Creativity and Innovation: Changing the Creative Mindset

Great Entrepreneurial Masters (GEMs) use their skills for creative thinking and innovative implementation to bring personal and business plans to the heights of success. Creativity and innovation come more naturally to some people than others, but they are skills that can be learned and used by all.  Even for those who don’t think of themselves as being creative thinkers, it is possible to learn to integrate creative ideas into your business plan. 

  

Some plans are so basic in nature that they do not require much creativity or innovation.  Other plans test skills in these areas to the limits. 

           

There are people who resist even trying to develop these skills.  They claim that they have never been, and never will be, creative thinkers.  Others adhere to a belief that they are left-brain oriented, hence analytical, and that only the right-brain people are the creative ones.  This “side of the brain" argument is just one of many excuses that people use—especially when defending why they have not reached greater success.  It is easier for them to lay blame than to make the needed efforts to develop their creative abilities.

 

Even if you hold strong to the concept of being a left-brain person, surely you still have enough mental talent to develop your creative and innovation skills.  Recent research shows that creativity is an essentially learned behavior.  In other words, everyone is capable of being creative.

 

In understanding how creativity develops, look to the example of children at play.  Unprompted, children use their imagination to make play more fun.  A child pushing a truck along a carpet can transform that rug into a bumpy terrain or a vast superhighway.  Ask a child with a doll or stuffed animal to tell you about their plaything and you'll most likely hear a very detailed story.  What happens to this ability as we grow into adults?

 

As adults we still have creative ability, but the idea that we must “think like an adult” often blocks all thoughts that are not serious, hence our creative ideas never stand a chance.

 

Make a conscious effort to let your mind wander to the myriad of possibilities—and even impossibilities—and you are on your way to thinking creatively.