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The Invisible Habits of Excellence # 4: Make Room for Creativity
Whatever your problem, creativity is the answer. But creativity needs space; it cannot be summoned on demand. Juliet Funt’s creative moments come when she is lying in bed with her kids, waiting for them to go to sleep. Schedule time to just think. Protect that time.
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The Performance Paradox: Less Effort Yields More Results
A NASCAR pit crew improved its time when they were measured on process, not on a stopwatch. Increasing motivation improves performance only to a point. Don’t measure innovation teams on extrinsic goals like number of ideas; concentrate on the process.
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Finding the Best Solution: Use Line-Thinking to Connect the Dots
Steve Jobs said creativity is having enough dots to connect—finding solutions in different places. Asking for uses of a brick is different from asking to connect a brick to a random object.
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Live Event: Unlocking Creativity: How to Solve Any Problem and Make the Best Decisions
This Live Event was initially webcasted on February 6, 2019.
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Where Does Innovation Come From?
Innovators possess four perceptional habits.
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Innovation Vs. Sheet Music
If your boss gives you a “sheet music” assignment, where all the notes are spelled out, you can still add your creativity. Innovate around the melody and chords. John Kao gives an example.
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Explain Why, Then Get Out of the Way
Leaders should frame a need for creativity and innovation by explaining what it is, why it’s important, some ideas about how it could be done, perhaps some expectations, with emphasis on the vision that propels it. Then get out of the way.
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Alone then Together: Building More Creative Meetings
Forty years of research on brainstorming confirms that creative ideas are best developed in two cycles. Encourage participants to spend quiet time alone before sharing their thoughts, then repeat — time alone followed by group brainstorming.
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How to Innovate Right Now
Reward behaviors that foster innovative, like risk taking, collaboration, and inquisitiveness. Companies that reward outcomes, like a new product launch or a successful proposal, find that their employees stop taking risks, collaborating, and being inquisitive.
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Throw Ideas Away
Put a wastebasket on a table and hand out index cards. Ask participants to write ideas on the index cards, and then put the cards in the wastebasket. Keep going until the index cards are gone. Then sort the cards. The first ideas will be obvious, then they get innovative.
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Utilize Creative People
Companies don’t need to hire more creative people; they need to support the ones they already have.
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Fixation and Imitation
Reusing other people’s examples results in imitation, not innovation.
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Devil's Advocate in Innovation
You can use the position of devil’s advocate to propel advances in innovation.
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How Predictions Kill Innovation
It’s impossible to accurately predict which ideas will turn into blockbusters.
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Using Distance to Unfocus
Creativity is boosted by periods of “unfocus,” which can be achieved through social, temporal, and physical distance.
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Nonlinear Thinking Enhances Creativity
A linear mindset can stand in the way of the creative process.
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Be Honest About Obstacles
Learning about struggles and success is more encouraging than just learning about success alone.
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Forced Connections
Use the attributes of an unrelated object when you’re running out of ideas. For example, Lisa Bodell uses a bag of popcorn to apply “light,” “fun,” and “natural” of the popcorn to help design a table, then a magic marker for ideas to help design a new shower.
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Innovative Teams Do Have An 'I'
Innovative teams require conflict, because conflict provokes innovation.
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Let Adversity Fuel Innovation
Steve Lundin provides two examples of how you can use down time to innovate.
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Rapid Prototyping to Drive More Successful Innovation
Mistakes are bound to happen. Better to learn from them right away.
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Creating an Innovation-Friendly Environment
To create an environment that's friendly to innovation, decrease the clutter and noise.
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The Creativity Killers: How Control and Restriction Can Lead to Destruction
A company can build a culture of creative thinking, but there is a counterculture that fights against that creativity, Gaia Grant says. Here, she identifies and details the seven key killers that can destroy creativity.
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To Innovate Celebrate Failure
To get your team to think innovatively, says Sujaya Banerjee, you must first remove the fear of making mistakes.
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From Creativity to Innovation: Discover, Dream, Design, Decide, Do
Creativity, Ian Metcalfe explains, is part of the innovative process. In this lesson, Metcalfe details five mindsets that make up a collaborative model of innovation.
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Diversity and Creativity Drive a Culture of Innovation
People typically rate themselves differently for creativity and intelligence. Sir Ken Robinson, however, thinks creativity and intelligence are closely related.
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How Leaders Foster Innovation
Organizations need a strategy for innovation—a process for developing new ideas on a regular basis.
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Creativity is a Collaborative Activity
Creativity in organizations is driven more by teams than by individuals.
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Sharing Ideas
One of the best ways to communicate ideas is by creating simple drawings—you don’t even need to be an artist.
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Getting Out of an Innovation Rut
The best way to escape an innovation rut is to bring in others to pull you out of it.
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The Top Three Things New Managers Should Do to Stimulate Innovation
Unless people are given explicit instructions to be innovative, they'll probably play it safe and go with the status quo.
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The Fuzzy Front End
Taking high risks during the early concept phase—the fuzzy front end—can yield high rewards in the end.
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Creativity is Learned
We may understand the need for creativity, but not see ourselves as creative.
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The Power of Diversity
Diversity drives innovation, which provides a competitive advantage. Volvo asked a team of women to design a car. Women don’t like to open the hood; when they do, it’s usually to add washer fluid. The solution was to add washer fluid on the side, as we do gasoline.
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The 5D Cycle of Appreciative Inquiry
To create amazing, positive change, follow the 5Ds: define, discovery, dream, design, and destiny.
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How Does Innovation Really Happen?
Innovation may come not from thinking outside the box, but from finding the right box to think in.
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Creativity Involves a Leap
The creative process involves a leap to connection rational with irrational parts of the brain.