Discovering Creativity
Fostering creative thinking and indulging in continuous change create great companies and successful human beings.
The importance of promoting creative thinking and embracing levels of change has been the hot topic of debate and discussion for authors and scholars for decades. Lots of books were written and may be lots of books are in the process of ‘making’ which discuss the value of creative thinking and change. The two books, which I think, influenced my way of thinking greatly and meantime made me to think deeply are ‘Disciplined Dreaming: A proven system for breaking through creativity’ written by Josh Linker and ‘The 7 levels of change: Different thinking for different results’ written by Rolf Smith. Both the authors talked about the importance of creativity and innovation and the significance of change in yielding good results for the success of a business and personal life. The author formalized their own unique systems that aimed to bring creativity and change for better results at workplace and personal life. The book of Josh Linkner helped me to gain ideas on the ways to maximize creativity.
Linker defines disciplined dreaming as a system to improve creative capacity, which helps in personal as well as professional growth. “Disciplined Dreaming will give you a creative skill set in an age in which creativity represents the only sustainable competitive advantage. The methodology is simple, backed by proven results, and demonstrated through stories and examples.”(Josh Linker,2011). The five-step methodology of disciplined dreaming helped me in understanding the ways to generate crative ideas and making them to realty in order to succeed at the work place and in the personal life.
This book had some great ideas that made me to identify and recognize the creative spark in me. After reading the book, I realized, sparking creative ideas and making them to a reality is not an easy one, indeed, it is a major challenge. I have also leant the ways to recognize and determine creative killers, how to build a creative culture in a business organization and personal life, and the steps an organization could take to develop a creative environment. The book has given me a very important exercise which can be used for warming up our creative thoughts. I learnt the idea of mind dumping from the book and am practicing it nowadays by simply dumping concepts and problems I am facing every day in a piece of paper. The exercise helps me to force my brain to suggest me alternate creative solutions or ideas for problems I am facing.
Along with that, the book made me understand that, opportunities are everywhere; only the thing we need to have is right attitude and mindset to grab the appropriate opportunity. I was so negative until I read this book. Small things that go wrong at the beginning stage of my endeavours made me so upset and negative, but, now, I am able to see those fall as advantages and thus craving for more creative ideas to make the things better than before. Now, I understand, how companies like Groupon, Zappos, Facebook etc attained competitive advantage in the market. It is the continuous brainstorming of creative ideas made them to be a part of the list of hyper growth companies. According to Albert Einstein, constraints that a company or an individual face today cannot be overcome at the same level we were at when we created them. In order to get better result, we need to change, that means we have to do the things differently. “Today our thinking MUST shift.
The world we live in is changing so rapidly that to survive, we must continually change how we see it and how we think about it… being proactive with change–being innovative and striving for continuous improvement–is key to survival and growth in the new millennium. It’s “Innovate or Die!””.
(Rolf Smith, 2007). The book of Rolf Smith inspired me greatly with the detailed discussion of seven levels required to yield best results. I realised the importance of incorporating these seven levels of change in my life as it helps me to produce better results from me. I experienced a new energy, commitment, and self-confidence after reading the book. I understood the importance of setting definite priorities, keeping focus on things, following right procedures, understanding standards, becoming more efficient, having clear understanding of activities indulging, finding out ways to improve things, listening to suggestions of any kind, stop doing what others don’t count, refocusing continuity, perceiving and observing more, reading more about best practices, copying better practices, focusing on different, not similar, breaking the rules and so on.Both the books have a magic in filling confidence and energy in the reader.
The ‘power of one’ mentioned in the book of Josh Linker and ‘levels of change’ depicted in the book of Rolf Smith are strong mantras, which help to enhance, develop and expand our mind.
