 Why make creativity a top priority in the personal and professional skills you would want to develop? There are in fact plenty of good reasons arising from very sensible questions. Why is creativity important for your business?
Innovation is impossible without creativity and the accelerating pace of change demands new thinking and doing – lots of it and faster than ever before. It is no coincidence that in international studies recently carried out by IBM and PwC, the CEOs of leading companies consider creativity as today’s most important leadership competency. The systematic use of creative method substantially improves an organisation’s capacity to confront challenges and enhances employee engagement in the generation and implementation of new solutions. What is creativity? Simply put it is “imagining something new and useful and making it happen”. It is novelty – thinking and action – that bring value. A beautiful if more esoteric definition is “the ability to identify and overcome self-imposed constraints”, which emphasises the gap between personal potential and perceived limitations. Are all people creative? Yes! We may have grown up with stereotypes of the lone genius in his lab. Since the 1950s distinguished academics have dissected the set of competencies that make people creative and helped us appreciate that each and every person is creative, often in very in different ways. How do you become more creative? First, work on an issue that is important for you – passion will take you a long way. Second, develop your creative faculties. Contrary to common wisdom creative skills are learnable and creativity is developable at individual, team and organisational levels. Learn how to imagine plenty of new and original ideas by new idea techniques and by strengthening your powers of association, combination and by exploring your subconscious. This is a mindful but not a difficult undertaking. Third, learn a method that will make your creativity more efficient. This will take you through understanding your challenge, defining problems and sub-problems, finding solutions, selecting good ones and applying the best. A great new idea will have a lively and transformative journey before it becomes reality. In the process, make sure you systematically alternate between two different but equally valuable forms of thinking. First, practise creative thinking to generate lots of ideas without judgement, then, practise critical thinking, in which you evaluate and choose the best ideas. Do this alone and with others. Do it in your business, do it in your life. Finally, and equally important, work out how to create the conditions by which your colleagues at work can best express and practise their own creativity. Be creative, yes you can! Join my workshop on February 12, at the Ajax Hotel, Limassol from 9.00 to 17.30. Participants will learn creative method and techniques and they will design ways of promoting creativity in their own organisations. Book Now - Some Places Still Available The workshop is co-organised with PwC’s Academy and subsidised by the HRDA. It will be of interest to people from organisations of all sectors and sizes, especially ones contemplating a shift in their business model or operations. Language: English. Cost: €200 (+VAT) / HRDA eligible participants: €154 (VAT incl.) To register call Eleni Anthimou or Mikaella Koumettou +357 22 555 161 or click here to register online. More info on workshop here
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