Facts, figures, and numbers always have and always will play a crucial role in the world of business. They are not, however, the be-all and end-all of entrepreneurial success. If you want to maximize your potential as a company owner, you are advised to delve beyond the cerebral elements of your operation. In layman’s terms — put that spreadsheet down and spend some time boosting your creativity!
Performing this crucial task will benefit you in a number of different ways. It will help you to stand out from the crowd within your market, it will help you to cultivate an innovative brand image for yourself, and it will help you to overcome certain challenges that you may have struggled with previously.
If your aptitude for creative thinking currently leaves a lot to be desired, fear not as help is at hand. Insightful advice on how to boost your business’s creativity can be found below.
Facilitate teamwork
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No matter how creative you may or may not be on a personal level, you will never truly let your creative juices flow until you begin to collaborate with other people. By facilitating teamwork within your organization, you will create the perfect platform on which to generate ideas. You and your fellow team members will bounce suggestions off of one another, your collective goal being to form an amalgamation of all the innovative ideas that you propose. Ultimately, this should result in you producing creative content capable of actively moving the needle within your sector.
Thanks to the rise of modern collaboration tech, facilitating teamwork within both your immediate and extended working environment need not be an arduous endeavor. When you make use of Microsoft Teams, for example, you and your dispersed team members will be able to remain in direct contact with one another at all times. No matter how much distance physically stands between you and them, this collaboration platform will streamline the communication process you share with your employees. Ultimately, this will allow you to forge deep, meaningful, and creative connections with your workforce throughout the course of each working day.
To ensure that you get the most out of this communication solution, it’s recommended that you take advantage of the Microsoft Teams services provided expertly by AvePoint. Amongst a slew of other benefits, this will allow you to migrate, govern, and optimize your teamwork hub in a safe and secure fashion.
Be open to constructive criticism
You may be the boss, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that your employees will let you off the hook if your creativity isn’t up to scratch. Once you facilitate a collaborative atmosphere within your place of work, you better be prepared to have some constructive criticism fired your way. And if you truly want to flex your creative muscles, you should welcome this criticism with open arms. There’s nothing wrong with people providing you with honest feedback on your work. In fact, this feedback could be just what you need to hone your creativity and, in turn, come up with needle-moving ideas in the future.
If your capacity for accepting constructive criticism currently leaves a lot to be desired, you might want to consider heeding the advice provided here.
Go outside
Whenever you work for long periods at a time, your brain is liable to suffer from mental fatigue. This will make it increasingly difficult for you to engage with your creativity, which in turn will hold you back from producing innovative ideas.
To provide your mind with a much-needed reprieve in this sense, it’s highly recommended that you step away from your computer screen and go outside. Immersing yourself in the wonders of the natural world is a great way to relax, recalibrate, and ultimately ready yourself for the creative challenges that lay ahead.
Keep notes
Whenever that wondrous ‘eureka!’ moment strikes, don’t run the risk of it disappearing into the ether of your subconscious mind. As soon as something triggers your creativity or you encounter a lightbulb moment, note the idea down as soon as possible. Whether you actively incorporate this idea into your next project pitch or whether you merely add it to your burgeoning idea board, keeping notes in this sense will help you to commit to continuous creativity. Sooner rather than later, operating in this manner will lead you to unearth innovative elements in even the most mundane of situations, places, objects, and people.
Set yourself ‘process’ goals
Instead of setting yourself overarching long-term goals, break your aspirations down into bite-sized chunks by setting yourself ‘process‘ goals. This is the act of setting yourself smaller objectives that will actively help you to achieve your larger aspirations in life. For example, instead of aiming to ‘write an industry ebook,’ break the creative process down by focusing on everything you will need to do to achieve this dream (conducting research, improving your grammar, finding a publisher, etc.).
By embracing the ‘process’ goal-setting method, you won’t run the risk of taking on a commitment that you are not capable of fulfilling. This will provide you with clarity and freedom with regard to achieving your aspirations, which in turn will protect your creativity from becoming stifled further on down the line.
As would be the case if you were setting any other type of objective, your ‘process’ goal-setting process should look a little like this:
- Consider the results you want to see both in the short- and long-term
- Make your goals S.M.A.R.T (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Time-conscious)
- Write your aspirations down (this will make it easier for you to manifest them into reality)
- Create an action plan that covers all of the steps you need to take to achieve your goal
- Draw up a timeframe in which you wish to achieve your goals
- Assess and re-evaluate your objectives as you progress
Want to boost your capacity for creative thinking? If so, be sure to follow the creativity-boosting guidance laid out above.
