31.10.2024
YOU NEED CREATIVITY TO SUCCEED IN ANY CAREER. TRICKS TO WAKE HER UP
Ideation - to use this word in the 90s was not very prestigious, because it reeked of partisanship. And the English words smelled of modernity, so without any attempts to find a Bulgarian equivalent, creativity became a term.
Because you're not poets, you think you'll get by without her. Nothing like that, be sure that your employer is very interested in your creativity, whether you are a turner, a salesperson, a journalist, or you write advertisements (which is called with the sonorous Bulgarian word creative director). In other words, it likes you to be creative, harness your imagination and come up with interesting ideas on how to perform your tasks better or what market niches the company you work in should focus on. In other words, to create something new. This is what the English word creativity means.
Some bosses really seek out and value employees' ideas. Others talk about creativity only because it is fashionable, but in fact they only like their ideas, they like to command and control their subordinates. They don't give them any freedom, so they kill their imagination and initiatives in the bud.
But if you work in a company where your career depends on a creative approach to the fulfillment of your responsibilities and is even mandatory according to your job description, the problem is how to get that creativity out of yourself.
Naturally, the initial and troubling question is do you own it.
Rest assured, experts believe that most people are capable of creativity. They are not exactly geniuses, but they can come up with something new if they try to get out of the routine.
However, most people are of the opposite opinion. In a survey of 5,000 employees from five countries, only a quarter of them said they considered themselves capable of creativity.
If you've never asked yourself how you could do your job better and harnessed your imagination to that end, you probably don't know whether you're in the three-quarters majority or the one-quarter minority. Well, check it out, but prepare yourself in advance.
Experts say you can start by doing small and simple things to spark your creativity.
Because the most important thing is to get out of the rut you're in, make a very literal change. Change the route to the office and back to your home every day. If you're walking and notice how people have cut a path through the grass to get more directly to the bus stop, it might stimulate you to figure out how you too can shorten some distance in the execution of your tasks.
In the break, you go to drink coffee in a new place. Have lunch at another restaurant. Talk to colleagues you don't communicate with often. In the evening, meet up with friends you haven't seen in a while or contact complete strangers.
Do not think of all this as small, it will refresh your brain with new sights and impressions, it will push it to create. Change leads to innovation because it forces your mind to look for other solutions in purely mundane activities, thus opening it up to different solutions at work, experts say.
And meeting new people can give you ideas. Not directly. A useful idea sometimes comes from a related incident or from an analogy with something that at first glance has nothing to do with your work.
Analogies to another world help organize yours. Specialists often give the example of Steve Jobs, who introduced "folders" into technology. In the dawn of software, they sounded extremely old-fashioned, but he was not afraid to be considered old-fashioned, and today everyone creates precisely folders on their computer to organize their many documents.
Comparing your work to seemingly distant ideas can improve their understanding and ignite a spark of creativity, experts say.
Read because that in itself stimulates the imagination. Fiction makes you imagine what it tells you, and your mind gets creative. Sometimes from a novel or from a fairy tale that you read to the child before falling asleep, an idea for the work can unexpectedly come to you.
For this preparation to be useful, you must still set a goal, direct your creativity to something specific that you want to improve, resolve, create. It helps to let your mind just wander when you're tired or stuck on a task. Otherwise it is not fruitful.
Experts even say that endless freedom is harmful to creativity. Usually you have to come up with something concrete and within some framework. Setting limits may seem at first glance to be counterproductive to stimulating the imagination. The truth is that they encourage flexible thinking because they act as a challenge - one harnesses one's abilities to solve the problem.
An emblematic example of this is the publisher Bennett Surf, who argued with one of his authors that he could not write a children's book with only 50 different words. The writer's name is Theodor Geisel, better known as Doctor Seuss. He won the bass with Green Eggs and Ham, which became one of the best-selling children's books in the United States to date.
Naturally, inspiration will come to you if you step out of the routine and into your direct work. Get rid of everything that is unnecessary detail. Don't waste hours on trivial activities. They will overwhelm your supposedly refreshed and creative brain. Even organize your desk so you don't get distracted by the chaos. Creativity needs time and space, experts point out.
When you start thinking very purposefully about a new solution to a task, be careful to strike a balance between constraints and scale. You have to keep boundaries - ie. to create something actionable, not some phantasmagoria.
But if you really squeeze yourself into the frames, you won't think of anything unusual.
Creativity is really not infinite freedom, but a subtle mechanism in which imagination and reality work together like cogwheels. Even the poet must wonder if anyone understands his spiritual inventions poured into verse.
And you are probably not a poet, although your boss wants you to be creative.
---- Ideas are fragile ----
It may sound silly, but when an interesting idea comes to you, drop everything else and go for it. If you're driving, stop the car, take out your phone or notebook and write down what comes to mind. You may even interrupt your loved one to catch what's on your mind.
After a while, it may be too late, because the idea was born from a specific moment. When he's gone, it's very likely that she'll go with him. And when you immediately start writing it down, you will formulate and refine it. Or at least you'll be throwing it away so you have something to develop later.
A good manager is one who knows how to stimulate and manage the creativity of his employees. If the boss does not master this art, even the most brilliant ideas become waste.
It is very reasonable for you to be a good manager of your own creativity. It is necessary not to violate only three rules:
