Black cabs and stuffed giraffes: building a more creative business

How do you stay creative? Jodie Newman explains a technique that introduces a random agent to keep your thinking fresh.

Here in the Allotment, we have long been banging the drum for creativity as an essential business skill. It sometimes felt like a solitary rhythm, but as business thinking has evolved, that beat has been joined by all manner of other percussive agreement.   Take an article by LinkedIn entitled ‘The Most In-demand Hard and Soft Skills of 2020’ which had analysed the skills most looked for by businesses when looking to recruit. 

What was the skill that took the coveted number one slot? Creativity. It has long been my absolute conviction that great ideas drive business growth. What propels and sustains growth? Ideas. What creates a competitive advantage? Ideas. What evolves your offering? Ideas. You get the idea. At least I hope you do, because ideas are great for business.

It was heartening to see that businesses are recognising that employees with creative skills add significant value to the organisation and are prizing this skill above all others. And coupled with a Deloittes survey I read that stated that 78% of Millennials want to work for a company that encourages innovation and creative thinking, we are perhaps seeing a business landscape shifting in favour of those who recognise the commercial power of a business driven by ideas and are choosing employees from those who seek a creative culture so that they can truly add value and be valued for more than their ‘task-focused’ skills.

So how does a business encourage a more creative culture? 

I often talk to clients about making the most of their brain capital – both theirs, and their employees. I don’t really hold with there being ‘ideas people’ – yes, some people can be naturally more creative, but given the right situation, stimulus (and training), everyone is capable of generating ideas. So my first tip? Involve everyone in coming up with ideas - and do it regularly.

Running regular ideas sessions can be a fantastic way to get everyone involved. It puts ideas firmly on the business agenda, values everyone’s input and creates fantastic collaboration across the business - not to mention maximising your investment in the brain capital in your organisation. Asking your people for their ideas tells them that they have so much more to contribute than just their job-based skill and gives you a wealth of fresh perspectives and ideas. Even as a solo business owner, there is no excuse not to be running regular idea sessions – you just get the luxury of deciding whether to hold the session on your sofa, on the bus or in your back garden.

I talk in detail in my book Build your Business on Ideas about how to structure and run an ideas session, but at the very heart of any session where you are generating ideas are what I call Random Sparks – think of them as a friendly, creative poke of a brain - objects, words, pictures or anything that will jump your brain out of its usual pattern of thinking and into a more lateral, free-associative state where all the best ideas are just waiting to happen. 

So, let’s give you a challenge to use in your first idea session: How to be a more creative business? 

I am sure you can think of a few ideas that could solve this challenge. Now to introduce a Random Spark… let’s say, a taxi driver. How would a cabbie solve this problem?

Well, a cabbie would set the meter running… so maybe you could have a timed idea challenge, or a creative competition between teams or departments to generate new business ideas. A cabbie would expect payment… so perhaps your business could reward ideas that impact the business? A cabbie would chat about the weather… so maybe you could treat your team to a picnic in the park and get their ideas whilst lounging on the grass, nibbling on a sausage roll and enjoying the sun. 

Trust your brain – and the brains in your business – that these Random Sparks will create a different way to think. Scatter them on the table (a teddy, a stuffed giraffe, a photo of a mountain, a model rocket, a book about architecture, a paper clip, an old cinema ticket… there is nothing that can’t be included in your box of Sparks) and get people to pick one to use to spark a new idea. Trust your brain that ideas will come, and it will come up with something. I have been running idea generation sessions for over 20 years and I have never had anyone who has not been able to come up with an idea with a Random Spark in hand.

Starting to build a creative culture is a bold move for a business. It takes commitment and consistency. One idea session will not transform the way a business thinks, but regular sessions, involving all your staff, may well do.

So just grab a stuffed giraffe and get creative. Your brains, your staff and your business will thank you for it.

You can purchase a copy of Build your Business on Ideas here [link to book listing in web shop]. Or you can contact us to talk about how we can run idea generation sessions for your business or train your people to think more creatively here.

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