Creativity matters

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.

www.base52.co.uk

Time to be creative

As business owners, we have our schedule.

Things to do - client meetings, prospect meetings, team meetings, tasks and projects, business lunches. It’s a merry-go-round with often little time left for reflecting and thinking.

But thinking and being creative can be what makes the difference. Developing that great new marketing idea, looking at a different and better way to complete a business process, exploring options to resolve a tricky employee or customer issue.

Many successful people make time and create an environment so that they can do their best thinking. Entrepreneur and author, Nigel Botterill does this every day. He works and thinks best in the morning so he sets aside 90 minutes or so at the start of each day and shuts himself away to think and create. He focuses on things that move his business forward - marketing ideas, developing a new product or service, a targeted email campaign, a video series or similar. Its worked for him as a serial entrepreneur with a number of multi-million £ businesses in his portfolio.

A few years ago I stumbled upon a great YouTube video from ex Monty Python comic John Cleese about creativity. It’s rather odd, with the great man standing at a lectern giving a presentation to a group of business people. The content is brilliant though. Cleese advocates making a set time for your creative work when you know you will not be disturbed. Also important is finding the right space where you feel comfortable. Before you start he says you should get all the clutter out of your head. Make that phone call, send that email, get that thing off your list. Then relax and be creative. In his case being creative was being funny and writing sketches. A great tip from Cleese is don’t settle for ‘good’. There’s a temptation when you have come up with your creative product to leave it there and move onto the next one. What he does is work a bit harder on it and try to move it from ‘good’ to ‘great’. Sometimes that can be painful and hard work but he believes it can make a real difference. 

Best-selling thriller writer Stephen King use discipline and routine to be creative. He writes every day, without fail, again in the mornings, in his writing den. Like Cleese he believes in revisiting and improving his creations after the first draft. In his case he puts a draft manuscript in a drawer and forgets about it for a while. He then comes back and looks at it with fresh eyes some days or even weeks later. Children’s author Roald Dahl followed a similar, disciplined routine, writing in an armchair in his garden shed, with extra blankets and a hot flask to keep warm in Winter.

My creative time is when I’m running or driving. Away from distractions (apart from watching the road, of course) my mind wanders and occasionally a new idea will pop up which can be developed further on the run or on the road trip.

Creative genius and business guru Andy Warhol put it best when he said, ‘Being good in business is the most fascinating kind of art. Making money is art and working is art and good business is the best art’

As business owners, we need this time to be creative I think. To create the best art in our businesses. They don’t teach it in business school and there is no rule book but creativity can make your business more distinctive, more exciting and of course, more profitable.

www.base52.co.uk