When I started my business, many moons ago, no one mentioned creativity as a helpful skill to have in the toolbox.
Most books were about practical things - processes, systems, building a team and of course, working hard.
That’s what most of us focus on - being diligent, learning from mistakes, getting stuff done.
But creativity matters.
Good ideas can be the difference between continued hard slog and genuine step changes in your business. Of course, the ideas need to be implemented but having the inspiration in the first place is the starting point.
Like Archimedes displacing the water in his bath, the ‘Eureka’ moment can be transformational.
There are lots of opportunities to be creative in business. One I would avoid, especially if it involves flouting the rules, is creative accounting. That aside, you can be creative with how you deal with people, creative about how you tackle an operational matter and probably most of all, creative about marketing.
Being creative and implementing your best ideas is what makes your business unique so, in my opinion, its a key skill to have, or to learn in business.
So how do you ‘learn’ to be creative? 'It’s not my strength', you might say.
I’m not an expert on this but for me its about stepping back from the ‘day to day’ grind and making time to think differently. People get inspired at different times, usually when they ‘switch off’ and let their subconscious brain take over. Maybe on a long walk or drive or for the joggers amongst us, on a long run.
Monty Python star, John Cleese is an unlikely advocate of being creative. His style is to make a specific time to be creative. He finds a place he is comfortable in, where he won’t be interrupted and before he starts he clears away all the mundane things on his list which might impact negatively on the session. He’ll make that phone call, put the bins out, reply to that urgent email etc. Then he’s ready.
He’ll think about the thing he needs to be creative about - the comedy sketch, the problem to solve, whatever it is and work hard on it for an allotted time - maybe 90 minutes or so. The unexpected word in there is ‘hard’. No one expects creativity to be hard work. Aren’t moments of inspiration supposed to just appear, as if by magic, as with Archimedes and of equal fame, with Newton’s apple?
Cleese argues that it can be hard work and needs time and discipline.
He goes further. When he has created his new ‘thing’, he tries a bit harder. He takes the draft and works on it a bit more to get a better result. He cites this extra effort as a reason why he was sometimes more successful that other comics with coming up with truly memorable output.
So it may not be the first thing on the skills list for a budding business owner or entrepreneur but creativity is underrated.
With time, space and some hard work it can make a big difference to your business.
