Creativity Leads Productivity

Are you looking for ways to be more productive, or to help your team become more productive?

Trying to go faster is of limited use. Working harder will wear you out. Blaming yourself does not help. What you need is more creativity.

Creativity leads productivity by unlocking new ways of doing things. By breaking limitations. By forging new techniques. By testing the impossible. By focusing on solutions instead of issues.

Sometimes the problem is outside of you, but the solution starts within.

Find it. Create it. Do those activities that open up your mind to new possibilities. For some people that is exercise. For some people it is painting. For others it's a stimulating conversation with a trusted friend.

How can you spark more creativity that can lead to more productivity?

Here are just a few possibilities:

Think of the opposite of your deliverable. What would it take?
Combine an idea from other process. How would that work?
Take a walk and let your body energize your ideas. What haven't you thought of yet?
Make music, even if you're not a musician. How does it feel to have both sides of your brain working together?
Explore how a leader in another field tackles productivity. What solutions in that field might be interesting in yours?
Change your workspace to create more opportunities to flow, rather than impede energy. That could mean a desk where you stand instead of sit. Or placing equipment that is within reach.
Team up with new people and talk about the changes you want to make. What ideas do they have?

What creative ideas of your own spring to mind?

-- Douglas Brent Smith

Creativity plays a large role in our workshop Solving Problems. I invite you to contact me today about bringing this workshop to your location:

doug@frontrangeleadership.com

Comments

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How are you at keeping up? Change is so rapid that adjusting, and evolving, has become a full time job. We roll with the changes, we drive new changes, we let go of the old. It's not getting easier, and it's getting faster. I work at it. I keep learning. I keep adjusting, and still... By the time I have it figured out it's time to try something else. Instead of getting frustrated, here's how I like to look at it: change is growth. Faster change is faster growth. Getting better is growth, so the more change the better. Are you with me on that? Because the alternative is slow-motion decay, and we don't want that, do we? -- Douglas Brent Smith

Tough and Tender

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