 Why Do We Need a Creative Process?
There is a misconception that creativity is very much associated with people in artistic arena such as performing artistes, painters or writers. However, in today’s highly competitive professional environment, the need for creativity in the business world has become increasingly important for organisations. Creativity plays a big role for organisations - whether to distinguish themselves from competitors, solve problems internally or that of their clients’, or even elevate themselves to match international standards. From the employees’ perspective, the ability to generate new ideas to meet organisational objectives is crucial. “We are in a creativity workshop. And creativity is supposed to be chaotic. Why we then need a creative process?” asked one of my participants, during a creative problem solving workshop I conducted in 2008. Everyone has a creative mind; but as humans, we do get stuck for ideas once in awhile. More so, attracting creativity into our daily work activities may not be something easy to do. That is why, everybody in the organisation needs to have a creative process, no matter what role or function we play in the organisation. The creative process would facilitate us to get unstuck and move forward. If you read books on creative problem solving, there are many types of creative process that are being offered that you can use. Some use a three-step process, whereas others have 7 steps. In the design thinking module I’m currently lecturing on at polytechnic, we use a 5-phase model - Empathise, Define, Ideate, Prototype, Test. As a rule of thumb, a creative process has two stages: Divergent stage; followed by the Convergent stage. Divergent Stage is where you generate ideas. There are various brainstorming techniques and tools you can use. Once the ideas are listed down, the next stage is the Convergent Stage. This is where we select suitable ideas. Ideas are selected based on set criteria. What if these two stages are reversed? You will be stuck. We often heard company meetings that take up so much time, so much so that employees started to feel tired and bored. This is usually the case when the leaders who call for these meetings are not sure which stage of the creative process they are at. This is something we need to avoid. In conclusion, as humans, we have this ability to be able to think creatively. As humans too, we do have the tendency to get stuck for ideas, and that is when a creative process will come in handy. For it to work effectively, there is a need to understand which stage of the process you are at. Hope this helps. If you need more assistance on personal and workplace creativity, do keep yourself available on Saturday 29 June 2019. On that day, together with 17 other international speakers, I will be taking the stage at the World Success Summit 2019, and will be speaking on the topic “How to Unlock Your Creative Process”. For details and tickets, visit: worldsuccesssummit.com. Keep moving forward, Hazriq Idrus Workplace Creativity & People Engagement Strategist Author of 8 books, including "The Stage Fright Antidote" Hazriq Idrus is a professional speaker on Workplace Creativity & People Engagement. Using techniques from the theatre he learnt as a stage actor, Hazriq delivers keynote talks and training programmes that are interactive and experiential in nature. He founded The Speaking Factory Pte Ltd with a mission to help people & teams unlock their creative potentials so that they can connect, communicate and co-create with impact. Hazriq is also currently an adjunct lecturer at Ngee Ann Polytechnic delivering the module on Creativity & Innovation. Hazriq is contactable at [email protected].
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Last month in April 2019, I had the opportunity to be invited and presented the Essex-Kaplan Singapore "Symposium on Play and Pedagogy in Teaching". During the Questions and Answer segment, one of the participants asked, "How do I get the audience to ask questions after a lesson/ lecture?" I had similar experiences earlier in my speaking career. Throughout the years, I tried out many methods. And I realised that the basic way in a presentation is making connection and engagement with the audience. This is because human is a social creature. To answer the question above, one of the ways that could be done is to bring the audience on a journey. Start the session on "Gear One", get the audience slowly warm up, and end the session on a high-note. Once the audience are excited, the barrier to inhibitions are lowered, and audience will start asking questions. cheers
Hazriq Idrus Author, "The Stage Fright Antidote" + 8 other books Connect on: http://linkedin.com/in/hazriq http://facebook.com/hazriq It's always an honour (& grateful + memorable indeed!) to go back to the former organisation we once served and worked at; albeit this time in a different capacity as a speaker to share on the topic "Culture of Creativity: How to Wow & Engage the Clients & Customers." Thank you Bukit Batok Public Library (a branch of National Library Board) for the invitation. It's also nice indeed to reunite with some former colleagues & getting to know the new ones. Keep Moving Forward,
Hazriq Idrus Founder, The Speaking Factory Pte Ltd In partnership with Up Your Game (UYG) Personal Development Community, The Speaking Factory had the opportunity to share with the Muslim Kidney Action Association (MKAC) beneficiaries on the topic on "Overcoming Stress using Creativity" on 25 March 2019. For me, I did feel the 'stress' when I was invited to speak and share, especially when I found out that that the audience were going to be retirees. As the session progreesed, I was inspired by their humility, sheer grit and determination to learn. Some even attended after their dialysis session! They were very inquisitive. One of the audience, Mr Aziz, who claimed he's "27" years old (but i'm pretty sure he's 72!), said that "Learning never stops!" I admired them! Really! Keep moving forward,
Hazriq Idrus Founder, The Speaking Factory Pte Ltd  Hazriq Idrus sharing as one of the panelists. On 19 January 2019, I was invited to be one of the panelists at a Focus Group Discussion conference in Batam, Indonesia, organised by Matahati Foundation. The objective of the event was to gather insights from various professionals and thought leaders on how to turn Batam, Indonesia, into a key venue in creative and education tourism 10 panel sessions consisted of professionals, thought leaders, international networks, academicians, entrepreneurs, among others. I sat in Panel 2, together with fellow Singaporeans, Andrew Chow (Social Media Strategist), Daryl Chung (Project Director of E27, a tech media platform) and Tiziana Tan, Founder of Brain Juice Collective. The panel was moderated by Elmi Ong, the co-founder of Matahati Foundation herself. During the session, among the questions we received include “How to change the negative perception of Batam?” It was indeed an interesting question, for a fact that there were pre-conceived perceptions of Batam. In the panelist discussion, we recommended for Batam to acknowledge such situation but to focus more on building the brand that Batam is promoting. It is like a cup filled with coffee. To change its content to plain water, we need to focus in pouring plain water in it; and slowly, but surely, the coffee will be replaced by plain water. From the creativity perspective, I recommended Batam to look into the word ‘Creative” itself (from the phrase ‘Creative Tourism”), because Creative does not necessarily means ‘the arts”. Go beyond that thinking to identify what’s unique for tourists to come, experience and learn. Focus on the "experiential learning" aspect. I cited an example where in Singapore, the country tapped on already-popular Formula One, and ‘rebrand’ its day races (conducted in other countries) into a night race (that’s a creativity technique) in Singapore; and attracted more visitors to experience the event. I hope the focus group discussion provided new insights and ideas to make batam achieved its plans of becoming a key venue in creative and educational tourism. Yours creatively, Hazriq Idrus Applied Creativity/Creative Leadership & Public Speaking Strategist Author of 7 books, including "The Stage Fright Antidote" Hazriq Idrus is a professional speaker on Applied Creativity/ Creative Leadership and a Public Speaking Strategist. Using techniques from the theatre he learnt as a stage actor, Hazriq delivers keynote talks and training programmes that are interactive and experiential in nature. He founded The Speaking Factory Pte Ltd with a mission to help people and teams innovate and communicate with impact by tapping on their inner creative genius. Hazriq is contactable at [email protected]. |
