Bringing creative thinking to your organization provides you with a focused thinking framework to generate solutions. An investment in creative thinking allows your company to reduce costs, increase your team’s productivity, and increase revenue.

Creative thinking requires a mind shift on your part. First, you must understand the nature of creativity. Creativity means maximizing the potential of your brain. By deliberately using structured creative thinking systems, processes, and techniques, you can learn to generate many, many ideas in just a few minutes and hundreds of ideas in a few hours.

Our focus is on business creativity for the corporation. You must come up with a new idea before you can innovate. Innovation then is the implementation of a good idea that is successfully brought to the market and creates economic value.

Reverse Your Thinking – Reduce Costs by Spending More

How can you reduce costs and still justify your investment in creativity development for your organization? Perhaps we should listen to a creating thinking champion who has real world corporate experience.

David Tanner, former Director of the DuPont Center for Creativity and Innovation, gives examples in his book, Igniting Innovation, Through the Power of Creative Thinking, of how to reduce costs through the use of creative thinking techniques.

An information technology team posed the question, “How can we reduce costs in the information systems function?” They used a lateral creativity thinking technique and specifically applied “reversal.” This required thinking differently with a resulting provocation. “Reduce costs by spending more money.” Spending more money on fewer vendors allowed them to obtain larger discounts with each supplier. They were also able to negotiate better prices on their high volume orders.

They saved over $300,000 annually. This concept saved a similar amount when it was applied to maintenance. Now think about this accomplishment. They spent money but at the same time they reduced their corporate costs significantly. By their investment in a two-hour lateral creative thinking session, they positioned themselves to save more than $5,000,000 over a ten-year period.

For most corporations the entire focus seems to be on cost cutting. We have already demonstrated you can cut costs and still make money by investing in creativity development for your organization.

Increase Revenue Stimulation by Increasing Team Productivity

However, imagine shifting your focus to revenue stimulation. How does creativity development support increasing your revenue?

One way to increase revenue is to increase your team’s productivity by identifying your employee’s thinking styles. By a better understanding of how our brain works, you can align teams to enhance their collaboration and therefore increase their productivity. By taking specific and deliberate steps to increase productivity through the diversity of thinking preferences, it has been scientifically proven that a team’s productivity can increase from 20% to 80%. (Source: The Whole Brain Business Book, Unlocking the Power of Whole Brain Thinking in Organizations and Individuals by Ned Hermann)

You can also increase revenue by developing a focused thinking framework for your sales department. As your sale’s team draws up their strategic account plans and strategies for the coming year, do they wait and hope a good idea will come to them on how they will reach their sales objectives? If you use deliberate creative thinking techniques to generate ideas, you will discover that the ideas come quickly and much more easily. You now have a creative process to generate ideas when you need them.

Creating New Markets and Business Models

Perhaps you want to develop new markets for existing products. Have you considered developing new markets where there is currently no competition? How about new processes or new applications? Creativity development can help your company discover these new markets and new sources of revenue.

Invest in Developing Your Organization’s Creative Thinking

It is now time to bring creative thinking into the corporation to maximize your organization’s ability to thrive. It is a time to design new business models, to develop new markets, and enhance your competitive advantage.

You are currently faced with important business and functional problems with no easy or obvious solutions. The solution is to invest in creativity development. Creative thinking generates the ideas for strategic corporate success by developing the thinking infrastructure needed to spark bottom-line innovations for thriving in today’s new environment.

Are you planning on investing in developing your organization’s creative competence this year?

Solve the puzzle on how to move your innovation forward!

Have you ever wondered why it is that some people are persuasive and are able to move their innovation projects forward?  Why is it that some of us are able to persuade others to understand and accept new concepts?  Some innovators are able to inspire and influence a team to accomplish a common goal. 

Some of us have had the benefit of a significant investment in training to learn how to be persuasive.  However, even though we were taught the techniques, we never understood why some of these techniques worked.

I recently read the book, Influence, by Robert B. Cialdini.  As I read, I finally understood why these persuasive techniques are so influential on others.   Why does our brain instinctually react to certain situations?  Why are we then persuaded to do things we ordinarily would not do?

You will find some practical tips here on how you can immediately create influence and become more persuasive in your efforts to move your innovation projects forward. 

1.)    Ask for a ten minute appointment instead of a longer appointment with executives.  It is far more likely they will grant you a small request for time.  Ten minutes is sufficient time to convey your concept at a strategic level.

 2.)    Quantify and present your idea or initiative in terms of how much money the company “will lose” if it is not adopted instead of how much it will save.

 3.)    To successfully implement your innovation be aware that others need social proof from their respected peers before so they will know how to react to your innovation.  The best way to accomplish acceptance is to identify the most respected individuals within your peer group and persuade them first.  Acceptance of innovation comes from the side not from the top.

 4.)    Explain the benefits of your innovation to team members.  Ask them if they support your initiative.  When they respond in the affirmative, ask them to describe to you why they support your innovation.  You must gain a voluntary commitment, they must be actively engaged, and they must declare their support.  Now you have significantly increased the likelihood they will support your innovation within the organization. 

 5.)    Customize your presentation to each unique receiver.  Use the first letter of that executive’s name or a phrase that sounds similar in the title.  For example:  If their last name is Smith, then begin with an “S.”  To increase the likelihood you will gain their mind share, you might name your presentation, “Sailing into the Future or “Smile on your way to the Bank.”

 6.)    Name your innovation or initiative with a word that is simple and easy to pronounce.  Think of Apple or Google.  If it is hard to pronounce, you have immediately lost your audience before you even began your presentation.  Keep your language simple and straightforward during the rest of your presentation.  Many of us use polysyllabic words in an effort to impress.  The end result is confusion and a loss of persuasiveness.  Remember to keep it simple.

I know these persuasive techniques are effective in moving projects forward.  I have used them many times with superb results.  Try them and let me know if they work for you. 

What other ideas have you used to be persuasive and influential?

Connie Harryman is President of the American Creativity Association-Austin Global.  She is the CEO of Applied Concepts Creativity and identifies herself as a Creativity Developer.  You are invited to connect with Creative Connie on LinkedIn, facebook, and Twitter.

This coming week I will have the honor of being interviewed on blogtalkradio by an incredible woman who won the President’s Call to Service Award.  The host of the Kalon Women in Business Blog Talk Radio Show is Sandra Levitin. 

Sandra is the Founder, CEO, and Publisher of Kalön Women an online magazine for women who simply get better with the passing years just like fine wine.  She and I have several things in common.  We both left the corporate world.  We both enjoyed stellar success in the area of sales and marketing.  We are both from Texas.  We both recognize the power of technology and social media to promote and empower women.  We have found and are pursuing our own passion!

She asked me to share my story about how I found my passion in the field of creativity and innovation.  I am filled with gratitude not only for the journey I have taken, but also because of the choices I have made that allow me to live my passion.

Sandra has provided a vehicle where all of our voices can be heard within the community of Kalon Women.  Sandra created her unique blogtalkradio program featuring Kalon Women in Business.

Life is a journey filled with ups and downs.  When we connect with other women and share our stories, we are able to empower each other and smoothen out the road.

I am grateful to Sandra Levitin for creating this community for Kalon women and making it possible for all of us to connect to the most creative and innovative women in the world.  This is an online community where we can share the challenges we face and the victories we experience.    You are invited to join us.  Please come.

You are now invited to grab a cup of coffee, sit down and listen.  You will be pleased you invested the time to hear my story about how gratitude and passion leads to creative thinking.  Since I was able to overcome some rather incredible challenges, then I know you can do the same.  This is a story meant to inspire you.

Take a few minutes and listen to my interview hosted by Sandra Levitin on the Kalon Women in Business Blog Talk Radio Show.  It will take place this coming Wednesday, November 10^th.     Click here to listen.  The topic is Gratitude and Passion Leads to Creative Thinking.

If this time does not suit you, then please be assured that it will be recorded and you can listen to my interview at a time when it is convenient for you. 

Now it is your time to share.  What are you doing to express gratitude?  Do you keep a gratitude journal?  What steps are you taking to find your passion?

An electric jolt of creative ideas can lead to change!

1. Do not provide a budget for any creative projects. Everyone knows that when you are measured on a quarter by quarter basis, the ROI is simply not there to make your performance look good on a timely basis. The long term consequences of stifling creativity will become someone else’s problem after you are promoted for achieving short term ROI.

2. Make everybody dress the same in bland colors. A good recommendation, if you truly want to kill creativity, is to have everyone dress in blue or grey with white shirts or blouses. Color inspires creativity and this is dangerous to entrenched ideas.

3. Do not allow laughter. If you hear laughter in the hallways this means employees might be having fun and everyone knows creativity flourishes when individuals are having fun.

4. Schedule meetings where only the presenter is allowed to speak. Too much interaction might spark a creative idea from your employees.

5. Promote employees who say, “Yes” to all your ideas. Strangely enough one technique for becoming more creative is to say, “Yes, and …..” However, in this case the employees simply said, “Yes.” They forgot the part where you add to an idea with “and.” Watch out and do not promote any employees who say “yes and ………”

6. Do not allow animated facial expressions. Be sure to reward and cultivate a poker face where there is no visible reaction to anything that happens or is expressed. If someone is animated then there is great danger that they will inspire other employees with unusual ideas. Employees must keep their facial expressions under control at all times. Showing emotion is a clear danger sign of creative thinking being formulated.

7. Make every effort to have a homogeneous team that looks like you. Diversity in physical appearance and in thinking styles should be avoided. When you have people who think differently it just takes too much time to reach consensus.  Diversity just leads to disruptive thinking.  If you want similar thinking, then homogeneity is the way to accomplish this.

8.   Do not become proficient in the latest social media or social networking. If you allow your employees to blog, tweet, and connect on LinkedIn, then they might be exposed to radical ideas from other industries.  Do you really want to expose your organization to the possiblity that these radical ideas will be brought to team meetings?

9.   Do not allow time for employees to pursue creative thinking pursuits. This is such a time waster. If you insist on everyone doing things the way they have always been done, then they do not need to learn new things.

10.  Do not schedule any specialized training for creativity. If your leaders and employees learn how to be creative on demand by using the tools and techniques available to stimulate their brains then they might start generating hundreds of great ideas. This leads to more work for you and the management team.

Can you think of any other innovative ways to stifle creative thinking?

Have you ever wondered why more women do not go into careers in science and technology? Is it possible that we are not offering our young women cool and hip role models to show them that it is quite normal and it is fun to be a computer engineer?

Our young women may wonder, “Am I smart enough to do something that requires brains? Do I have the right stuff to go into science and technology? Is it normal for somebody who wants to be pretty and accepted by both boys and girls to become a computer engineer?”

The United States is no longer the world’s leader in creativity and innovation. Check out my prior blog post entitled,”Mirror, Mirror, on the wall, who is the most innovative country of all?” Did you know that three million jobs went unfulfilled this past year in the field of science and technology in the United States alone?

Oftentimes you are not cool if you are female and you want to be a computer engineer. It is not unusual to suffer social ostracism. I speak from experience. I remember being the “nerd” in high school because I took advanced math courses. I was so embarrassed.

Therefore, how can we make it cool for young women to love mathematics in our middle and high schools?

Here is an article that you will find enlightening about the need to make math cool:  

Academics Say Make Math Cool to Promote U.S. Competitiveness

We must demonstrate to our young women that it is hip and cool to obtain the math education they need to pursue careers in science and technology.

You can make one small difference today to put our young women on the right path to embracing technology. You can send the message that it is is cool and hip to be a technical woman!

Go vote today for Barbie to become a computer engineer so she can become a role model to young women everywhere. Both men and women should vote.

It only takes two seconds, go to http://www.barbie.com/vote/ and vote for Barbie to be a computer engineer.

What tools do you need to promote the development of a creative economy?  Why do we even want a creative economy?   Think about our economic slowdown, our failed schools and our need to build a sustainable community.   

As you have witnessed over the past year, there has been a seismic shift in the skill set needed to be productive and successful during a recession.  You must develop your imagination and empathy to deal with all the surprises that an uncertain future brings to you.  

John J. Cimino, Jr., the founding president and CEO of  Creative Leaps International, made me aware of a proposed bold new investment in culture.  It is called “Art and the Public Purpose:  A New Framework.”   It offers five concepts as the key to our national recovery as well as our cultural recovery.

1.)    Use creativity for the common good.

2.)    Engage all of us.

3.)    Build on all of us.

4.)    Put artists to work to support cultural recovery.

5.)    Stand for the expression, supporting democratic media.

These principles support our values of creativity, equality, responsiveness, hard work and freedom.  We have within our grasp the ability to become more resilient, resourceful and inspiring.

Culture and art are powerful economic drivers.  You can send a powerful message to President Obama and Congress.  It is time to develop a coherent cultural policy.  If you wish to be part of this wonderful movement, you now have the opportunity. 

When you look back, you will be able to smile with pride and say to your children, I helped to transform our country.  We have great schools, jobs are plentiful, and our communities are inspired.  You developed your creativity because you supported a movement to give you access to the right tools.  We were once ordinary and now we are extraordinary!

You should not delay, take action today, and sign the petition.  For more information click here “New Cultural Policy.” 

Now that you have signed it, tell your friends about it.  Thank you!