Seth Godin has argued that the new ride-the-wave economic future is in ideas. Once it was small farms … then factories, and now in the information and internet age, what’s hot is ideas. Or ideas that people can use, will buy, and want. Ideas like those tied to social media, computer games, conservative financing, identity theft protection, online catalogs, networking, self-help, do it yourself, search engines, whatever solves the next problem.
In this economic environment, the importance of creativity is that the person who can come up with and monetize the best ideas wins.
Steve Little argues that there are a number of attributes associated with success in business, the foremost of which is creativity. Little cites Robert Epstein, who argues that there are four core competencies to creativity: “Capturing, Surrounding, Challenging, and Broadening.”
Capturing ideas is not a new idea. Here, you pull out the index cards from your back pocket or purse and write down an idea right after it passes through your mind. Or you use a palm pilot, computer, voice recorder, etc. When you wake at night, when you witness a scene on the highway, when you daydream, when you are trying to articulate an experience … whenever you come up with an idea, put in writing, record it, capture it.
Surrounding yourself with creative people and resources helps too. This is similar to broadening, which has to do with reading and researching new things in a broad range of topics. As the phrase goes, garbage in, garbage out. On the flip side, the broader and more in-depth our exposure to ideas, the more we have to work with in forming our own interconnected ideas. Of course, personal contact with creative people can be stimulating and competitive.
Further, creativity neuroscience suggests that challenging ourselves with tough problems helps develop our creative capacity. This can be in the form of real-life business challenges or in the form of puzzles and games.
There are, of course, other ways to stimulate creativity. REM sleep is thought to be important. Interestingly, Little cites a practice of Salvador Dali and Thomas Edison. Dali and Edison would briefly consider a problem, then relax in a chair or bed while holding an object in the hand. As the person began to drift off into sleep, the object would slip out of the hand, and awaken the person with a clatter. At that waking moment (“known as the hypnagogic state”), a creative thought would sometimes occur, which Dali and Edison would immediately record and then act upon.
A word of caution. There is some debate whether certain positive or negative emotions are more conducive to creative thought. Brilliant ideas can come from the depressed, for example. However, fear of failure, Little reminds us, strongly decreases creativity.
For more help on increasing creativity and success in business, visit The Perfect Business Builder (with which I am affiliated).
Tags: creativity, ideas
