Creativity 101

Yesterday I went to a meeting for the Swiss Women Business Owners group and was able to hear about a new way to get creative, at least it was new to me.  The evening was a great time of learning and sharing for all.
We learned a few global rules about getting creative in the process:  make sure you know what you want (to get creative about), ask good questions, ask one question at a time (or look at one issue at a time), gather ideas, use your inspirations to create what you want, and then assess.  Repeat as necessary.
First you’ve got to be clear about your goal.  
If you don’t know where you are going, you can’t get there.  Last night we practiced on a new business – we started  creating a name for it.  That is a clear goal, although not a very simple one.
Then we had some great input from the owner on what the business was about: food, art, creativity and movement.  So we went from those words, dividing up those ideas and writing other words that go with each topic, and it was best to work on one concept at a time.  So the questions would be something like, “What do you think of when you hear the word culinary?”, for example.  Then we wrote down words that we thought of, for example, aroma.  
Good questions lead to great ideas. “What do you think of when you hear the word…”
 
Thinking about one of the issues at a time makes you more creative, too.  That we found out from the activity.  However, I won’t go into that at the moment.
Then we took those words that we generated and put them together and made names for the new business.  All sorts of names.  So we used the input and created something new from those words and it was really fun!  All those names went onto post its and the participants could view them.  I wonder what the new entrepreneur will call her company.
Evaluation has to happen, too
What wasn’t done was a feedback and a round where “the best ones” were chosen, etc.  What could have been done is a Facebook light where people put the like sign by the ones they liked.  A red, yellow, and green sicker-dot would work, too.  But we ran out of time.
In a nutshell
There are so many ways to get creative- in groups, in pairs, alone.  We came up with a marvelous list of ways and that list was probably just the beginning of what one can do.  What we know is that as entrepreneurs and business owners, we need to be creative.  It is part of the job description.
For a list of interesting articles on creativity: https://www.psychologytoday.com/basics/creativity
Also, the meeting was called “Querdenken oder kreative Ideenfindung“
Speaker: Elena Bonanomi from Why Not Factory
Want to join my LinkedIn SME group, SMEs Grow Together? Go here: https://www.linkedin.com/groups/7041402
Have a great week!
Patricia Jehle
www.jehle-coaching.com
ps, For those of you who want to know about The Alpha Group and how that could help bring your business more value and sales, please sign up for an email here: http://eepurl.com/b0hyEb