By Stacy Zemon, Publisher & Chief Scribe
Leadership sets your mobile entertainment company’s direction and atmosphere, and if you fail to establish an environment that encourages creativity, then you get what you get — the status quo.
Even in a hectic and fast pace setting your attitude toward innovation and creativity can still make room for your staff to toss some fresh ideas your way.
But everything starts with the conversation that you have with yourself.
Think and Operate “Outside the Box”
Do you socialize and network with creative DJs regularly? Connecting with them can awaken a competitive and creative spirit in you. Directing that energy, just may inspire a new idea.
If your life revolves around just doing tasks day after day, then you’re breathing the same old stale air.
Stop.
Go for a walk in nature.
Meet your mentor for lunch.
Reinstate date night with your mate.
Play with your puppy.
If you don’t give yourself room to be creative, then it’s hard to pass on what you don’t have. Pull out your iPad and start writing down ideas. No matter how wild it is, just write it down, you can filter later. For right now, just let it flow.
What is Creativity?
An Ability. A simple definition is that creativity is the ability to imagine or invent something new. As we will see below, creativity is not the ability to create out of nothing (only God can do that), but the ability to generate new ideas by combining, changing, or reapplying existing ideas. Some creative ideas are astonishing and brilliant, while others are just simple, good, practical ideas that no one seems to have thought of yet.
Believe it or not, everyone has substantial creative ability. Just look at how creative children are. In adults, creativity has too often been suppressed through education, but it is still there and can be reawakened. Often all that’s needed to be creative is to make a commitment to creativity and to take the time for it.
An Attitude. Creativity is also an attitude: the ability to accept change and newness, a willingness to play with ideas and possibilities, a flexibility of outlook, the habit of enjoying the good, while looking for ways to improve it. We are socialized into accepting only a small number of permitted or normal things, like chocolate-covered strawberries, for example. The creative person realizes that there are other possibilities, like peanut butter and banana sandwiches, or chocolate-covered prunes.
A Process. Creative people work hard and continually to improve ideas and solutions, by making gradual alterations and refinements to their works. Contrary to the mythology surrounding creativity, very, very few works of creative excellence are produced with a single stroke of brilliance or in a frenzy of rapid activity. Much closer to the real truth are the stories of companies who had to take the invention away from the inventor in order to market it because the inventor would have kept on tweaking it and fiddling with it, always trying to make it a little better.
The creative person knows that there is always room for improvement.
It holds true for anyone trying to shake up their status quo. Do new and interesting things centered around what your competitors aren’t offering or what’s possible.
It’s funny what a little spark can do. Inspire yourself. Inspire your team. Let your team inspire each other (and you). When you invest time in creative thinking, you might surprise yourself at the tangible results that burst forth!
