A while ago, I wrote a post that distinguishes between evolution and revolution. I wrote this, because I’m constantly thinking about doing radical things, and know deep down it’s the only way to both enjoy life, and be successful it in.

The world isn’t without risk, be that in our personal lives or in business. So, why do we hide from them so often?

Then I wondered, is it because of visibility?

We all know, if we take a second to stop and think, that live is full of risk – just walking across the road, something we do every day (if you’re not glued to your car) is risky. But we go ahead and cross – why? We do it because, like the chicken, we need to get to the other side. We take these risks so often, that we come blind to their very existence.

Are you so blind to the risks you take each day, that when it comes to taking new risks – you get scared?

Take a risk, or money down the drain?

Some people associate risk with disaster, taking a risk equates to throwing money down the drain in some instances; but why?

All well run businesses work well, because they plan well. They think about what they are doing and invest in well thought out ideas. They play the game, they make the game – they disturb the norm. The experts do it differently, and they do it daily.

So, how do the not so well run business do it? Well, lack of planning for a start – bad execution, poor research, blind assumptions, or by ignoring the people who know – i.e. the customer or the shop floor sales assistant.

Are you so bad at planning, so miserable at executing your ideas that you get stuck?

Are you such a poor thinker, that you can’t ask the right people the right questions?

Are you such a dreadful listener that those around you can’t support you no matter how hard they try?

If so, what exactly is it you’re doing running a business? If you have these problems, and you’re not bringing in people to solve them – are you really going to be around for long?

You wouldn’t make big business decisions on the flip of a coin, but nor would the big innovators that you see today.

When you innovate, or create a revolution, or throw out the rule book, or write your own – you take risks. But what you don’t do is take stupid risks. You have faith in what you’re about to do, but that faith is not blind.

There’s only one way to take away the fear of change, and that’s to enjoy the rush.

Do something special, do something different. If not for your business success, if not to secure a new contract, if not to capture a large market share – do it because it’s fun.

If you need help, go to a theme park. Get on a rollercoaster that feels dangerous, but has been well designed.

That what you need to do – make it feel dangerous, but design it well.

Okay, so… You’ve got the culture; you’ve got the great people, the ideas and the motivation – but wait!

NO time!

The company I work for is a smart, creative and progressive company that copes with the ebbs and flows of creative industries. We have product development meetings and regularly get together to solve problems – or to generally figure out how to do things just that little bit better.

Each of us is an expert of some sort or another; some more-so than others, of course. We’re each open minded, happy with our jobs and get a thrill out of overcoming the challenges we face every other day.

Skills are distributed, the team works together and we get on with our boss’, and their ideas. We’re not restricted in our work – well, other than the client’s brief that is.

So what’s the problem?

What about time, money, workload even?

Sometimes a team can have all the right ingredients, but lack the available resources to move forward. Or, at least at a pace it’s capable of.

We’ve been a little slow recently as far as PD is concerned; luckily we’ve got loads of work coming in.

What’s even better than that is that even though we don’t have the time just now, we’ve not lost sight of our goal – to change for the better.

Sometimes you’ll hear from business leaders – we just don’t have the time or the people to do things differently. Just make sure that’s true, and it’s not an idle excuse.

Not having the time is no excuse to give up, to ignore it or procrastinate; for the truly innovative work to the bone and at least keep ahead of the pack.

Creativity in business – nice or necessity

Being a creative thinker gives a person many advantages over his or her colleagues. Allowing the passing on of that creative thinking to the rest of the business however, creates an advantage over its [the business] competitors – sometimes enough to give it an edge.

The culture within a business concerned with creativity needs to be very open. It is no longer the domain of those upper managers.

To clarify: Empowering your employees by giving them opportunities to be creative, or going further by creating expectations and training on it, does not make them decision makers. You shouldn’t panic as a manager if your workforce is paying attention to things you’re confident wont work. As a manager you’re there to ensure they don’t go off too far.

Someone with the right talents or training will have a valuable set of skills to use when working on an idea.

Give your people the power to negotiate its acceptance, by you the manager and the rest of the workforce.

Con-di-vergence

When looking at an idea, there are usually two main themes of thinking. These two different ways of looking at things are: Convergent Thinking and Divergent Thinking.

Convergence:
Involves judging and aims to eliminate all options but one.
Divergence:
Involves moving away from current beliefs and options

So why do you need to know about this?

When being creative, especially within a group, these two types of thinking affect the how productive you are. It’s important to understand their impact so that we can personally ensure we are offering what is most needed in a group at any one time.

Convergent Thinking

This type of thinking (which is the most natural) is used to find a single thought or idea and to challenge all others to beat it. Any other ideas that do not measure up are discarded.
When you have a series of good, well thought out ideas, and you’re not sure which one to choose - this process is good. However, when you are in the middle of being creative, it’s no good shooting down every single idea, because it’s not amazing the very second it’s thought of.

Divergent Thinking

You will find that there are many ideas you will create that wont sound too practical when you first think of them. If you give them room to blossom however, they can mature in to brilliant and intelligent ideas. You can increase the amount of ideas you have by changing the way you look at old ideas, or by looking at your new ideas from different angles.

So what about the ones that don’t make it? Isn’t it a waste of time working on ideas that don’t mature?

The benefit of working on an idea, even if you know it’s not going to work, or you’re unsure whether it will, are:

Most of all, you’ll have fun, which is important (humour is a right brain activity, as is your creativity).
Ideas beget ideas (every time you throw ideas around, you think of even more).
Most of all, you get experience at playing with ideas.

A very important creative skill is to be able to take something you don’t like, and make it into something you do like. This is the essence of changing things for the better; there is always a starting point. The same goes for ideas, just because you don’t like the idea, that doesn’t mean you’ll never like any version of the idea.

Imagine a ‘discussion’ between three people Nimisha, Craig and Darren, on the subject of increasing empathy:

Nimisha: ‘How about giving training on empathy skills?’

Craig: ‘We did empathy ages ago and it didn’t work’.

Darren: ‘They’ll only end up being ‘too’ empathetic, a that scares the customers away’.

Nimisha: ‘What about an incentive scheme for showing empathy?’

Craig: ‘That will only de-motivate the staff that aren’t empathetic’.

Darren: ‘What they need, is not more training but a kick up the backside; they should know how to be empathetic anyway’.

How long will Nimisha continue to offer ideas? Convergent thinking, which involves judging and aims to eliminate all options but one, drives out divergent thinking. The two have to be kept separate. Divergent thinking needs a safe environment, free from judging, where ideas can feed off one another.

The first and most important lesson for creative thinking is that the two types of thinking have to be kept separate. You cannot have only good ideas, but if you have enough ideas there may be some good ones amongst them.

So, is convergent thinking always bad?

Certainly not, there are many times when convergent thinking helps. Convergent thinking only really becomes negative and is a draw back when one gets stuck, and only uses this style. Being aware of its time and place is the most important thing, so as to ensure you don’t sour your productivity.

When is convergent thinking good?

A lawyer is a good example of someone who would use convergent thinking in a productive manor. Lawyers will often think of all the arguments for and against something systematically in an attempt to anticipate potential pitfalls in their clients’ position.

You too can spend time systematically attempting to find potential problems with the ideas your working on; as long as you are aware that that is what you are doing. In most situations however, you should try to only interject convergent thinking in to a small percentage of your working time.