You cannot pretend to keep doing the same thing and get extraordinary results.
Summary:
In today's changing markets, creativity has become a key ingredient for business management. Markets are continually changing and becoming increasingly demanding.
Consequently, companies must also change and improve, on an ongoing basis. And to advance and improve, it is necessary to do new “things”: nobody improves by doing the same as always.
But, there is two good news:
(a) creativity can be learned, improved and developed at will and
(b) there is no trick or secret in creativity.
There is a sentence whose certainty and veracity is confirmed every day: “The first sign of madness is trying to continue doing the same thing as always, waiting for different results.
If you always do the same, you will also always get the same. ” However, we find many managers of companies that, erroneously, even today claim to be so.
They await the miracle. They are confident that their organizations will progress as they continue to do the same as ever. And this is impossible.
If your company is not capable of creating, innovating, exploring new experiences, sooner or later consumers and customers will take it out of the market. And this is so for a very simple reason: if your company remains static… consumers and clients do not! Sooner or later they will continue on their way. And to the extent that your company is not able to follow that same path, you will be lost. As simple as that.
The thousands of examples that we all know do not let us lie.
If you want your company to progress, succeed, generate greater profitability, there is no other alternative: your company will have to be creative.
The markets change continuously and become more demanding every day.
Consumers and clients are more educated, they know the products better (both their own and those of the competition), they have more money to spend, they have a wider range of options to choose from.
The current circumstances in which companies operate require a continuous process of improvement: new products, new services, quality improvements, new operating systems, new management approaches, better customer service and a long etcetera.
This implies that companies must also improve continuously in order to face the growing competition of their rivals in the market with possibilities of success. And to improve you need to do new "things": no one improves by doing exactly the same thing. And to create new "things" creativity is an irreplaceable weapon.
Creativity or routine?
The world changes rapidly. Changes in the economy, business sectors, technology, and lifestyles are getting faster and more numerous. It is the reality of the time in which we have had to manage our companies.
To respond to the challenges imposed by the new times, companies basically have two routes: the routine route, that is, always do the same or, perhaps, simply, more of the same; or the creative way, facing new situations with new responses that respond better to new conditions.
The problem is that when the company reacts routinely (doing things as it has been doing for years), it is not really responding to current situations, but rather it is trying to solve current problems with the answers it has learned in the past..
The result is that the answer or solution that is applied is not effective since it does not respond to the true conditions and nuances existing in the present (the past is never repeated with identical characteristics). Note that experience (based on routine) is a valuable platform, but it should be used only as a starting point from which creativity can be developed. This is so because experience, by itself, does not generate new ideas.
In today's business environments, creativity is not only important and necessary to develop new products or services or to create a new and impactful promotional message (as some mistakenly believe), but creativity is absolutely necessary to maintain company running and moving forward.
Two good news
The first good news is that creativity, like all the intellectual or mental abilities of the human being (such as memory, self-control, the power of concentration, etc.), can be learned, improved and developed at will. "No one is born knowing," says the proverb. But, we can all learn.
There are also many techniques, already properly tested and proven, that help develop and enhance creativity in companies.
The second good news is that there are no tricks or secrets to creativity, nor is it the exclusive heritage of some privileged.
One of the myths of creativity is to believe that new ideas arise almost by spontaneous generation, that they reach people without them making any effort, that they are produced "by inspiration"; that, in other words, ideas "fall from the clouds" to certain people who are lucky enough to have that happen to them.
The reality is that if there is any trick or secret in creativity it is the following: a new idea is nothing more than a new way of interrelating two or more things that already existed before, but that no one had interrelated with each other before. "Nothing comes out of nothing." Consequently, ideas do not come out of nowhere either.
Always, always, an idea, apparently new and completely original, will be nothing more than the union of two or more ideas or concepts that existed before.
If we analyze any of the inventions produced by the human being during the entire history of humanity, we will see that, deep down, they are nothing more than, as we said before, the result of “interrelating two or more things that existed previously”.
Do you remember the phrase: "There is nothing new under the sun"? Well, not even inventions are actually completely new.
Let's look, for example, at some of the inventions that have revolutionized our modern way of life: the automobile, vacuum canning, airplanes, telephones, supermarkets, credit cards, locomotives, photography and cinematography., lasers, radar, computers, medicines, air conditioning, electricity and all its applications, television, etc., etc., etc…. even space ships! They are all nothing but developments of things that existed before.
When we assimilate this reality and are fully aware of it, then we understand that creativity is not a mystery, nor an arcane, nor a special capacity of some people who have been born with it, but that it is within the reach of any of us.
And, most importantly, it is not limited to large companies or great professionals: creativity can be developed in medium and small companies, especially to solve problems and make decisions that have to be made on a daily basis. in management.
And, in particular, to create the conditions that will allow it to continue growing, consolidating its positions in the changing markets and consistently increasing profitability.
There is no other way to progress: always doing the same only leads to achieving the same results (no more, no less).
