Inner Mind Creativity (Part 6)

By Jeffrey Baumgartner

 

Part Two: Turning Your Vision into Reality

The Very First Thing You Must Do

The marvellous thing about cosmic creativity is that your mind is able to see, hear, touch, taste and smell incredible creative visions that exist entirely within the realm of the mind. The downside to cosmic creativity is that these creative visions exist only within the realm of the mind where they are safe and secure from criticism, mishaps and failure. It is often very tempting simply to keep your creative visions safely in your mind rather than take the risks inherent in implementing your visions. However, if you want not merely to think creatively, but to act creatively; if you want to innovate – which in business is the implementation of creative ideas to generate value – you need to turn your visions into reality.

In order to do this; in order to bring your creative visions to life, you need to do something very simple conceptually but difficult in practice. You need to make a decision. You need to decide to take action on your vision. You need to say, “Let's make this happen.”

And, once you've made that decision, you need to make a commitment. You need to promise yourself and anyone else involved in the vision that you will implement your creative vision and turn it into creative reality.

Do not just think it. Do not decide to do it tomorrow. Say it out loud. Make that promise and act on it. Your creative vision is too beautiful not to implement.

Step By Step

If your creative vision is a relatively simple one to implement, you can simply act upon it. If so, do it. Act upon it now.

However, most creative visions are not simple to implement. Indeed, those visions that seem most beautiful and incredible as you build them in your mind suddenly seem intimidating and overwhelming when you contemplate taking action. It would be all too easy to keep such visions in the mind and not implement them.

But, just a couple of paragraphs ago, you made a commitment. You have no choice. You need to take action.

Getting Started on Implementation

First, formulate the implementation of your vision as a goal. Then break the goal down into a series of small, manageable steps that will eventually take you to your goal.

Small steps have the advantage of being much less intimidating and much more manageable. Moreover, as you complete each step, you receive the satisfaction of accomplishment together with making measurable progress towards your overall goal: the implementation of your vision.

The best way to do this is to ask yourself, “What steps must I take to achieve my goal of implementing my vision.” and start breaking your vision down into smaller actions that you can take. At this point, do not worry about putting the steps in order. Indeed, sometimes it is easier to start at the final goal and work backwards.

Once you have defined the steps, review each of them individually. Ask yourself: “Is it manageable?”, “Can I realistically see myself doing that step?”, “Does it intimidate me?” If the step seems too big and intimidating, try breaking it down into smaller steps.

Collaborating on Implementation

If you are implementing a vision as a team, do the same as above, but once you have broken the goal of implementing your vision into manageable steps, you must assign a member of the team to take responsibility for each step. In addition, you or a member of the team must take charge of the overall implementation, including planning of the steps, ensuring that those responsible for each step do what they are expected to do and reporting on progress to the group.

As you review each step, ask the person in charge if the step is manageable and if not, why not. If the step is intimidating, break it down further. You can also show team members how to do this if you anticipate problems in implementation

Elements of Your Action Plan

In a business or other organisational setting, there are a number of elements that should be considered above and beyond the details of the vision itself.

Authorisations

Who needs to approve the implementation of your vision? Is there one overriding authority or must you seek approvals from a number of different people?

Be careful as you seek authorisations, especially with a very creative project. In most organisations, there are lots of people who can say “no”, but few who can say “yes” and actually approve your project. Clearly, you want to avoid the “no” people as much as possible and go straight to a “yes” person.

Who is that person? How can you approach her?

Money

Most projects require a budget. How much will you need? From where will the money come? Who needs to approve the budget?

If the project is coming out of your own budget, does it make financial sense? Do a cash-flow analysis to work out the potential costs and gains from your vision.

Milestones

The implementation of a creative vision tends to be a risky thing. If it succeeds, the benefits can be enormous. If it fails, it can be expensive.

Unfortunately, a lot of organisations do not tolerate failure very well. This is bad for innovation and tends to encourage failure. If your organisation reprimands the people responsible for projects that fail, people will be reluctant to become involved in risky projects and the implementation of a creative vision tends to be risky! So, people will keep their creative visions to themselves and embark on not-very-creative projects which is better for their careers.

If a team does embark on implementing a creative idea and the project runs into problems that suggest it will fail, team leaders tend to push forward anyway: They know that if they acknowledge failure, they will be reprimanded so, from their own personal perspectives, a safer option is to insist the project is developing well, but they need more budget and time.

By the time the project has truly failed, a lot of money, time and resources will have been wasted.

Think how much better it would have been in an organisation that welcomes failure as a learning experience to be shared with colleagues. In such a work environment, the project leaders could acknowledge failure early on, share the reasons why the project was failing and move on to a new creative project.

I trust it is clear why organisations that have a good attitude about failure also tend to be more innovative.

Getting back to milestones. They are a good way to check on the health of a creative project. When planning your steps, but in regular milestones. If the project fails to meet a milestone, it should be reviewed. If the issues are minor, they should be dealt with and the project continued. If they are serious issues, be prepared to end the project, count your losses and move on to new challenges.

Such milestones help control risk. They also make it easier to sell a project to intelligent managers who will be reassured that you have thought out the potential risks of the project and, as a result, can limit the potential costs of those risks if things go wrong.

Communication Plan

If no one knows about the project to implement your creative vision, that project is unlikely to succeed. Prepare a communications plan. Start by working out who needs to be informed of the project and when. You will need to communicate to some or all of these groups: customers, stakeholders, colleagues, suppliers, partners, the government and the general public.

If your project is a radical new product, you may not want to inform the general public until after the official launch of the project. If so, you need to work that into your communications plan to ensure that others do not leak the information.

Alternatively, you may want to get the public excited about the product and even have them participate in its development – such as through crowdsourcing initiatives.

See also the chapter “The Shocking Truth About Creativity” when desiging your communication plan.

Flexibility

Oh, by the way... While you are drawing up your detailed step-by-step implementation plan, be sure to allow for flexibility and change.

By its very nature, a highly creative vision is something new and untested. What seems easy in your mind may prove difficult in practice. As you implement the project, you will learn and see new opportunities. For example, perhaps you will discover that with a few minor design changes, you can use a commonplace, off-the-shelf component in your new product. This will not only reduce the production costs, but will add an unexpected new feature to your product. Clearly, it makes sense to make this change and adjust your implementation plan accordingly.

In short, be prepared to modify your step-by-step plan as you complete steps. If the project is complex, you may need to hold regular creative meetings to get feedback and suggestions.

During milestone reviews is a good time to review and change as necessary your plan.

Getting Real

I've done a lot of creativity workshops and activities around the world. I also invented, built and marketed an early idea management software. I've worked with a variety of industries and cultures. Throughout my experience, one thing has been consistent, excellent ideas and visions that come up in workshops are seldom implemented after I leave the client company – at least not by the team who builds the vision.

In a way, that's not surprising. Once you understand how to open your mind and thinking to creativity it is easy and even fun to build spectacular creative visions. But, go back to your desk, your routines, your tasks, meetings, email and all the other distractions of the working day and your creative vision can quickly fade like last night's dreams.

But you cannot do that! You have made a commitment and, by golly, you will stick to your commitment. So, go through each of your steps and ask yourself (or the team) what is likely to prevent the implementation of that step. Be brutally honest. Perhaps it would be embarrassing to do something unconventional in your place of work. Perhaps your immediate manager is unlikely to approve the idea. Maybe you are simply afraid you will be laughed at for trying something different.

These are all real fears. Being laughed at in the workplace is probably the worst place in which to be laughed at.

Address each concern and find a way to deal with it. You may need to modify the step itself in order to make it more doable. You may need to add additional steps to your action plan. If your vision is truly new, perhaps you need to add a communication plan to the overall plan – and break that down into a series of steps that communicates to colleagues – and perhaps others such as suppliers, customers, stakeholders and the general public – what you are doing. If colleagues understand what you are trying to do, they are less likely to laugh at you!

But there is another problem you need to address.

The Shocking Truth About Creativity

People love creative ideas, don't they?

Given a selection of ideas, such as from a brainstorm, managers tend to seek the most creative ideas, don't they?

Companies, government bodies, schools and other organisations want their people to be more creative, don't they?

Human resource departments the world over are actively seeking creative people to hire, aren't they?

Teachers love creative pupils, don't they?

Employees in most organisations love creative ideas, don't they?

The answer to all of these questions is: no. The truth is, people do not like creative ideas and dislike creative visions even more. Although companies claim they embrace creativity, their actual cultures and operations discourage creativity. Most managers, when presented with the results of a brainstorm or other ideation activity will choose moderately creative ideas over highly creative ideas. Human resource divisions inevitably choose less creative people over more creative people when making hiring choices.

The shocking truth about creativity is that although everyone today claims they love creativity and creative people, they actually dislike and often hate both!

Change

Recent research at the University of Pennsylvania and backed up by past research has demonstrated that people dislike creativity and creative ideas. However, the researchers have not actively studied why this is the case. Nevertheless, they hypothesise that the problem is change. For the most part people dislike change and this is particularly true when they feel they have little or no control over the change.

This makes sense. Imagine an employee working happily in your company. She understands her responsibilities, works hard and does her job well. She feels secure in work. How do you think she will feel when you announce that you are implementing a creative vision that will have all kinds of benefits for the company, but will change some of her responsibilities and remove others all together.

She is not likely to jump for joy. She probably will not even thank you. She will mostly worry about her job. At best, it will change in ways she does not fully understand – because they have not been explained to her – and at worst, she will fear losing her job because many of her responsibilities will no longer be necessary.

If she discusses her concerns with her colleagues, she will quickly find that many others feel as she does.

Very likely they will find fault with the vision behind the changes and claim it will not work for all kinds of reasons. In worst case scenarios, employees may unintentionally and subconsciously sabotage the implementation of your idea in order to prove that it is flawed.

This is not the loving embracing of your idea you may have hoped for. It may discourage you. You may even change your mind about implementing your idea.

But you cannot. Remember? You have made a commitment!

Give People a Feeling of Control

If the reason people dislike creative ideas is because they do not like change over which they have no control, then giving those people a feeling that they have some control over the change should make them feel more at ease about the change. That is easier said than done. Asking for feedback on a creative idea that you threaten to impose upon colleagues is likely to result in negative feedback along the lines of “it will never work!”

On the other hand, telling people that you will implement a creative vision that will result in change and asking those people for feedback on how to facilitate the implementation and how to model their role in the changes is likely to make those people feel they are involved in the change and have a say in how it will progress.

Demonstrate the Personal Personnel Benefits

When implementing a radical new idea, there is a tendency to emphasise the benefits to the organisation. However, no matter how much employees love your company, they will tend to be even more concerned about their own interests. So, when announcing the implementation of a new idea, be sure to stress the benefits to employees both in overall communications to the organisation as well as in individual discussions with employees.

References for this chapter