Christian Davies, FCSD is Chief Strategy Officer at Bergmeyer, the Design Collaborative with offices in Boston, Columbus and LA.
As a designer, there’s one question I get asked more than any other: “Can you teach people to be creative?” And my answer is always the same: “I’m not teaching them, I’m reminding them. Because they were born creative, they’ve just forgotten.”
Having spent the last 35 years in some of the biggest boardrooms across the globe, it’s clear to me that this broken relationship with our creative selves is an all too familiar reality. At the risk of talking myself out of a job, it is one of the reasons these companies hire consultants. To dream up, imagine or birth ideas they don’t believe they could ever come up with by themselves.
But, in a world whose challenges are crying out for innovative thinking, I’d argue that creativity is something our business leaders should have more of in their toolboxes. And not just to solve problems or navigate uncertainty, but because without creativity, they are hindering the chances of their business being everything that it could be.
So, accepting the premise that this isn’t something I need to teach, what are a few simple steps that any of us can take to rediscover our creative flow?
I penned this series of first principles a few years ago when asked to describe my approach to creativity to a new team of designers.
Here are five principles to get anyone started on their journey back to a creative mindset:
1. Look closer.
The first and most practical principle is to take a closer look. It’s about resisting the idea that you should take things at face value. Everything benefits from a little more scrutiny and many things aren’t what they seem at first glance. While a part of this is about the skill of observation, the core of this principle is really about looking deeper and from different perspectives.
Go from trying to see the big picture, to trying to examine the details. And, for right now, ask yourself some simple questions: “What am I looking at? What is it trying to tell me?” And recognize those questions are just as important, or maybe more so than, “What do I think of that?” Business leaders are familiar with due diligence. Think of this as the lateral thinking version of that practice.
2. Listen harder.
A designer far smarter than me once told me: “The key to leading a great brainstorm session is leaving room for the voices,” and they were so right. To listen, and to find meaning, you simply have to stop talking. And not just stop talking but stop constantly thinking about what your answer is going to be when you get your moment in the sun.
Many business leaders, and creatives, love no sound better than that of their own voice. I’m here to tell you this is one time that sound can be counterproductive. Despite being the leader in the room, resist the urge to “own the conversation.” Let the room breathe and the ideas take shape. Pay attention. Take notes. Nod if you like something. Wait your turn.
3. Think like a novice.
There’s a Buddhist concept called child mind or beginner’s mind. “At its heart, the beginner’s mind is about embracing a state of not-knowing.” It’s easy in our quick-to-judge Western view of things to equate this to false modesty. But it’s more of a reminder that every time they approach a new problem, question or idea, they try and arrive with a blank page, as if they’ve not considered it before.
This might fly in the face of everything a business leader has been taught about being an expert, but trust me, the results of this kind of thinking are liberating. If you’re still uncomfortable, you don’t have to answer, “I know nothing about that.” Instead, try this: I had a client recently ask me if I’d ever designed a bookstore before (Spoiler: I’ve designed a lot). My answer was, “I have, but not this one.”
4. Get comfortable with discomfort.
I’ve used a kind of kitschy image to explain this principle before. It’s an illustration of a big, overstuffed couch in the shape of a cactus. The idea, like all of these, is relatively straightforward: To push yourself out of the familiar. In practice, it can be a little harder.
But the rule of thumb I like to follow is if the idea doesn’t at least make me a little nervous, we haven’t taken it far enough. Push the idea until you get there, and then push it again. And then again. Until you actually get to the point where you might be worried as a leader about showing it. Because that is the feeling almost every disrupter you’ve ever met had right before they presented their pitch for the very first time.
5. Play well.
Our final tip comes from the Danish words that inspired Lego: “Leg Godt,” meaning to “play well.” I end on this not in some attempt to foster a team ethic but for the simple reason that true innovation is hard. And it’s even harder to do it on your own.
Sure, we all have our Eureka moments (and they do often happen in bathtubs) but they are more rewarding, more fun, more robust and more resilient when you create them with others. Collaborating on solutions is the calling card of design thinking, and it’s one that pays dividends time and time again.
These are just the starting points, but I’m hopeful they will resonate. The path to recovering creativity, like anything worth having, can take some work. But the good news is it’s not like learning something completely alien to you. After all, you’ve known about it your whole life.
Forbes Business Council is the foremost growth and networking organization for business owners and leaders. Do I qualify?
Read the full article here
