When I first heard about the necessity of creative thinking in business, my initial reaction was skepticism. Memories of ineffective brainstorming sessions and questionable design thinking sessions came flooding back.
I used to think of creativity as a rare, almost magical trait — a sudden light bulb moment rather than a skill that I could learn and cultivate. It seemed to belong more to the realm of flannel-clad hipsters than to everyday professionals.
Yet, the reality couldn’t be further from the myths perpetuated by pop culture and my own distorted thinking. Not only can you learn creativity, but you can also systematically foster and develop it.
Why Creativity Matters in Business: An Example
Consider the fate of Kodak. Once a titan of the photography industry, Kodak’s downfall was a stark reminder of the importance of innovation. Despite pioneering the digital camera, Kodak failed to embrace the digital revolution, leading to its decline. The lesson here is clear: Without innovation, companies risk becoming obsolete. Creativity, therefore, is not just a desirable trait but a critical component for business survival and success.
What Are Creativity Triggers?
There are four primary cues that stimulate our brain to generate creative ideas.
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Impasse cue: When progress stops, like when two sides are unable to come to agreement on the way to do something, the need for a creative solution becomes imperative.
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Dissatisfaction cue: If we are unhappy with the current state of something, like a prototype that’s left the beta group unengaged and the product team uninspired, it’s a signal to rethink and innovate.
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Surprise cue: Unexpected gaps in our knowledge can prompt us to use our imagination, filling these gaps with creative insights.
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Crosstalk: Interactions with different people from different professions can help spark solutions across industries.
What Is the PAGES Framework?
The key to unlocking creativity lies in changing our perspectives. A structured approach to this is the PAGES framework, introduced by Cronin and Loewenstein in The Craft of Creativity.
PAGES stands for parts, actions, goals, events and self-concept. This framework helps dissect and reconstruct our perspectives systematically.
- Parts: the components or elements involved in the situation or problem.
- Actions: the activities or behaviors related to the parts.
- Goals: the objectives or outcomes desired from the actions.
- Events: the incidents or occurrences that affect the situation.
- Self-concept: the identities or roles of the individuals involved.
Step 1: Document the Initial Perspective
Let’s take an example. Imagine an employee solving a customer service issue where clients frequently complain about slow response times. Initially you might focus on:
Step 2: Generate New Perspectives
By altering at least one category, we can generate new perspectives:
Before PAGES, the employee was thinking about how to get the agents to respond to calls faster and serve more and more clients quickly, which was putting a lot of pressure on the agents and creating a hostile work environment.
By shifting the paradigm and thinking about changing the parts, the employee can now see that different inputs will bring different actions to the scenario, which will lend progress to the same goal all while creating a better work environment for the agents.
Techniques for Perspective Modification
Modifying perspectives can be challenging. Here are some techniques to facilitate this process.
Analogy
This is when you identify similarities between different concepts to reveal patterns. Imagine you’re trying to teach your subordinates how to improve their team’s productivity.
You might draw an analogy between managing a team and managing a garden. Just as different plants require specific conditions to thrive, individual team members need different support or resources.
Combination
Combination is the merging of contrasting ideas or properties to generate new concepts. Picture designing a new office space and being torn between creating a traditional, quiet environment and a more modern, open-plan space that encourages collaboration.
By combining these contrasting ideas, you could innovate a hybrid office design that offers both quiet, private spaces for focused work and open, communal areas for team collaboration.
Recategorization
This is when you zoom in or out to change the level of detail or consider the opposite. Suppose your company is developing a new smartphone with a focus on enhancing its camera quality.
Traditionally, you might categorize the camera as a feature for taking high-resolution photos. By zooming out and recategorizing the camera not just as a photography tool but as a “visual communication device,” however, you open up new possibilities.
This broader perspective could lead to innovations like integrating augmented reality features, offering enhanced video conferencing tools or developing apps that use the camera for real-time translations or interactive learning.
Association
Association is the formation of mental connections between different concepts. Let’s say you’re working on a marketing campaign for a new energy drink.
You might associate the product with the concept of “adventure” rather than just “energy.” This could lead to creative marketing strategies, such as partnerships with outdoor brands or sponsoring extreme sports events, which connect with your target audience’s sense of adventure.
Tips for Fostering Creativity at Your Organization
Organizations play a crucial role in fostering creativity.
Assign Employees to Projects They Care About
Research indicates that people are more creative when intrinsically motivated, meaning they’re more innovative when they enjoy their work. Hiring the right people and aligning them with projects they’re passionate about is crucial.
Provide Consistent Feedback
Positive emotions can enhance creative thinking. Rigid structures and performance-based incentives, however, often stifle creativity within organizations.
Instead, companies should cultivate a no-blame, experiment-friendly culture, where failures are seen as learning opportunities. Regular, honest feedback from management can significantly boost creativity.
Encourage Risk-Taking and Experimentation
Top executives should encourage risk-taking and experimentation. Innovation often involves challenging the status quo and venturing into uncharted territory. Giving employees room to experiment with their own solutions to business problems allows them to thrive.
People are highly motivated when they feel a sense of purpose, have control of their own goals and are developing new skills while improving existing ones.
These drivers are the basis of self determination theory. While extrinsic incentives have their place, a balance between intrinsic and extrinsic motivators is ideal.
Practical Steps to Foster Creativity
1. Implement Free Time for Innovation
Allow employees dedicated time to work on their ideas, like Google does with their famous “20 percent time.”
2. Organize Unrelated Events
Host activities unrelated to current projects to stimulate fresh thinking, like taking your team to an escape room, doing an art workshop or bringing in a guest speaker in a different creative area like music, science or art.
3. Facilitate Continuous Learning
Provide opportunities for training, attending conferences and self-development meetings. Design thinking gives a plethora of options for creative thinking techniques.
SXSW or Adobe MAX are incredible conferences for creative professionals to learn, grow and network with others for new ideas. Or you could host a hackathon where your team has to switch roles, like the engineer is a designer and the designer is a project manager.
4. Support Autonomy
Give employees the freedom to explore and experiment within their roles. If you gave a user interface designer the freedom to experiment with a new color scheme or layout for a specific section of the company’s app, test its impact on user engagement. After gathering user feedback, the designer could refine the design and share insights with the broader design team.
Creativity is not a mystical, random moment of inspiration. It’s a skill you can learn and develop, even within an organization. By systematically changing perspectives using frameworks like PAGES, individuals and companies can unlock new ideas and solutions.
