10 tips to be more
innovative
Make use of these pointers to maximise your
creative potential
A clear physical and mental space will enable you to get
into the best frame of mind to be creative.
CREATIVITY is about
converting new, imaginative and exciting ideas into practical
reality. Combining the creative power of thought with the power of
production, innovation is the implementation of that idea.
If you use your imagination and have an idea, but
take no action, there are no usable outcomes.Innovation is the
combination of imagination and creativity to create usable
outcomes.
If you want to be consistently innovative, follow
these 10 tips:
1
Identify the
issue
Clarifying the problem gets you halfway to solving that problem.
Question, challenge and, above all, write down all aspects of the
challenge before you start the innovation
process.
2
Relax
To be in the best mind to deal with issues, it is important to
be relaxed, focused and attentive. A clear-physical and mental
space enable you to get into the best frame of mind to be
creative.
Creativity can come forcefully from within, so
allow yourself to be in the righf place to experience that
creativity. Remember that people relax, in different ways, so focus
on what is right for you.
3
Be
willing to change yourself first
Mahatma Gandhi said: "If we could change ourselves, the
tendencies in the world would also change. As a man changes his own
nature, so does the attitude of the world change towards him ... We
need not wait to see what others do!"
As Gandhi says, you must sometimes change yourself
for the rest of the world to change. You must pay close attention
to what you want to create. Set a clear intention to produce the
results that you wish for.
4
Ask
great questions
Questions focus your thinking and help to call up ideas,
information or facts that are relevant to the task at hand.
Achieving great outcomes always starts with great questions.
Remember good questions can be used and reused, so
if you hear a compelling question, keep it and use it again and
again. Collect questions to challenge, enquire and evaluate.
5
Fertilise your
brain
Fill your mind with ideas, pictures and concepts. You can find
these in so many places - books, stories, films, comic strips,
music, magazines and on the Internet.
The more ideas, images and words you consume, the
greater the chance that you will creatively deal with a challenge.
Be curious, get interested and delve deep - it will serve you later
when you can make connections between places, people and things
that are not usually connected.
6
Experiment and
explore
Thomas Edison was renowned for experimenting. Failure was never
a problem for him. Rather, it was the signal to try another
pathway.He literally filled thousands of pages of paper with notes,
drawings and musings.
The pathway to innovation is to experiment with
different ways, explore new pathways and never be stymied by
failure.
7
Find
out if anyone else has faced this challenge
There is not that much that is new in the world and
then there is at the same time. There may well be someone else in
your organisation, team or community Who has been faced with the
same or similar challenge. Seek them out and find out what they
did, then take their idea and make it better.
8
Replenish your
creative stock
Just as farmers rotate crops in the field to give
the soil time to replenish, it is important that you give your
brain a chance to tackle different issues or challenges.
Songwriters often change from writing to playing music to some
other creative pursuit to give their brain a chance to rest and
come back at a later time with a fresh perspective.
9
Unleash your
creativity
You cannot turn on your creativity and innovation
like you can a light switch. However, there are some things you can
do to crank it up.
Ask yourself what can absorb your attention to the
extent that you lose track of time? How can you recreate this
atmosphere when you are faced with a creative challenge at work?
Creativity takes many forms and differs for business, art or
science.
10
Gernerate lots of
ideas
The best way to generate one good idea is to generate lots of
ideas first. The more ideas you generate, the more creative and
innovative you become.
What seemed like a fun contribution at the time can
suddenly have a realistic slant to it and could well be the winning
innovation of the whole process.
Article by Lindsay Adams, a people expert, internatlonal speaker
with Training Edge International and international president of
Global Speakers Federation (2009 - 2010). For details, e-mail
[email protected]
or visit www.trainingedgeasia.com
Cats Recruit, The Straits Times, Saturday, December 29 2012, Pg
C40