Creativity – Key Factor for Successful Business

Business has to exercise your creative instincts. ~Richard Branson

For centuries creativity was attribute of artists. In last 30 years importance of creativity in a context of business activities increased dramatically. Today creativity is highly required skill not only in marketing department but also in engineering or finance professions. Mentioning creativity in finances I do not mean a Tyco or Enron way of “being creative in finance”.

Today we are knowing, that creativity is rather skill not a gift. Modern theories of creativity are trying to  find and answer to question “Why some people are more creative than others?”. These theories are describing creativity as process. Well, and who better than managers know how to manage, improve and re-engineer processes?

To understand how to support creativity, still rare asset in many companies, let’s have a look what conditions are favourable to allow creativity grow.

One of the myths is telling that people are creative working under stress. The truth is that there is direct relation between emotions and creativity. Positive emotions increasing creativity while negative ones decreasing. What it means for us? Well, we can create an organisation culture which is based on positives, not negatives. Promoting working environment full of positive emotions we get creativity as a bonus. More over, such organisations naturally attracting better workers. It is proven, that people who are realistic optimists are performing much better than pessimists.

Second thing which we as managers can do to support creativity in our organisation is to support cultural variety. This is natural catalyst for creativity. Different people are looking at the same problem from different perspective. It starts creative thinking process in other member of the team.

The next step after employing creative people, support creative environment is to make sure that organisation is able to manage creative teams. To be successful in this tasks organisations must understand benefits from being creative. Among many others I will mention two biggest benefits for every organisation. First of all creative approach (in every aspects of business activities) helps differentiate. Next benefit for promoting creative behavior can be treated like insurance against unexpected. When the crisis situation come (which is only question of time) creative teams will find better ways how to manage crisis.  This will make every organisation stronger – people will believe that what ever future will bring, they have a creative skill to manage this.

Recipe for success will be to integrate creativity in your business models. Create conditions conducive for creativity. Once it is done, you will never regret. Because creativity is a key factor for successful business; and we are all creative.

Related articles:

Getting Down to the Business of Creativity by Julia Hanna

The 6 Myths Of Creativity by Bill Breen

The Role Of Creativity In Business  by Nick Rice

6 Steps to Achieving Creativity in Business, Personal Life by Deborah Kotz