Although numerous creativity techniques are regularly used in everyday business, the results are often mediocre. First, because not every technique is equally suitable for everyone. Second, because even these techniques follow rules and allow only limited real “wiggle room”.
How remembering your childhood days can help you with a blockage.
Awaken your creative possibilities
Design thinking, mindmaps, brainstorming, the Walt Disney technique – methods designed to stimulate ideas and creativity abound. But if you have already worked with such techniques in seminars, you already know the weak points. Creativity is individually different. That’s why not every method fits every participant. The pressure to deliver innovations at the end of the workshop is also counterproductive.
Do you remember how you used to play as a child? Children don’t just forget space and time when they get excited about a game. They also find the materials they need in and around the house. Unfortunately, most adults forget the creative possibilities that lie dormant within them. Give space to these features if you really want to be creative.
1. freedom of movement – any room is a good room
Children are flexible when they play. They make whatever terrain is available their own. Most of all, though, they like to have plenty of room to move around.
When you’re looking for ideas, don’t limit yourself spatially. Give yourself and your team a chance to move around. This could be a large meeting room, a place in the countryside, or a completely different location, such as an aqua zoo, a technology museum, or a flight simulator. Give not only your body but also your mind freedom of movement.
A place is only really good when you can not only sit there, but also lie down, stand and walk. Especially when it comes to technical and ergonomic developments, an unrestricted circle of movement is a must.
However, children also manage to play with figures when they only have a seat available. If you have only limited space available for brainstorming, at least remove all mental restrictions.You can also discuss resources and laws later. You can also discuss resources and laws later. If the idea is really good, the conditions often change as well. To put it more graphically: If you are looking for energy, for example, do not commit yourself to wind turbines beforehand, if water propulsion is also possible.
2. what, who, when, why – stay curious
If you are looking for new ideas, stay curious. Why do things work that way and not differently? Are there alternatives? Who makes the rules? What does the user say, and what does he or she really want? Can it be done faster, more elegantly, more effectively, more environmentally friendly?
Children drive their parents to despair in the why phase. But it is precisely this questioning that you need to apply if you want to fathom something in detail. Only when you have understood a product or service in all its details will you automatically find creative approaches to change.
3. Without limits – the power of openness
Openness means the absence of limitations. This applies to material and spatial limitations as well as to mental ones. Creativity means exactly this openness to all possibilities. Children are naturally open to ideas, people, processes and places. They are not afraid and believe in the good until they experience the opposite. Adults are much more judgmental. They draw conclusions based on similar experiences, thereby depriving themselves of the opportunity to have new experiences.
Openness is also synonymous with honesty. Children say what they think. Sometimes very bluntly. Take a cue from them. When you’re looking for creative breakthroughs with your team, reduce all boundaries. Only define what is really necessary. Additionally, encourage your employees to be open and honest in their criticism, as long as it is respectful.
4. Joy – find fun in the matter
One thing you can learn perfectly from children: if it is not fun, they will stop. Even with difficult tasks, find the childlike, adventurous spirit of discovery again. Only when you forget about time and really have fun about it does an opportunity open up for real innovation.