Creativity is a numbers game. Take one look at Thomas Edison, inventor of the light bulb and record holder of 1,093 patents.
That’s 1,093 brilliant ideas, from which only a single handful of feats were realised. Add to that the unimaginable number of ideas that didn’t make it to patent stage, and it’s clear that even the most creative people rarely succeed on the first go.
But that doesn’t stop them from consistently generating ideas. And from those ideas, newer, more developed, ideas grow. It’s a calculated trial and error process, in which innovators are able to learn from each failure and iterate by refining, altering or building each new version.
And in a time when the importance of the creative economy is fast emerging amidst a volatile world economy, the ability to innovate has never been more important.
With the dawn of the fourth industrial revolution, intervals of innovation are shortening at a rapid pace. Businesses are scrambling to emulate the speed and ingenuity of emerging companies, and are vying for consumer attention in an already saturated market.
More than ever, creativity and innovation have become critical skills for achieving success in developed economies. Where technological advancements continue to change the business landscape and automate job roles as we know them, employees have the opportunity to excel by leveraging empathy through thinking critically, analysing situations and offering emotional, creative and intellectual value where computers cannot.
Enter design thinking — not a new concept, but one which has embedded itself in a growing range of industries. For the innovator, design thinking represents an approach that minimises the uncertainty and risk of innovation. In focusing on rapid iterations of an idea and actively engaging the customer in open dialogue throughout the process, a company is better positioned to understand the root cause that really needs addressing and the product or service features they need to deliver to meet it.
When we think like a designer, we are able to transform the way we develop products, services, processes and even strategy. Drawing on logic, systemic reasoning and imagination to explore the possibilities, design thinking approaches creativity from a different angle — by cycling between divergent and convergent thinking. This means building up as many solution-focused ideas as possible, and then narrowing the decision of how best to move forward.
With design thinking, our ideas are constantly evolving with each new attempt and each new insight drawn from users’ need. The creative process is not a linear one, and should never be treated as one. And it is highly social, with some of the best ideas eventuating as a result of empathy, interaction and exchange.
It should come as no surprise that our workplaces play an integral role in enabling the creative process and ensuring employees have the support, inspiration and adaptive environments needed to interact and innovate.
More and more, we are seeing larger, more established organisations strive to emulate the innovative culture of start-ups. However, scaling creativity and innovation methods requires structure and process, and the same mindset and practices which help make large organisations well-oiled machines, can often be the main barriers that stifle creative processes.
Creativity flourishes when senior leaders understand the importance of failure in the creative process, and purposefully design an environment and provide resources that allow teams to experiment, fail, learn, and explore new approaches to become smart risk takers.
When our working experiences and environments foster a culture of choice and control, then the likelihood of attracting globally-minded, innovative thinkers increases considerably. As does the propensity for achieving the golden “Aha” moment when a transformational insight is discovered.
It’s about offering a variety of individual and collective workspaces and postures that support employees through the various stages of the creative process. An important part is ensuring employees have the choice over how and where they work throughout the day based on the task at hand.
This also means providing space to unwind and rejuvenate.
As the race to accelerate business calls for organisations to deliver bigger, faster and better innovations, design thinking is proving an important tool to help employees gain greater clarity and to find viable ideas in the creative process. Beyond the innovator, it can benefit every function in an organisation, forcing user-centricity and continuously encouraging employees to seek new ideas, insights and concepts to help them design solution that will delight and engage while also providing meaning in our daily lives.
Kim Dabbs is director of Applied Research + Consulting at Steelcase.
