Think Creative

Modern economy is based on discovering and creating of new needs, and on providing new products and services designed to meet those needs. Big companies have Research and Development departments which brainstorm ideas about how to create new values for their clients on daily basis. But great ideas are not born only in the minds of innovation experts; they are also born in the minds of many other employees working in the company. The problem is they are not always recognized, presented and appreciated.  At work we are  required to come up with new ideas  whenever there is some problem that needs to be solved. This is the situation where bosses are most open to various creative suggestions simply because they feel they are in trouble and are looking for a way out. If you are one of those who are creative and fast enough, you will have no problem to come forward and provide right solutions that will be easily recognized and accepted. But not everybody gets a chance to be a...

We live in the culture that is saturated with information so putting your message through requires lots of effort and creativity. The easiest way to be spotted in the information clutter is to be different. And being different is often erroneously labelled as being creative. One of the most important characteristics of successful thinkers is their ability to focus. How many times has it happened to you that you spent some time and energy thinking about something and you ended up with a bunch of interesting ideas on all other problems except on the one that you had actually been required to think about? This will happen every time unless you manage to maintain a clear focus on the subject that you are thinking about. The world is full of so called artists and creatives who are struggling to be different and unique. They are sometimes strangely odd and bizarre in their appearance, behaviour and attitudes without firm arguments that could back up their extremely different views...

Now that I have caught your attention with this catchy headline, I will have to correct myself and rephrase it into:  How to Get Creative Ideas from a Team That is Not Familiar with Using Their Creativity . I firmly believe that each and every one of us is creative - it’s just that there are those who use their creative potentials and  those who believe that they are not creative . If you think that your employees are not creative enough, you should ask yourself why is it so?  The most common reasons are because: -     they do not have the opportunity to be creative  - nobody ever asks them for their opinion, they are only required to follow the rules and procedures; -     they do not have courage to express their ideas  – they fear that they are not creative enough; -     they are not motivated to be creative  – nobody listens and appreciates their ideas;  when they speak their minds their ideas ...

Design thinking is a term that was frequently used in contemporary design and engineering but as the global market is going through financial turmoil, many businesses adopt it in search of new and innovative solutions that will help them survive and stay competitive. Design thinking can be described as an action-based thinking that focuses on new solutions and not on existing problems.  It seeks to improve future results through the ability to grasp the context of the current situation, use of creative thinking to generate ideas and rational thinking to decide upon objectives, implementation and evaluation methods of the adopted solutions. It differs both from scientific and artistic creative thinking.  Scientific thinking starts with analysis of all parameters of a problem in order to define solution while artistic thinking is most often abstract and concerned with emotional and symbolic aspects and representations of topics. Design thinking is particularly useful i...