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“If people knew how hard I had to work to get my mastery, it wouldn’t seem wonderful at all.” – Michelangelo
Creativity and innovation is what creates leadership in commerce. It takes you leaps and bounds ahead of everyone else, and gets you out of the rat race. Corporates like Google and 3M have carved their own niche with innovation, and their workplaces are designed to support creative and out-of-the-box thinking. So what is creativity all about? How can I be creative? How can I get my employees to be creative?
Tao pholosophy states that if you wish to do something new, you need to first empty yourself of what is existing. You cannot pour anything into a full cup! Doing something new, something different, necessitates that I empty myself of my prejudices, assumptions, the noise in my mind, with all my focus on the problem, and a burning desire to find a solution. A true artist cannot be a prisioner of a style, or reputation. He is constantly experimenting and tinkering with new methodologies, new concepts and new ideas.
However, not all creativity is huge or significant in the change it stimulates. The Japanese concept of ‘Kaizen’ proposes small improvements constantly and the sum of it produces the huge change. Every organisation needs creativity to make exceptional growth, and the only resource available for the same are its people. Every activity of Quest brings to fore how focus and involvement facilitate the creative process, and how seemingly ordinary people, have a great innovative potential within themselves. Factors which lead to lack of creativity are a laid back attitude, superficial involvement, assumptions, and inability of focus. Therefore, the reverse, if practised, brings to fore creativity and innovation. Creativity is not a stroke of genius which one is either born with or without, but a skill which can be mastered and used to achieve the great dreams which we all live for. It is a result of intense concentration and involvement. Teams, while performing certain tasks, often get complacent performing in a certain manner, which isn’t wrong in itself, but laborious. But the team that keeps thinking, will come out with a simple breakthrough, which will put it miles ahead of the rest. These simple concepts are what comes out beautifully in the Quest programs, and demystifies the creative process. |
