time in that state of inertia, waiting ... until. 

Before a hot air balloon takes off, pilots launch small lit balloons and watch how they respond in the air. 

They can read the weather forecast or muster all the courage and bravery they have, but that’s not as good as a trial. 

A trial balloon is a smaller version of the big thing and gives them some of the most real and visible evidence of what will happen when they launch the bigger one. 

Launching a trial balloon is something we can send out early on in our endeavor to check the market’s response ... and our response too. 

What’s a trial balloon you can put out there to help you get some insight on how your ‘thing’ might go? 

Launch something. Little. 

Everything is an idea

Our opinions are ideas. 
Messages are ideas too. 
Statements and questions are. 

Movies are ideas. 
Products and services are as well. 
Blogs, posts and comments are. 

Our opinions and beliefs are ideas. 
Same with our impressions and perspectives. 

Ideas are everywhere. 

They’re how we understand what something is and how we communicate about it. 

Don’t be too upset if what you’re trying to communicate doesn’t change someone’s opinion immediately. It’s your idea, landing up against their ideas. 

We’re presented with so many ideas every day, it’s no wonder some of them don’t get through!

It may take a little while or some repeated attempts. 

Our world is a big mix of ideas, hitting up against one another, circling, collecting in groups, moving, swarming and changing shape. 

Get more of your ideas out into circulation and there’s more of a chance for happy collisions, random landings and repeated connections. 

It’s most certainly a numbers game.