I had a fantastic afternoon yesterday with a bunch of people that mad my whole evening bubble with energy and good ideas. Thanks Stephanie & Carl, Karim and Joachim! If only all people were bold and open minded as you ... :-)
Many things have been said about the creativity and innovation. In Denmark, you even have a Innovation and Entrepreneurship Line at business school that will teach you how to be innovative...hmm. Can it?
Being innovative or creative is a mindset and it doesn't happen from 9.00 to 17.00, at least not for me and a few others. According to my experience and the piece of research I've found claims that if you want to get some ideas, you need to stay up.
'Early to bed, early to rise, makes you healthy, wealthy and wise', says proverb, which I've never believed in and reminds me rather about Max Weber's Protestant Ethic.
Being innovative is not just staying up late and night, it is also spending time with other people, being inspired by others who dare to color outside the lines. I am fascinated to observe the reinforcing effect such meetings has on the participants. One word leads to an idea, the one idea leads to another, the ideas become to concept and then someone bold says, let's do it! And the snowball gets rolling on.
More brains are clever than the one. Maybe not strictly clever but the brains can influence each other and provoke the incredible streams of ideas. All you need to do is to stay open and listen to others and let your imagination rule. There will be time for rational selection of ideas afterward. The common sense so often destroys great ideas as it doesn't allow them to mature.
After my meeting yesterday I recalled the friends gatherings I was participating when I was in high school. We could sit hours and talk about the craziest stuff provoked by others. It was like chain reaction and the more insane ideas get the more we talked, the more we created. We weren't afraid to say something stupid. The latter fear embraces us totally when we become grown ups. Shame!
My key to creativity is to shake off the fear of saying something wrong, putting aside the common sense for a while and hang out with people who already did it, leaving the office and walking, and of course stay late up in the night.
How do you open the doors to being innovative?
