Break the status quo: the power of creativity

Hello everyone! Welcome to this week’s topic - creativity! And today you play an important part! 

I want to hear from you all by replying to this email or by contacting me on any socials:

What are some of your greatest projects that were fueled by creativity? What outcomes did they have?

Feel free to mention anything: work projects, personal projects, cool youtube videos you did. Anything that has activated your right side of the brain is the goal!

All the replies and stories will form one of the sections of the newsletter next week! So your intake is appreciated and very valuable - let’s shape this platform together.

Today’s read will take about 8 minutes! The clock starts now!

Introduction

I would like to consider myself a creative person. Ever since I was young I enjoyed coming up with little skits, games, or copies of my favourite tv shows. What seemed easy and straightforward did not spark my motivation, so I have always tried to adapt and innovate my experiences: using leaves for money in yard games, replacing people with my toy cars, or inventing cooking shows with the plants from my backyard. As juvenile as these examples sound (I was literally a kid so they are obviously juvenile), they have created neuronal connections between great satisfaction and staying creative. This resonated and stuck with me for the rest of my life, even going strong as I am writing this today.

On one note, staying creative is my opportunity to reshape how I experience the world around me. When someone mentions that an object or a place needs to be used in a strict singular way, my lightbulb flickers and starts brainstorming any other way I could use it. When I have to hold a training session for a group of individuals, I always think of how I can incorporate something different. When giving speeches or writing, I call my inner creative child and ask how they would put it together.

Why? Because creative ideas draw powerful results. They draw interest and attention from your audience, in a trainer setting. They draw innovation and new solutions in a work environment. They draw discovery and curiosity in a research environment. However, being creative requires you to face the possibility of failing. There are limited rules and methods of anticipating the outcome of creativity, so you’re more prone to not reaching the expected results. That’s totally fine. It teaches us to try, rather than to be stuck by perfection.

We see the need for creativity in all job specs: in one way or another, at least one of the requirements is drawing towards the need for responding to change, innovation, and tackling new ideas. It’s a shame that its lack of being objectively graded makes individuals think less of this core skill.

The concept of creative leadership has drawn the success of every single business and product that you are using today. Knowing when to tap into your innovative mind and apply it accordingly will elevate you from a person that applies their leadership knowledge, to a person that lives and acts as a leader through and through. Let’s dive in.

Objectives

Subject

Creative leadership is the ability to turn challenges into opportunities by approaching problem-solving with creative strategies and techniques. Creative leadership involves innovation, a willingness to listen, an openness to new ideas, the intentional prioritisation of creative thinking and the curiosity to embrace unconventional solutions.

According to Linkedin’s article, 6 Elements of Innovation Leadership, an innovative workplace that is rife with creativity must embody the following six elements:

1. Collaborative: Teams that share their unique viewpoints and welcome interactive communication can produce higher levels of creativity.

2. Responsible: Leaders must steer creative workshops and conversations to achieve the desired goal.

3. Experimental: Creative leaders must be open to trying new things and testing novel processes and ideas.

4. Value-focused: A creative environment should keep organisational values top-of-mind when developing business strategies, products, or services.

5. Autonomous: Team members need the flexibility to take questions away and come back with individual answers to collaborate on.

6. Transparent: Transparent communication helps team members and leaders record new ideas, track which concepts have been tested, and regroup throughout the ideation process.

Creativity isn’t just about developing innovative products for your customers: a creative team can identify better ways to execute internal processes, find better ways to market a product, come up with better options in a negotiation, and solve problems more effectively. A creative mindset is an open mindset that effectively creates meaningful and effective ideas and solutions. When leaders adopt this mindset, they encourage problem-solving for their teams, opening up opportunities for business growth and new uncharted areas.

When leaders innovate, they break the status quo to create products and services that differentiate them from others with a competitive edge. They build a culture of innovation by inspiring teams to exhibit their creativity collectively.

One might argue that a leader can be irrelevant in a creative sessions: that it somehow asks us to manage what results the teams will be coming up with. There is a need for changing this perspective: one doesn’t lead creativity. One lead for creativity.

Framework

The most effective way for leaders and employees to enhance their sense of job security and satisfaction is by adding value to the organisation and team. According to IBM’s global CEO survey, CEOs rated creativity as the number one attribute they look for in new employees.

Creativity in leadership is also evident in an organisation’s return on investment. Research by McKinsey & Company shows that creative leaders outperform their competitors on key financial metrics, including:

• 67% had above-average organic revenue growth.

• 70% had above-average total return to shareholders.

• 74% had an above-average net enterprise value.

Consider the following tips for implementing creativity in your leadership style:

Looking at the plethora of responsibilities a leader needs to perform within the timeframe of a week, one can notice that creativity can take many forms, and be used continuously, in scenarios such as:

1. Using storytelling to make our presentations more powerful for our audience.

2. Considering multiple options during project discussions and coming up with new solutions that can drive success.

3. Refining our ideas into more complete suggestions for our teams and stakeholders.

4. Sharing our knowledge with others, specifically in managing to transmit our points in an effective and captivating way.

Final thoughts

Creative leaders drive innovation. To welcome the new, leaders must question legacy systems and traditional management techniques. As a result, leaders are operating in an age of constant technological innovation, where businesses use data and advanced technology to rethink outdated business strategies.

According to Linkedin’s poll from 660+ million professionals and 20+ million jobs, the greatest skill gap is the ability to generate original ideas and solutions, otherwise known as creativity.

Fast Company also recognises the value of creativity and its role in driving innovation: “Innovation doesn’t have to require deep pockets. We often think about the cost of innovation relating to Research & Development labs, hiring top scientists, and emerging technology, when really, we need to invest in creating the right environment for innovation to take place. It’s about spending time, not money.”

Oftentimes, leaders who choose to prioritise creative time will see higher returns, as was the case with organisations that saw 67% above-average organic revenue growth in our previous example. This is because creativity and innovation are strongly linked, and innovation drives organisational growth. To make ripples as a leader, one must nurture their creativity.

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Quality content

Today’s topic has been greatly inspired by a conversation with some of my friends about creativity and the importance of it in human development. We then continued to share stories about moments in our lives where we felt most in touch with our creative part of our brains.

One thing led to another and I remembered I used to run a travel videos Youtube channel called TravelNow back in 2017 up until 2019. I loved every second of it - the quality of the videos was exponentially growing and I was feeling like my storytelling was shining through.

I was unfortunately too young to not be driven by numbers, and I have stopped editing videos way too soon. I placed results over the process, don’t be like me.

As an accolade to creativity and the power it has, I’ll share with you today one of my videos, from Singapore. Enjoy!

That’s it for today! Thank you for being here! Have a great week ahead!

Razzmatazz without the matazz.