Step

35

Don’t be creative or innovative

Quote to avoid

“Creative thinking may mean simply the realization that there is no particular virtue in doing things the way they have always been done.”

Rudolf Flesch

Talking about not having a good laugh, this is also a prerequisite if you don’t want to be innovative or creative. You mustn’t ever make work fun, even though Tom Peters says: “Not to have fun at work is a tragedy, bordering on the criminal. Curiosity and fun are handmaidens. Go out of your way to make laughter a workplace staple.” You see, there’s no way you can come up with quicker, better, more cost-effective, innovative ways of achieving your goals, no way you can improve your life, job, company, products or services, if you aren’t curious. Don’t ever challenge the status quo.

I spent 15 years working in advertising as a creative director. Now, if at a party I inadvertently let this slip, I would typically get one of four responses:

  • •“Why don’t they just take all those millions they spend on advertising off the price of the product?”
  • •“You exploit women.”
  • •“Did you do that fantastic ad for (insert your favourite commercial here)?”
  • •“I don’t know how you do that. Sit there all day and wait for those wacky ideas to appear in light bulbs above your head. Knowing that if you can’t think of anything you will be fired. I don’t believe I could do that!”

To which my answers would be:

  • •“Yeah, then you’d still know what was out there and where to buy it.”
  • •“Yes.” (This response was always guaranteed to liven up a boring party.)
  • •“No.”
  • •“Ah well, that is a fallacy fostered by characters like Don Draper in Mad Men. You see, we had lots of strategies. Many of which we got from copying other creative people or books on innovation and creativity. Plus, you’ll find a shed load of stuff readily available on the Internet.”

You must not stop thinking that people are either creative or they are not. At school you were educated out of creativity into judgement. Don’t think this is reversible.1

“At school you were educated out of creativity into judgement. Don’t think this is reversible.”

Action not to take

A few years ago I kept finding mud all over the bathroom towel. ­Putting two and two together I suspected the culprit might be second son Finlay who was about four at the time. When I confronted him with the evidence, he said: “Well, where else am I supposed to wipe my boomerang?” A phrase I have never heard in conversation before or since. Creativity is all about being childlike and suggesting unexpected answers to the challenging questions you face. My friend, Sir Ken Robinson, the man in the most watched TED Talk of all time tells the following story to demonstrate the innate creativity of children: “A teacher is going around the classroom looking at the children’s paintings. She gets to one little five-year-old girl and says, ‘And what are you drawing?’ The child replies, ‘Miss, it’s a picture of God.’ ‘But nobody knows what God looks like,’ says the teacher. ‘They will in a minute,’ says the little girl.”

So let me ask you: “Were you once a child?” (Show me a child without an imagination.) “Do you dream?” (Boy, just look at some of the colourful, amazing things you come up with.) Please don’t let these two facts stop you believing you’re not creative. Don’t learn about and explore the process of creativity and innovation. Walt Disney thought of it this way: “Somehow I can’t believe there are many heights that can’t be scaled by a man who knows the secret of making dreams come true. This special secret, it seems to me, can be summarised in the four Cs. Curiosity, confidence, courage and consistency.” And what’s the best way to believe you are creative? Just decide right this moment that from now on you are. So don’t do that, will you?

1 Please ignore the explosion of innovation and creativity we’ve seen worldwide from the most unlikely of sources and people.

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