Why viewing Creativity as a visual skill limits you and your business
Now be honest with yourself, if someone asked you 'think of someone creative' would you instantly start to think about people you know who are visually creative? Friends or colleagues who are graphic designers and artists, or maybe you might stretch your think a little wider to those in what is deemed 'creative industries' like interior designers or copywriters? Now you may think creativity means something different but does your organisation and team realise this when they work together for your business and your customers?
Being constrained in our understanding of Creativity is holding us back as people and brands.
Not only are there multiple psychological understanding of creativity but our own interpretation has become narrowed in what we view as creativity. In both the public and private sectors, we have linked success to growth and that has means what we are told are drivers of growth are important. So market share, profit, operating costs, efficiency etc. Yet how did any brand or organisation start? Not from these points above but from an idea, most often generating solutions from problems.
And this is where our view of creativity has become lost. We view ideation as something embryonic and not something ongoing. Creativity from an painter doesn't stop once he starts the painting, it continues through the whole creation process and then evolves for his or her next painting. Why should commercial creativity be any different?
Creativity is not just ideas...it is about delivery. It is innovation.
Here at Skopen we specifically believe Creativity is not about ideation, it is about the alignment of ideas and creative ways of operating to delivery outcomes. We look for change and use the skills of creativity to generate the solutions and help implement them.
What often people associate with Creativity in the commercial world is an ideas person who isn't very good at implementing. This is not a valid view of creativity, it is a narrow view on how some creativity is expressed. We at Skopen have researched what is successful creativity and found how you can improve the way people can skill their perceptions to operate with a creative mindset that will generate and drive solutions. Ideas in themselves are not solutions. And artist doesn't just dream of his canvas, he paints on it until the masterpiece is finished.
Think about this
There is an interesting, albeit very outdated and naïve Harvard Business Review article from 2002 that offers a couple of interesting nuggets from the author Theodore Levitt. I have pulled out this quote and I ask the question, when did you see this type of thinking in your organisation?
"The freewheeling fantasies of very young children are extremely creative, as any kindergarten teacher will testify. They have a naïve curiosity which stumps parents with questions like: “Why can you see through glass?” “Why is there a hole in a doughnut?” “Why is the grass green?” It is this kind of questioning attitude that produces in them so much creative freshness."
