How to Boost Creativity in Your Business: A Journey

At this stage in the journey, I think we can all agree that creativity is the source of innovation and a driver for business growth. In today’s progressive businesses it is the Holy Grail quest. Leaders and founders yearn for this elixir of sustainable growth and differentiation. Agreed.

In April I set out on a month-long expedition for the far flung outposts beyond my current ideas about creativity in business. Join me? You do not want miss the brainpokes and snippets of fresh ideas gleaned from paths trod and frontiers traversed. I have mixed in notes of unexpected, but worthwhile, pit stops.

At first glance I may appear to be indulging in an aimless jaunt down the rabbit hole. In fact my journey was a deliberate exploration. I am still unpacking souvenirs of new thinking for me and fresh approaches for my clients. I think you might find some of them useful and valuable too.

Why You Need to Build Your Business with a Creativity Bias

First of all, let’s nix a common myth and replace it with a fact. Everyone, and I mean everyone, is creative. The level of creativity is dependent on your mindset and how often you exercise your creative muscle.

The fact is, unleashing (sorry, I could not resist using this cliche) creativity in your organisation is hard and not for the faint-hearted founder, leader, or HR pro. It is punishing work, disconcerting, downright uncomfortable and notoriously difficult to cultivate a creativity culture.

If you are not ready to do real work, stop reading now. This particular blog post is not for you .However, if you are ready for an adventure and are willing to get to work with an open mind, follow the signposts of this journey.

4 Important Bold Moves to Boost Creativity in your Business

1. DIVERSITY, DIVERGENCY AND INCLUSION. I received word that the folks over at Open for Ideas were shaking up the prevailing thinking with a two month deep-dive into the topic of diversity and divergency.  Furthermore, they were investigating how they can be used a positive force for creativity in business. As April drew to a close, I arrived at the tail end of their creative dig and jumped right into the lively conversation already in progress. You can read my contribution here.How to Conquer the Enemy Lurking within Your Workplace Culture.

"Defend your team or organisation against group-think and stranger-danger mentality"

In this guest blog, I reveal a dangerous enemy and serious threat to the chances of creativity taking root in your business. You will find ideas how an organisation can build a culture of genuine inclusion without becoming a brainless cult. I tarried a while but the questions buzzing in my mind would not let me rest. I continued on my quest, eventually stumbling across this sweet gem in the bitter wasteland of corporate demands.

2. NO IFS OR BUTS; YOUR BUSINESS NEEDS REBEL EMPLOYEES. The Rebel Employee Manifesto from Rebels at Work is a beyond brilliant brainpoke that sets out this particular employee tribe’s needs and conditions for contribution. Vive La Différence! 🙌Today, these are the employees you need; but ONLY if you are serious about building a business by increasing creativity, innovation and down-right give a hoot awesomeness (note, no mention of 'engagement') from your employees.

"No ifs or buts, your business needs 'rebel' employees for creativity and innovation"

Leaders, you have been served a notice! There is no need to wait for the results of the annual employee engagement survey. Are you ready for the rebel employee movement? Ready or not; you cannot lead how you have always led to get the results your business needs today.

You cannot direct HR or manage the operation how you have always done it yesterday or the day before.If you stubbornly persist down this track, it could all end in tears. You will more than likely end up with a culture plagued by chaos and calamity instead of one in which creativity thrives.

3. GET YOUR REBEL RECRUITMENT REINFORCEMENTS HERE. Do you know how to hire rebel employees? Help is at hand. Banana Pepper HR supports the rebel cause  by constantly cooking up ways to help businesses hire creative, different-thinking, high value-contributing 'rebel' employees.

Get started with a FREE interviewer's guide with 77 scorching super skills questions to Hire Remarkable Employees. You may have downloaded your copy and are already using your Hiring Guide. If you have do not hoard the goodies for yourself. Please share this guide so that others can also quickly inject a creative spark in doddery, dry hiring processes .

4. FIX WHAT IS BROKEN Whilst on my trip letters of introduction were sent ahead. As a result I received an invitation to join host Justin Brady on The Creativity Cultivator podcast for a chat.Listen to our part fun, part serious but 100% practical discussion about cultivating creativity in business. We talk about the need to “Un-break HR”, borrowing ideas from other discipline and finally the genuine ways an integrated Creative HR approach can be the glue to fix broken channels to creativity. Listen to that podcast episode here.

We have arrived at the end of the highlights from my exploration into how to boost creativity in business.

• Which entries from my travel journal resonated with you?

• How are you boosting creativity in your organisation?

We must not stop because our journey is not over by a long shot. We’ve only just begun to scratch the surface to discover how creativity is fantastic for business growth. Until we meet again down the HR rabbit hole...