Creative thinking for business innovation

Oh, I ‘ve got an idea. Why don’t we…

Although schooling has tried hard to prevent it, many of us can still think creatively.

Creativity is our DNA, and as managers, we need to re-discover our ability to use and refine it.

Wait a second - do we need to rediscover creativity in management? Yes, that’s right, as managers not as people.

Guess what; the least creative place we can be as managers is our desk in the office. Why?

Because routine kills creativity: checking emails, answering the phone, preparing a slide deck, following procedures, we are too caught up in the day to day run of our organisations that we forget to think creatively.

This is the point - we forget to think creatively, the same way we forget to do other many things that are beneficial for us as human beings, e.g. going to the gym, which by the way, provides a great creativity boost!

Despite this, we still have ideas! The resilience and adaptability of humans beings will never stop to surprise me.

Sure, I agree, like any another talent, every one of us is naturally more or less creative. I believe though that we are more creative as children rather than as adults.

''Creativity is a gift which we tend to lose along the way. What a pity.''

Let me share with you some tips I follow to keep my creative thinking spinning on my work as a design strategist:

1) I think visually rather than verbally; 2) I create an image for every new idea ‘if I don’t forget it first’; 3) I publicly share that ideas, I make it available to others; 4) I invite others to share their thinking on that Idea; 5) I refine and elaborate my ideas based on feedback I receive.

From an Idea to a valuable business proposition.

Although we remember only the leader of successful organisations, we all know that the success of those organisations depends upon the work of a team.

I define business innovation the ability of a team of people in turning an idea into a viable business.

To do so, we need to create a set of activities enabling our organisation to deliver value to the user.

The difficult part of doing so is firstly the creation of an interconnected web of activities that reinforce one another. In so doing a team strengthen the competitive advantage of an organisation, by setting it apart from the competition.

Creating a sustainable business means creating a unique network of activities, which is the base for a differentiation strategy.

And now we have it: creativity offers us a new perspective on how to serve our current or new set of customers. Innovation requires us to bring a team together to translate creativity into a valuable, (different) web of activities for creating and delivering unique value.