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Features

Author: Lee Smith

 

Creativity seems to have become a dirty word in communication circles. I’m not sure when it happened, but it appears that communicators have been so busy persuading everyone that they’re ‘normal’ and competent business advisors, they’ve lost touch with their creative sides. But regular use of the C word need not be career limiting – this article presents three simple techniques that will kick-start your creativity, revolutionise the way you work and set you apart from the rest of the corporate pack.

 
There’s no denying it, creativity suffers a bad press in the business world. Despite an explosion of interest in business innovation in recent years, the C word is still seen as essentially unworthy – a limp, wishy-washy concept usually associated with the visual arts and not remotely suitable for use in business (apart from the occasional bit of creative accounting that is). It should come as no surprise that this rather warped thinking has rubbed off on our profession. It’s a sad fact that there are communicators out there now who fear that showing themselves to be too creative will hold them back. Their response – playing it safe– does neither them nor our profession any favours. 
 
Communication and creativity go hand-in-hand. No matter what level you work at or whether your role involves managing the intranet, editing the corporate magazine, developing events or coaching leaders, there’s really no escaping it. Whether you sit in HR, marketing or are part of a dedicated comms function, our profession is about bringing corporate messages to life, transferring meaning and, ultimately, stimulating behaviour change. It’s about capturing the attention of our audience, engaging them, inspiring them and prompting them to take action. Try doing all that without a dose of creativity.
 
As the doyens of advertising will tell you, the best way to capture your audience’s hearts and minds is through the magic of creativity – developing a groundbreaking campaign or hitting on that perfect combination of words, images, music, entertainment and information. It’s no coincidence that some of the most memorable advertising is also the most effective. Ad land was built on creativity and the creative duo of art director and copywriter remains at the heart of virtually every agency.
 
The very best internal communicators know and understand the importance of creativity, and they’re not afraid to be labelled creative. They realise that, whether communicating inside or outside the organisation, they operate in a crowded environment and must develop content and campaigns that are capable of ‘cutting through’ all that noise.
 
They avoid the usual banality of the corporate world – the gobbledegook and the acronyms – and instead communicate with flair, personality and style. They learn lessons from great advertising and marketing and beg, borrow and steal ideas from mainstream popular culture. They take risks and, occasionally, make their leaders very uncomfortable. These are the stars of our profession and their results say it all – if you need convincing just take time to review the winning entries in the award programmes run by the IABC, CiB, CIPR, Ragan and others. You’ll find that creativity is usually not far behind tangible business outcomes.  
 
But you don’t have to be born creative. It’s a skill that can be learned and refined like any other. I don’t know of many internal comms teams that can afford to have dedicated creatives on board, so it’s vital that communicators at all levels develop and hone their creativity skills. Here’s three to get you started.
 
Six Hats
Edward de Bono is widely recognised as one of the world’s leading exponents of creativity. He’s the man who originated the term ‘lateral thinking’ and has published more than 60 books on the subject. His name alone generates nearly 2.85million Google results. If you are interested in developing your creativity skills, de Bono’s website or blog (see resources below) are a good place to start.
 
One of de Bono’s many breakthrough ideas is based around six coloured hats. The aptly named Six Thinking Hats technique was showcased in his 1985 book of the same name. It is a simple yet powerful technique for generating, testing and developing ideas.
 
The process involves the thinker donning a hat, whether metaphorical or real, which is then used to guide the direction of the thinking. Each of the six hats represents a different mode of thinking:
 
  • The white hat is neutral. It is focused entirely on facts, figures, information needs and gaps. 
  • The red hat is linked with emotions, feelings and intuition. It allows the thinker to put forward an idea or respond without justification (“putting on the red hat, I think this idea is plain stupid”).
  • The black hat is about judgement and caution. It involves pointing out the risks, threats and obstacles. It’s logical.
  • The yellow hat is logical and positive- it helps set out the benefits and capture how an idea might be put into practice.
  • The green hat is the hat of creativity –it is used to put forward new ideas and to propose alternatives.
  • The blue hat is the overview or process hat – it is used to define the problem and organise the thinking. 
 
This technique can be used by individuals, though it is particularly effective in group settings - wearing the same hat at the same time focuses the energy of the team in one direction and helps avoid conflict. 
 
For communicators, one of the big strengths of this technique is that it requires you to review decisions from numerous perspectives – helping identify underlying issues and blind spots. Another major benefit is that it forces you to consider things from an emotional as well as a rational perspective – invaluable if you’re working on a sensitive change programme. 
 
While some experts advocate a simpler version of the process using only the red, black and yellow hats, I believe there is real value in following de Bono’s original technique. 
 
Brainstorming
The word ‘brainstorming’ may no longer be considered politically correct (the term ‘thought shower’ is now considered less offensive), but the technique itself remains one of the most widely used.
 
Originally developed by ad man Alex Osborn in the 1950s, it is a group technique based on the simple principle of suspending judgement.
 
The process itself requires thinkers to follow four basic rules:
 
  1. Go for quantity – a well facilitated brainstorming session can generate a surprising number of ideas. Central to the technique is the idea that quantity breeds quality – the more ideas there are, the more likely you are to hit on something genuinely innovative.
  2. Don’t criticise –participants must avoid judging or criticising ideas during the session.   
  3. All ideas welcome – whether wacky, wild and downright silly. 
  4. Associate and improve – ideas build on each other and can often be combined.
 
Experts like de Bono believe that individuals generate better ideas than groups, so there’s real value in using brainstorming to generate numerous ideas and then following-up with an individual technique like random input.
 
Random input
One of my favourite problem solving techniques and also one of the simplest, the random input method is based on the principle of breaking established thinking patterns. We all know that Newton got the idea for gravity when he was hit on the head by an apple. Random input follows a similar logic – it generates chance events that can spark genius ideas.
 
Random inputs can take the form of words or pictures. For reasons of accessibility (all you need is a newspaper) I always opt for words. The process itself is startlingly simple:
 
  1. Choose a random word. I usually stick a pin or drop a pen onto a newspaper page, but you can also use a dictionary, pull pre-cut words from a bag or use word-generation software. Whichever approach you use, it’s important that you use the first word you find.
  2. List as many attributes and associations as you can for that word (so, if your random word is banana you might list yellow, slippy, skin, soft, fruit, etc).
  3. Apply each of the items on your list to the subject at hand (so if your subject is the Apple iPod, you might come up with the idea for a banana-like skin to cover and protect it.)
 
If you haven’t used it before, you’ll be surprised how well this technique works. The mind is a self-organising system and is therefore adept at making connections. No matter how bizarre, virtually any random word will help you generate useful and unexpected ideas. 
 
These are just three of the dozens of creativity techniques that exist. Whether you like these approaches or prefer other methods, I urge you to get in touch with your creative side and put it to good use. When communicators are at their creative best they can revolutionise their organisations, turn cultures upside down and deliver measurable business outcomes. If that doesn’t get you noticed, I don’t know what will.
 
 Copyright (c) Lee Smith, Gatehouse Consulting Limited.  First published on Simply-Communicate.com, November 2006.