10 Ways to Foster More Creative Solutions and Breakthrough Discoveries

10 Ways to Foster More Creative Solutions and Breakthrough Discoveries

Creativity in business is the key to innovation, and in this era of rapid change, can mean the difference between your long-term business success and failure. However, in my role as a business advisor, I still find too many owners who fall into the rut of rejecting creativity to minimize change and keep costs down.

Record new ideas immediately

Great ideas can slip away just as fast

Evaluate ideas for pluses, potential, and concerns (PPC)

Save the concerns until last, and address them with a creative question.

Creativity Requires Practice

Don’t give up quickly if your creative skills seem awkward or contrived at first.

Strive to see new problems as new opportunities

Every new problem is just the sign of a gap from where you are to where you need to be

Develop habits that increase creativity

Ask multiple questions that push the limits of your thinking

Ask for new ideas

Be open to new ideas from your team and others.

Separate imaginative thinking from judgmental thinking

Collect a range of ideas first, before trying to evaluate any of them

Set a target of at least 40 ideas

The more ways you can find to accomplish your goal, the greater your chances of doing it with creativity and innovation.

Redefine every problem from multiple perspectives

In business, this means taking a customer view, vendor view, as well as your internal process view.

Look for problem connections to other disciplines.

Many times a problem gets solved in one environment, but years go by before the implications are recognized in other disciplines

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