Why is it SO HARD to break away from the status quo?? Have you noticed the magnetic-like attraction we have to the nice, easy, comfortable, familiar spaces where we know how, why and what to do?
And have you noticed how hard change is? There is a whole discipline of change management dedicated basically to helping humans through the process of change. We are just not naturals in this space!
Take Kodak as an example. After 100 years, they went from being at the forefront of the photography industry... to bankruptcy. With the benefit of hindsight, commentators explain that they saw themselves as a film company, so when computers and the digital world came along, they invested heavily in electronic photo printing. What they didn't see was that they were actually (in the minds of their customers) a camera company. In order to keep being a camera company in the digital age, they needed to instead invest in digital cameras - because who wants to print photos once they are taken electronically!
Unfortunately for Kodak, by the time they (and even their customers themselves) realised that printing photos was not where it was at, they were too late to the party to dominate the digital camera market. All because their mental model of their business wasn't flexible enough to change when it needed to. Creativity is to strategic thinking is like breathing is to living. Yes, there are times when the best strategy is to keep doing what we've done. But we must constantly seek to see things in different ways. That means being aware of the mental models that shape the way we view the world, and taking the brave step to question them.
Here are a few questions you can ask yourself:
What business are we in? (You can answer this from the point of view of a whole business or your part of the business - eg. What are you in the business of delivering for your organisation?)
What if that's not the business we're actually in?
What business do our customers say we're in?
"What if...?" questions - let your imagination run wild!
But why is it so hard to make the time for it??!
One of the reasons I reckon we don't make time to be deliberately creative is because it feels like it's a gamble whether there will b
e a pay off for the time we invest. We might come up with a blindingly good idea that changes everything, or think of something small but important. Or it could end up being a complete waste of time, and no one has enough time to be wasting it!
The only way past this is valuing creative thinking time for the sake of it, and accepting that it won't always produce something tangible immediately. You might build on your thinking over time. You might have some ideas that aren't fully formed but that shape your conversations in the days ahead and lead to further insights. You might just be sowing seeds in your mind that germinate and sprout later. It's all just part of the process.
When was the last time that creative thinking time featured in your calendar?
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