Creativity

Creativity is the act of turning new and imaginative ideas into reality. Creativity is characterized by the ability to perceive the world in new ways, to find hidden patterns, to make connections between seemingly unrelated phenomena, and to generate solutions. Creativity involves two processes: thinking, then producing. Your ability to generate innovative ideas is not merely a function of the mind, but also a function of five key behaviors that optimize your brain for discovery:

1. Associating: drawing connections between questions, problems, or ideas from unrelated fields.

2. Questioning: posing queries that challenge common wisdom.

3. Observing: scrutinizing the behavior of customers, suppliers, and competitors to identify new ways of doing things.

4. Networking: meeting people with different ideas and perspectives.

5. Experimenting: constructing interactive experiences and provoking unorthodox responses to see what insights emerge.

Somebody had a mantra that runs through the DNA of the companies. The mantra is A-B-C-D. (Always Be Connecting the Dots). Creativity is a practice, and if you practice using these five discovery skills every day, you will develop your skills in creativity and innovation.

'Creativity is the ability to see relationships where none exist.' For example you can make comparisons between your company and others outside of your industry. 

Put questions to your clients like: 'What companies do you most admire and why?' 'What are they doing that you could adapt or adapt to your own company?'

Everyone has creative abilities. The more training you have and the more diverse the training, the greater the potential for creative output. In creativity quantity equals quality. The longer the list of ideas, the higher the quality of the final solution. Quite often, the highest quality ideas appear at the end of the list. 

Overcoming myths about creativity and beliefs that only special, talented people are creative (and you have to be born that way) diminish our confidence in our creative abilities. The notion that geniuses such as Shakespeare, Picasso, and Mozart were 'gifted' is a myth. Researchers examined outstanding performances in the arts, mathematics, and sports, to find out if  ' the widespread belief that to reach high levels of ability a person must possess an innate potential called talent.'

The study concludes that excellence is determined by:

* opportunities

* encouragement

* training

* motivation, and

* most of all, practice.

No one reached high levels of achievement in their field without devoting thousands of hours of training. Mozart trained for 16 years before he produced an acknowledged masterwork. Moreover many high performers achieve levels of excellence today that match the capabilities of a Mozart from the turn of the century.

Follow these simple rules and you will foster a culture of creativity and innovation.

Believe you can change the world. Work quickly, keep the tools unlocked, work whenever. Know when to work alone and when to work together.

Share-tools, ideas. Trust your colleagues.

No politics. No bureaucracy. (These are ridiculous in a garage). 

The customer defines a job well done.

Radical ideas are not bad ideas.

Invent different ways of working. 

Make a contribution every day. If it doesn't contribute. it doesn't leave the garage.

Believe that together we can do anything.
Invent.