“With the avalanche of new products, new technologies and new ways of working, employees are going to have to become more creative in order to benefit from these changes.
“Robots may help us get to where we want to be faster, but they can’t be as creative as humans (yet).”
World Economic Forum senior writer, Alex Gray
The World Economic Forum has identified creativity as a key skill for the future. But what do you do if you are not creative?
You are creative
Don’t dismiss yourself as a ‘non-creative’ person. Creativity is a skill, not the exclusive domain of artists, geniuses and savants. If you can present something new, then you are a creative person.
Change something
“Present something new” is an easy prescription, but how do I go about it?
Survey TED talks on creativity and some themes emerge. We are all creative. Give yourself permission to be creative. Let your mind wander to free imagination. Creativity is a remix. Seek inspiration widely.
Any individual or team that intends to innovate needs to create freedom to come up with bad ideas on their way to the good. Creativity an environment where people can tap into their creativity is undoubtedly vital.
The 40 missing ingredients
Genrich Alshuller chose not to examine the creative person when he examined tens of thousands of patents. Instead, he examined the creativity evident in those patents. The 40 Principles of Inventive Problem Solving are the distillation of these patents’ creativity.
If you (or your team) produce the right environment for creativity, a productive next step is to use a set of creativity tools, like the 40 Principles, to guide the creative process.
