202 / BECOMING MORE EFFECTIVE
Being creative
Finding creative solutions
Creativity comes from abandoning
linear thought and making leaps
of the imagination. All your brain
needs is the stimulus to make
these leaps. Brainstorming is
one technique for helping do this.
Getting a group of people together
to throw out possible solutions
without the constraint of evaluating
the suggestions creates energy
and sparks new ideas. Another
technique is asking people to
consider the problem from a different
perspective, such as: “How will our
customers see this?” or “What if we
turn the question on its head?”
Practice being creative in your private
life, and it will develop your ability to
be creative at work. Stimulate your
brain by taking a different route to work,
completing crossword puzzles, learning
a new language, taking an activity
holiday, or finding a new experience.
Many problems have simple solutions, but those are the problems that
everyone can solve. Being creative enables you to solve, or contribute
to solving, difficult problems. This will get you noticed. Some people
appear naturally creative, but creative problem-solving is a skill that
you can learn and hone through practice.
STIMULATE CREATIVITY
Very few good ideas have
been created by sitting alone
at a desk. Change your scene,
have a coffee and relax, or
interact with others.
Tip
Practice being creative in
your private life, and it will
develop your ability to
be creative at work
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BEING CREATIVE / 203
USE PRESSURE
A tight deadline can increase
your creativity. You will
often find that with a short
deadline you’ll come up with
more alternatives and often
a better solution. However,
it’s also true that if you
have a complex problem,
“sleeping on it” can help
you find the answer.
Tip
Asking the right questions
When you are faced with a problem, it
is often the boundaries or rules that
constrain your thinking. “We can’t do
this because…” is a phrase that stifles
creativity. Instead, asking the question:
“What if this constraint wasn’t there?” will
allow you to consider all the new options
and benefits open to you, and can create
a new world in your mind. You will often
find the opportunities open to you when
you remove a constraint are so great that
it is worth the time and effort it takes
to remove it. Did James Dyson ask the
question “What if we don’t have a bag?”
when he invented his revolutionary
bagless vacuum cleaner?
Using benchmarking
Not every problem has to be solved
again from scratch. Most problems
have been solved before so all you have
to do is find the solution. Benchmarking
is a very useful tool for doing this.
Benchmarking is about comparing
processes. It is about weighing up the
way your organization does something
against the way in which that another
organization performs the same
function. Start by making sure that
you understand your own processes.
Who does what, when, how, and why?
Just doing this will create ideas for
improvement, but it also forms the
basis for benchmarking: comparing
your processes with those of your
chosen benchmark subject.
Who should you benchmark yourself
against? Ideally, find an organization
that is really good at the process you
are trying to improve—for example,
if you want to improve your delivery
function, you might benchmark yourself
against a company that is efficient at
dealing with complex orders.
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